From Where Will My Help Come?

Scripture Lessons: Psalm 121 and Acts 1: 1-11 Sermon Title: From Where Will My Help Come? Preached on May 29, 2022 Friends, we need help. It’s always been true, but some weeks our need for help is made plainer than others, and last week the reality of human depravity and our inability to even know how to address it was made abundantly clear for all in the course of 10 days’ time: A young man in Buffalo, New York, after considering a church or an elementary school, chose a supermarket. There, he killed 10 people. Three more were wounded. The victims range in age from 20 to 86. 11 of the 13 shot were black. Another walked into a Presbyterian church in California. He killed one and wounded five from that Taiwanese congregation. And last Tuesday, May 24th, 19 children and two adults died in a shooting at an elementary school in Texas - 19 children and two adults in an elementary school. Have you seen their pictures? Did you see their parents, how they wept and cried out? Did you even need to see them because you already knew in your heart what they were doing and how they were feeling? This week, we have all felt what the one who wrote Psalm 121 felt. I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? From where will my help come? That’s what we’re all asking. However, we don’t know the answer to that question. We don’t all agree on the answer. We don’t even all agree on the problem. Is the problem racism? Guns? Mental illness? Bullying? What is the solution? Policy change? Armed teachers? It’s all terrifying, and it’s hard to even know where to look or what to do. I woke up last Wednesday morning after reading and watching and looking at the faces of those elementary school kids, recognizing that Sara and I could be among those parents looking for our daughters, and I longed for the good old days when all we faced was a global pandemic. At least we had our kids at home and knew how to keep them safe. Now, many of the effects of that pandemic are gone. Life is returning to normal after the COVID-19 virus had us terrified, but we still have the problem of human evil. We still need help, and as we look for help, today I ask you to recognize that we humans don’t necessarily know where to find it. I lift up my eyes to the hills, says the psalmist. I lift up my eyes to the hills. Will our help come from the hills? No. This line from the psalm: I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? is a question that the author asks, and it’s a question that we all need to be asking, for before we go rushing to a solution or broadcasting our opinions, we must hear the answer: I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? My help comes from the Lord. That’s the answer according to the psalm, and this answer points to the original sin of humankind. We don’t naturally like the idea of waiting on God for the solution. We want to do it ourselves. We don’t want to ask for help. We look up to the hills and rub our hands together. We rack our minds for a solution. I remember so well one hot Sunday morning in Columbia, Tennessee where I was the pastor. Someone said, “The air conditioner is out again.” When I heard that, what did I do? I started walking out to the air conditioner unit outside the church. Would I have known how to fix it once I got there? Of course not. Still, I have an opinion. I want to do something about the problem. Am I an expert? No. Likewise, the Bible says that human sin came into the world the moment Eve and Adam heard from God, “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Trust me on this one.” Human sin begins here, with two people sure that they know better than God. They were sure that they had the answer, and they didn’t. The Bible says that’s the first of all humanity’s sin. Sin begins when we humans think we know better than God, and wisdom begins when we stop staring off into the hills and start to listen. That’s why we teach the children to sing, “We are weak, but He is strong.” It’s because we are weak, foolish, shortsighted, and narrow-minded. For advice, we go to people who tell us what we want to hear, and when no one will tell us what we want to hear, we just stop listening. Therefore, we must be so brave as to face the fact that we are all the time looking to the wrong places for answers. I lift up my eyes to the hills – from where will my help come? It’s a question, and the psalmist provides the answer: Help comes from God. That’s hard for us to accept. Because that’s hard for us to accept, we look to the disciples in our second Scripture lesson from the book of Acts, and what are they doing? They are staring off into the clouds. We read: As they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” This is such a funny image, with such a strange question. Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. That’s what the two men said. Were they angels? I’m sure they were because they do this unlikely thing. They say, “He’ll come back. Just wait.” That’s not what humans do. Humans look up to the hills or stare up into the clouds, but look to Jesus this morning. Don’t look to the hills. Don’t look to the clouds. Don’t look to yourself for the solution. Don’t stare into the darkness so long that it overcomes you. Look to Jesus. Where was Jesus? Where was love? Where there was love, there was Jesus. There were two teachers with those children. Their names are Irma Garcia and Eva Mireles, and when I think of them, when I think of the teachers I’ve had, when I think of the teachers my children have now, I know exactly where they were standing when that young man broke into the classroom. I know where they were standing. Do you? I think of Mrs. Lawton, who told my wife, Sara, just the other day that I was a kind-hearted troublemaker in her class at Marietta Middle School. She had to lecture me and my friends, but she saw remorse in my eyes when she did. That’s been more than 35 years, and she still remembers how I looked when she had to lecture me, so I know where she would have been standing. I think of the teachers in our preschool. I’ve seen them walk their children down to our playground. The kids follow behind them like little ducklings. I stop to speak to the ones I know when they line up for carpool at the end of their day, and I see how their teachers wipe their noses and touch their cheeks, and so I know where they would have been standing. I know just where they would have been standing. This morning, don’t look to the mountains, don’t stare at the clouds, stop watching the news, and look away from the darkness. Think of Jesus. You know He loves the little children, all the children of the world, so I know that when evil rose from the earth and He faced the choice, to save Himself or die before us, He chose death. He chose to die before abandoning us, His children, whom He loves. On this Sunday before Memorial Day, I call on you to look down from the hills, to look away from the clouds. Turn away from the darkness and towards the light, for the Lord Jesus Christ, He will come in the same way as you saw Him go. He comes to us in love and grace. He comes to us in sacrifice. He comes to us in teachers. He comes to us from the places we hardly expect to find Him, so stop looking in the same old places. Stop staring at your TV screen and turn your gaze to the light. It shines all around us. He will not let your foot be moved. He who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. Look to love. Look to the light. There you will find our help. Amen.