Psalm 133
Okay, so
anyone else feel like today was cheating?
6 verses? 2 Psalms? Are you kidding me? I really do feel like I cheated today. I didn’t cheat, but I feel like I did. And it doesn’t mean I didn’t get anything out
of my reading. But I’m used to reading
more than 6 verses! LOL.
As I read
this psalm, I couldn’t help but think of an often quoted adage which I usually
quite vociferously disagree with: “Can’t we all just get along?” At first, it seems like this is what the
psalm is all about: getting along. But
the reality is that it couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Usually
when people say, “Can’t we all just get along?” they are saying it because they
are tired of fighting. While I can
certainly understand being tired of fighting, the outcome of this saying is
usually very deconstructive. When
someone says, “Can’t we all just get along?” people are being made to feel shame
because they actually believe in something deeply enough to stand up for
it. When people believe deeply, it is
going to bring about conflict. The idea
that we all just “get along” is often akin to saying, “you think what you want
and I’ll think what I want and our relationship will intentionally be shallow
so we never have to realize that what you think and what I think are actually
two different things.”
That isn’t
at all what the psalmist is talking about here.
You see, humans who are “getting along” are not an expression of true
unity. It may be humans avoiding
conflict, but it is not unity. In order
to have unity, you have to have a shared vision. You have to have a shared belief system. You have to have similar causes for which you
stand. That’s where true unity is
found. The psalmist is talking about
unity here, not the absence of conflict.
So here is what the psalmist is saying in a fairly blunt package: it is
a blessed thing indeed when two people believe in a kindred manner.
However,
what truly brings people into a blessed unity is when we embrace God’s truth
above our own. What the psalmist is
really encouraging here is for people to give up their own “ways of thinking”
and embrace God’s way of thinking. The
psalmist is encouraging people to give up their “pet beliefs” and actually
believe as God teaches. The psalmist is
saying that true unity comes when we give up ourselves and embrace God.
When I put
it that way, it makes total sense. If we
all are genuinely saying “less of me and more of Him,” then shouldn’t we be
able to be united? If we are pursuing
the same Him – and not “him made in my own image” – should we not be able to be
united? If the same God genuinely dwells
within us, should we not be able to know unity?
Psalm 134
This leads
us into the last of the Psalms of Ascent.
I hope that nobody was genuinely surprised by the focus of the last of
these Psalms of Ascent. Praise God. Worship God.
Bless the Lord. Come together in
His name and give Him praise. Yep. It is all about Him.
I began
talking about the Psalms of Ascent by giving two possibilities for their
usage. The first one is that these may
be said at specific landmarks as pilgrims made their way to Jerusalem. The second possibility is that these psalms
may have been said as a person climbed their way up each of the fifteen steps
to the temple.
Now
imagine a pilgrim approaching Jerusalem and right before they enter the city
the words of this psalm passes through their lips. Or imagine a person climbing the temple and
upon the last step before they enter the temple it is this psalm that passes through
their lips. I think it is neat to
imagine a life where God is the last thing that crosses the mind of a people
heading into His holy city or His holy temple.
Let’s take
that thought and extrapolate it out to our lives. Most Christians don’t make pilgrimage to
Jerusalem anymore. Nobody can enter the
holy temple in Jerusalem now. But that
does not mean that this psalm is without meaning. Are we not His temple? Is not the church symbolically the same as
Jerusalem? What would it be like if the
last thought before we entered His church was about Him? What would it be like if before we used His
temple – our bodies – we remembered God and gave Him glory? How would our lives be different if whenever
we acted we remembered that we are in the presence of God?
I think
that’s the power of this short psalm. We
are to give God praise and blessing and glory.
If we are His temple, He should be on our mind.
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