Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Psalm 137:1-4
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  December 6, 2023

Psalm 137 is a tough read. I don’t think we can truly empathize with the exiles in Babylon. When you think about it, our worship is pretty portable. It can be indoors or outdoors. It can be in a beautiful sanctuary or a high school library. But that wasn’t true for the children of Israel. Their worship was so dependent on the sacrifices, so centered on the sacrifices, that they were intimately tied to Jerusalem, to Mount Zion.

So just imagine if you can, not only being ripped away from your homeland and your home, but also having your spiritual home taken. Is it any wonder that they sat beside the rivers of Babylon and wept. And then to make matters worse, the people who deported them and took all of these comforts away from them, taunted them. They asked them for a happy song. “Sing for us one of the songs of Zion!”

The thought of that was unfathomable! “How can we sing a song of the LORD on foreign soil?”  the psalmist asks. Only in Jerusalem could the full worship prescribed by the Lord be offered. Only there could the happy Songs of the Ascents be meaningfully sung. The psalmist would prefer to be rendered crippled or unable to sing rather than to use the songs of the Lord to entertain God’s enemies. To him the psalms of Zion were not just great music and fine entertainment. They were sacred songs of worship reserved for the Lord. To sing them for the Babylonians would be like singing Handel’s Messiah or Bach’s St. Matthew Passion for the entertainment of Hamas. 

There’s hardly a much sadder picture that we could find than seeing these people with their musical instruments hanging in the trees, weeping because they have been ripped from their homes, from their land, from their ability to worship. But here’s the thing. They brought this on themselves. 

The children of Israel were exiled into Babylon because they had turned away from the Lord. They had abandoned their relationship with God and had turned to idols. They had rejected God’s love and had prostituted themselves with false gods. God had warned them time and again to repent and return to him, but they didn’t. Through the prophets, he warned them that this was coming if they didn’t change, but they didn’t listen. And so, in his love, God exiled them to Babylon to wake them up from their spiritual slumber. He sent them away so they could see the seriousness of their sin and turn back to him. 

This exile in Babylon is a picture of what it’s like to be away from a right relationship with God. It’s how we all start out by nature. And unfortunately, even though we know better, even though we’ve experienced the joy of God’s love and the peace of God’s forgiveness, we too often fall into temptation. We too turn our backs on our relationship with God. We too allow other things, other people to take his place in our lives. And sometimes, God allows things to happen that seem as if he’s abandoned us, as if we too are in exile.

But God did not forget the exiles in Babylon. After 70 years, he brought them back to the land of Israel. He allowed them to rebuild the temple and renew their relationship with him. And in doing so, he protected the line of the Savior. Yes, Jesus was descended from these Babylonian exiles. Even though God had to discipline them, he never destroyed them. He never abandoned them. He preserved them so that he could keep his promise to send Jesus to save them. And God was faithful to his promise. 

And that’s what we’re preparing our hearts to celebrate this Advent. That even though we often are unfaithful, God is always faithful. He sent Jesus to become one of us so he could take our place, live a perfect life for us, die the death that we deserved and rise again to show that all of our sins are forgiven, that we again have a right relationship with God. And he reminds us that in a sense, we are still exiles. We are strangers and pilgrims in this world. We are longing for a better home, a better land; a heavenly one. Jesus promised his disciples that he would prepare a place for them to be with him forever. And by his life and death and resurrection, he’s done just that. And he’s promised that he’s going to come back to take us to be with him forever.

What a joy it will be to be able to sing the happy songs of the heavenly Jerusalem, the true Zion! And because Jesus has brought us out of our spiritual exile, that’s exactly what we will enjoy!