Come, we that love the Lord,
and let our joys be known;
join in a song with sweet accord,
join in a song with sweet accord
and thus surround the throne,
and thus surround the throne.
Chorus
We’re marching to Zion,
beautiful, beautiful Zion;
we’re marching upward to Zion,
the beautiful city of God.
Let those refuse to sing
who never knew our God;
but children of the heavenly King,
but children of the heavenly King
may speak their joys abroad,
may speak their joys abroad.
The hill of Zion yields
a thousand sacred sweets
before we reach the heavenly fields,
before we reach the heavenly fields,
or walk the golden streets,
or walk the golden streets.
Then let our songs abound,
and every tear be dry;
we’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground,
we’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground,
to fairer worlds on high,
to fairer worlds on high.
We sang this song not long ago and I paid more attention to the words than ever before. As a result I found so many new things in it that I sat there stunned and missed the first few minutes of the lesson that followed. When I got home I did some research and found scripture references on a couple of websites that I might not have found all by myself. But before we get to that, let’s build a foundation.
We have been studying the prophets lately and have hung our interpretive hats on Hebrews 12:22-29. In a day when the Messianic words of the prophets are construed every which way but the correct one, this passage can be a lifesaver. Just read through it and you find that all of the following phrases are synonymous: Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the general assembly and church of the firstborn, [those] whose names are written in heaven, the [unshakable] kingdom. None of these things have to do with a millennium at the end of time—they are all Messianic in the prophets and occur now. If we are faithful believers, we are these things.
Now look at Psalm 137: By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How shall we sing the LORD's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!
This psalm is written of the exiles in Babylon. Their despair is palpable. They no longer have a country, much less a city. Their temple on Mt Zion is in ruins. They have no king, no worship, no way to sacrifice to God or even try to keep the covenant if they were of a mind to—and many were not. And so they gave up. They hung up their lyres on the willow branches and sat down and cried. They “refused to sing.”
How many times have we done the same thing? How many times have looked at the rampant sin around us and, instead of continuing to do our best, we not only quit but wallowed in our misery, complaining loud and long about the hopelessness of our situation? How many times have we almost gleefully whined to one another—in Facebook posts by the score--about the perfidies that surround us and the moral turpitude of our culture? Our delight is no longer in the law of the Lord but in recounting the iniquities of others.
But how can we keep singing? The psalmist said if those exiles could not remember their own city of God, their own Mt Zion, their own Jerusalem, then let their fingers lose their musical skill and their tongues stick to the roofs of their mouths. Is that what we want to happen to us? Even your memories are enough to sing about, he told them.
We still have plenty to sing about too, if “we love the Lord.” We are “children of the heavenly king.” We “know God.” We have been given “a thousand sacred sweets” before we even get to Heaven—prayer, spiritual blessings, physical blessings, a spiritual family, and salvation, a beautiful world to live in and joyful occasions in our lives. “Every tear” should be dry because we are “marching through Emmanuel’s ground”—“God with us”--a Lord who came and died for us, who acts as our high priest, who intercedes, who takes every care of ours on his shoulders. And we want to sit by the waters of Babylon and cry?
Shame on me if I do not “set [the heavenly] Jerusalem above my highest joy.” Shame on me if I cannot sing this song with the unmitigated joy it deserves.
How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Ps 84:1-2
Dene Ward
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