A Reflection for the Christian Season of Lent
- Dan Clark
- Mar 1, 2017
- 2 min read
Psalm 121 is a traveling song. Every year, faithful Jews would ascend to Jerusalem, going up for three major holidays. They would “go up” to Jerusalem because it was seated over 2,500 feet above the Mediterranean Sea which is only 32 miles to the west, and it is nearly 4,000 feet above the Dead Sea, just 13 miles to the east. Traveling songs would help motivate and guide them.
In the case of Psalm 121, traveling songs were often used as the satellites of their time -- enabling them to explore and see dangers ahead. But, just as there is potential danger in the sun and on the hike up rocky paths to Jerusalem. There is danger on the spiritual quest that the songs of ascent… and that Lent… invite us into. We should look to our spiritual satellites and also ask, where does my help come from?
FIREFLIES
However, long before I knew anything about compasses or satellites, or had any need of them in determining my routes or forecasting the weather, I knew something about fireflies. Growing up outside the watchful gaze of city lights, we surely had fireflies. We would catch them like amateur hunters, build habitats in mason jars like amateur zookeepers, then study them like amateur scientists. But my favorite part of the process was when dusk was turning to dark. If you looked in the right places, closely and long enough, without blinking, you would start to see one flash here and another there. The flashes came slow at first, but as it got darker and as my eyes adjusted, the light show would begin. Then the scary dark back yard that I was sure was chock full of dangerous monsters and boogeymen would begin to light up.
I lift up my eyes to the hills—
where does my help come from?
One reason that the season of Lent is so important in the Christian year is that it is a season when we learn to let our eyes adjust to the darkness.
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
As our eyes adjust we see that the Scriptures and our spiritual communities and our spiritual practices are a satellite to guide and guard us, a firefly to light up the darkness, a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
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