Thursday, April 29, 2010

“Temple Pilgrims”

One of the luxuries of being in the Marshall Islands is a quiet Sabbath. I’ve occasionally had unprecedented blocks of time for reading the scriptures as long as I like. Today I uncover a marvelous thing. Watch this.

I’m reading in Psalms and notice the header to Psalm 120: “A song of degrees.” I know the book of Psalms is the hymnbook for ancient Israel, but I wonder what “degrees” means. The Bible Dictionary entry for “degrees” has this short explanation: “Fifteen Psalms (120-134), probably so called because they were sung by Jewish pilgrims on their way up to Jerusalem.” Jerusalem – the temple. I read the fifteen short psalms and discover that many are looking toward the hills and/or the temple.

I wonder whether modern-day temple pilgrims might pick a date to go to the temple that was at least 15 days off, and read one of these psalms a day. Most are 8 verses or fewer. Families could read them together and talk about what these ancient hymn lyrics must have meant to the temple pilgrims in David’s day as they journeyed to the temple, perhaps wondering if Jesus’s family read them when they went to the temple when Jesus was twelve.

After that scriptural preparation, the family could go to the temple together to do baptisms, or have a picnic on the temple grounds. (You mean it’s not 85 degrees there year-round? I keep forgetting that.)

The closest temple here is Hawaii, about 2100 miles away. Going to the temple personally is something I miss a lot, but I delight in finding gems about the temple in the scriptures.

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