Jesu Juva

“Eyes Lifted to the Cross”

Text: Psalm 121

In the Name of (+) Jesus. Amen.

When you were little, you lifted up your eyes to your parents. That’s where your help came from. They gave you clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, and all you need. As you got older, you began to grow out of that, and do more for yourself. You became less dependent on your parents. More independent. You became your own person. And that’s good.

The psalmist asked today, I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? And as children of God, the answer is: My help comes from the Lord. My help comes from my heavenly Father. We are children who look to Him for all we need, for all our needs of body and soul. And that’s good.

But a problem sometimes can arise, here, with this, when what happens in our physical, earthly lives also begins to happen in our spiritual lives. It is a slick temptation of the evil one to make us think that as we get older, as we grow up in our faith, that just as we begin to need our parents less, so should we need our heavenly Father less. Oh, not cut Him out altogether, of course! Just as you still go home on breaks and talk to your parents! You still go to church and pray. But you’re growing up, right? So shouldn’t you become less spiritually dependent on your heavenly Father, too? And more independent? Do more for yourself? Spread your spiritual wings? Wouldn’t that, too, be good? And the world affirms that message as well - that it’s not good to be dependent! Make your own way. Do your own thing. And our sinful nature plays along, too. Yeah, that sounds good. And everyone else seems so strong . . . Is there something wrong with me . . . Maybe I need to . . .

But while that may be meet, right, and salutary with our physical lives, a man should leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they become one flesh (Genesis 2:24) and start new families, the spiritual reality is exactly the opposite. As we grow and mature in our faith, we grow MORE dependent on God, not less. For in the spiritual realm, independence is not good. For there is one body and one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all (Ephesians 4:4-6). You never outgrow being a child of God. It is the child-like faith Jesus praises, not the seemingly grown-up faith of the Pharisees and Sadducees and Scribes.

And so the psalmist concludes: The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in - not just for a while, but from this time forth and forevermore.

Now when this psalm was written, it was sung by pilgrims going up to Jerusalem for one of the festivals. They lifted up their eyes and saw the city and the Temple. That’s where their help came from: the Lord who, yes, made heaven and earth, but who chose to dwell with His people there, in that place, and bless them. He was the reason they were going up. He was the reason they were a people. He was the reason they were a nation and had a land of their own. And as they depended on Him, they were, and all was well and it was good. It was when they grew independent that things went south and started to fall apart. And when God then sent prophets to call His people back to Him, back to His Temple, back to relying on Him and being His children. To come back again and lift up their eyes and see their hope: the Temple, the dwelling place of God.

And so do we. As pilgrims in this world, journeying through this life, we too, lift up our eyes, but see now, not to a Temple of stone, but a Temple of flesh and bone. For the Lord who made heaven and earth, became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14) here, in a body. And then was lifted up high on a cross for all the world to lift up their eyes and see.

And there we see the Lord who will not let your foot be moved because His feet were fastened, immoveable, to that cross.

We see the Lord who neither slumbers nor sleeps because He did sleep in death, but rose from the dead never to sleep that sleep again.

We see the Lord upon whom the sun stopped shining while He was on the cross, and so will not let the sun strike you by day.

We see the Lord who will keep you from all evil and keeps your life for He took all your evil and laid down His life for yours, that your sins be held against Him, not you, and you live in the freedom of a child, knowing you have a Father seeing to all your needs.

THIS Lord is your keeper, from this time forth and forevermore. In all the times and seasons and places of your life. No matter how old or how young, how able or disabled, how strong or how weak, whether you even realize it or not. You are children of a loving God you cannot outgrow. And that is good. To look to Him. To be dependent on Him. To be kept by Him. To lift up your eyes . . . to Jesus.

In the Name of (+) Jesus. Amen.