Singing the Songs of Zion

Music is a powerful instrument. As a teenage driver, certain tunes seemed to make my foot a little heavier on the pedal. As a father, I sang to my young children to usher them into the land of Nod. Music has the power to transport us back in time and to other places. It can remind us of home.

Imagine spending time in a foreign land where the language and customs differ from yours. While away, your thoughts frequently wander home to the comforts, family, and friends that are there. As you are on the streets one day, perhaps in the marketplace gathering groceries, a familiar song crackles from a nearby stereo. Through the commotion around you, you hear the distinct bars of the Star-Spangled Banner. Something stirs within you as you look around for the source; for a moment, the song brings you home and makes you happy.

I think this is the musical power upon which the Psalmist reflects in Psalm 119:54, “Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning.” The term sojourning means wandering. If you are a sojourner, you live in a land that is not your home, and you dwell in a temporary house. In this passage, the Psalmist reflected that his earthly life was a pilgrimage, a journey through a foreign land toward his final destination: home.

No matter how comfortable we seek to make our present circumstances, this present life will never be home to Christians. Every heartache and disappointment reminds us that this life is a temporary sojourn. The Apostle Peter applied this principle in his first epistle when he wrote, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:12).

How do Christians cope with a life filled with worry, anxiety, disappointment, and stress? Well, for one, by singing the songs of Zion, our homeland. Isn’t that what the Psalmist wrote? “Your statutes have been my songs.” It is as if to say, “When my heart is homesick, I sing the songs of home.”

And notice the songs the Psalmist sings are not bland, repetitious ones about how good he is and how he will receive some “breakthrough” in this life. No, God’s statutes were his song. He sang about God’s kingship, and this gave him comfort.

Beloved of the Lord, the Psalms have been called God’s hymnbook. There is no human emotion that does not find expression in the Psalms. No matter your season of life, sing the songs of Zion, your homeland. When you do, you sing with the angels in heaven and your loved ones who have died in the Lord. Take up the Psalter and sing of God’s great love, his steadfastness, his judgment, and conquest. And, remember, he also sings over you (Zephaniah 3:17).