Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who minister by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who is the Maker of heaven and earth. - Psalm 134This psalm-the last of the songs of ascents-caught my attention while studying from Eugene Peterson's A Long Obedience In The Same Direction. What struck me were two things: 1. It was sung by the many pilgrims who walked the long road to Jerusalem to worship God at the temple and 2. It was directed at those who worked in that temple, not during the public ceremonies, but during the long nights. It is an invitation to those who might be numb from exposure to the temple from those who have been long away--an invitation to experience again the pilgrims' joy at coming close to the living God.
In some ways, the difference between the temple servant and the pilgrim is like the difference between a doctor and a patient. For the patient, cancer is a terrible, unexpected, life-and-death event that becomes the central focus of their lives. For the doctor-especially someone like an oncologist--the cancer is one more in a steady flow flow of patients, symptoms and treatments. A doctor cannot take the strain of fifty or a hundred emotion-filled, life threatening illnesses without developing some degree of detachment. But that detachment threatens to remove the very real human cost of cancer. There is always a tension.
God's presence is a consuming fire. How to live with that continuously?
Any who have served for long in ministry, whether vocational or not, know the numbness of which can slowly deaden the experience of God's presence. Maybe it is the over-familiarity with the holy, or the taint of shallow faith expressions, or weariness of the soul, or the frantic dealing with details. Working to put Sunday services together for many years, in many different capacities, I have witnessed how their very regularity can nitpick away at our joy and mask the very presence of God that the worship is meant to reveal. There can be cynicism. There even be annoyance at the joy of others.
The psalm invites the hard-working temple-dwelling servants to join the pilgrims (see also Psalm 84) in the joy of worship-of lifting hands and praising God. It is a recognition of the realities of prolonged night-watches, un-glamorous stretches of ministry. That is why the author of the psalm ends with a blessing-a re-introduction of those whose work was in the temple to the presence of the God in which they worked nightly.
God, many labor for you with numb hearts, worn down and worn out. Renew them with the joy of the pilgrim and the vision of God transcendent.
