ASCEND: Lent 2025 Experience

Week Four, Seeking mercy

Join me as we enter into the fourth week of Lent. I’ve created this special devotional series on the theme Ascend, inviting you all to meditate on the psalms with me. The “Songs of Ascent,” are a group of 15 psalms, including Psalms 120-134. This collection of psalms spans individual and corporate laments, songs of confidence, thanksgiving hymns, a song celebrating Zion, wisdom psalms, a royal psalm, and a psalm for worship. Four were written by King David, one by King Solomon, and 10 have anonymous authors.

These were songs that were familiar to the Jews and often sung during pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts of the Jewish faith (Deuteronomy 16:16). The city had a high elevation so the people who traveled there had to ascend to get there.

The Hebrew term for "ascent" is maʿalot which means "going up." Some believe there are 15 psalms of ascent to represent the 15 steps up to the temple in Jerusalem. One psalm specifically refers to the “going up” to Jerusalem (Psalm 122:4).

During Lent, we have the opportunity to seek, to confess, and to ascend with our hearts and minds to meet with our Heavenly Father. The 40 days of Lent often point to the journey of the Son Jesus from the wilderness to death on a cross to glorious resurrection. These psalms call us back into the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Friend, I am inviting you to carve out time with me this Lenten season to “go up” to God. I have learned when going on an adventure it’s always good to have a companion. I am here to sojourn alongside you. This week we will be reading Psalm 123 and Psalm 130 as we seek God’s mercy.

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