“Bible prayers: I lift up my eyes to the hills”
Psalm 121:1-2
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
Its code name was Operation Detachment. We know it as the battle of Iwo Jima.
On the morning of February 19, 1945, just before 9:00, the first wave of Marines landed on the southeastern coast. But it didn’t go as well as anyone planned, for an hour later, after allowing the Americans to assemble their forces, the Japanese unleashed their artillery. As one eyewitness wrote, “At first it came as a ragged rattle of machine-gun bullets, growing gradually lower and fiercer until at last all the pent-up fury of a hundred hurricanes seemed to be breaking upon the heads of the Americans…Marines walking erect crumpled and fell. Concussion lifted them and slammed them down, or tore them apart.” And he said, “In virtually every shell hole there lay at least one dead Marine.”
And while nine hundred men had landed that morning, by nightfall, there were only one hundred and fifty left.
But in the days that followed, the tide began to turn. After running out of ammunition, food, and water, the Japanese realized that defeat was imminent, so they became desperate. Finally, four days later, on February 23rd of 1945, the Marines took Mount Suribachi and raised the American flag, what would become not only one of the most recognizable images of the war, but in the words of one author, “possibly the most reproduced photograph of all time.”
The Battle of Iwo Jima happened on a famous hill.
And if you think about it, there are quite a lot of other famous hills. Think of Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the site of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Think of Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., the home of our United States government. Think of Nob Hill in San Francisco, known world-wide for its historic mansions and luxury hotels. Or think of the Chocolate Hills, all fifteen hundred-or-so of them, in the Philippines. And they’re called that because they look like mounds upon mounds of chocolate.
The Bible has its share of famous hills too. Noah’s ark came to rest on a mountain called Ararat. Moses met God in a burning bush on Mount Sinai. Solomon built his temple on Mount Moriah. And our Savior Jesus died on Mount Calvary.
And in our Bible prayer for today, we hear about another hill, or rather, hills. As David wrote in the words of Psalm 121: “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).
As you probably already know, the book of Psalms is one of the longest books in all of the Bible, coming right behind the longest book, Jeremiah, and the second-longest book, Genesis. Composed over a period of one thousand years by as many as seven different men, its original name was Tehillim, a word that meant, “Songs of Praise.”
And as you can imagine, Jesus loved the book of Psalms. Not only did He begin His ministry and end His ministry with the words of the Psalms on His lips, He quoted the Psalms more than any other book of the Bible.
On Palm Sunday, when the chief priests and scribes told the children to be quiet, He spoke the words of Psalm 8. He said, “Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise?’” (Matthew 21:16). When Caiaphas asked if He was the Son of God, He quoted the words of Psalm 110, “I tell you, from now on, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). And even as He died on the cross, He spoke the words of Psalm 22: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Psalm 22:1) and the words of Psalm 31: “Into Your hands I commit My spirit; deliver Me, Lord, My faithful God” (Psalm 31:5).
In the words of author and professor Peter Kreeft, “The Psalms are like an ocean fed by many rivers and many writers. They are for wading in, bathing in, swimming in, surfing in, boating on, and even drowning in. The Psalms will last forever.”
And within this book of 150 Psalms, there’s a group of Psalms called, “The Psalms of Ascent.”
So what’s that mean? Easily enough, it’s Psalms that the people of Israel sang as they made their way up to Jerusalem.
If you’d glance in your Bible anywhere from Psalm 120 to Psalm 134, (there are fifteen in all), you’d find the words, “A Song of Ascents,” like Psalm 127, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1), or Psalm 130, “Out of the depths I cry to You, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!” (Psalm 130:1-2), or Psalm 134, “May the Lord bless you from Zion, He who made heaven and earth!” (Psalm 134:3).
And it’s here in the words of Psalm 121 that we find the words of David: “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).
Now we don’t know exactly when David wrote this psalm, nor do we know all the reasons why, but we guess that it was after he had already become king. And if it’s true that he wrote it while he was king, it means that he had spent a lot of time in those hills, the ones to which he was lifting up his eyes.
So what happened in those hills?
Quite a lot, as a matter of fact! But when he lifted his eyes up to those hills, he didn’t see a beautiful view. Instead, he saw his life flash before his eyes.
It was in those hills that he hid from King Saul, when that crazy, maniacal king was dead-set on killing him.
Moving from one hill to another, and from one cave to another, hiding in the back while Saul slept in the front, he worked his way around one side of a hill while Saul and his army marched around the other side.
When David looked at those hills, he saw grief and pain, darkness, despair, and hopelessness.
But also, when he looked at those hills, he saw something far more. He saw protection. He saw deliverance. He saw safety in the cleft of a rock.
Because it was in those hills that he had come to know the power and the presence of God.
So when he became king, he wanted to remember that, even in the darkest places, God was still there, leading him, protecting him, and fulfilling the promise He once had given him. He wanted to remember, even as he sat on his throne, that the same Lord who had helped him when he was hiding in those hills, would help him still.
And so he wrote: “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).
But David wasn’t the only one who lifted his eyes up to the hills.
In the book of Genesis, when Joseph looked up to the hills, he remembered his days in the pit and his years in the dungeon, watching and waiting for God’s plan to be revealed. And they were(!), far beyond his imagination.
When the apostle Peter looked up to the hills, he remembered his times of faltering and failing, three times saying he didn’t even know who Jesus was, yet still believing that Jesus loved him and protected him and would eventually fill him with His Holy Spirit to heal and to preach with power.
Even Jesus looked up to the hills, to the cross of Calvary, and to the joy that waited for Him on the other side.
What are your hills? What are your times of darkness and deepest despair?
For some of you, it’s putting your sixteen-year-old behind the wheel and seeing them drive away, alone, for the very first time. It’s news from a doctor and from tests that aren’t quite right. It’s the worry you have over your children--will they fit in? Will they get the education and the opportunities they need? Will they be healthy? Will they be okay?
And when you look at those hills, whatever they might be, you wonder if God has abandoned you. Does He really care?
But that’s when you can lift up your eyes and say, “See those hills right there? Yes, those, right there. They were the place of my greatest and deepest defeat and despair. But they’re also the place of my greatest protection and deliverance. They’re the place God kept me safe in the cleft of the rock. They’re the place I learned to trust His power and presence.
“I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2).
It’s been said that if you only hear two hymns in life, chances are that one of them is Amazing Grace, and the other is, How Great Thou Art.
Sung by almost everyone from Elvis, to Susan Boyle, to Vince Gill and Carrie Underwood, How Great Thou Art didn’t start out as a song. At first, it was a poem, and a Swedish one at that.
The year was 1885, and Carl Boberg, a newspaper editor, lay minister, and future politician, was on his way home on Sweden’s southeastern coast. But as he walked along, a storm suddenly appeared on the horizon. Lightning flashed, and thunder shook the ground. Boberg ran for safety.
Later, when the storm finally broke and began to calm down, he rushed home, then opened his windows to let in some fresh air. The sky had cleared, birds were singing, and in the distance, church bells began to ring. That’s when something stirred inside, a feeling of tranquility and peace.
So he wrote the words of a poem. “O Store Gud,” he wrote. It meant, “O Great God.”
You know how it goes: “O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder/Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made/I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder/Thy power throughout the universe displayed/Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee/How great Thou art, how great Thou art/Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee/How great Thou art, how great Thou art.”
How great is our God? When the fullness of time had come, He sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And though for a good man, someone might possibly dare to die, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And now that He stands risen from the dead, we know that neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, can separate us from Him.
In the words of Corrie Ten Boom: “Look around and be distressed. Look inside and be depressed. Look at Jesus and be at rest.”
We thank You, Father, for the mercy You show and the strength You give. Help us, even in the worst of times, to find our hope and help in You, for Jesus’ sake. Amen