There’s great value in leaving home to see and worship with others
By Dean Collins
With all of today’s advancements in technology, there are often options for having meetings with customers, attending training seminars, and exploring new opportunities virtually rather than in person. Much good work can be done remotely, but technology doesn’t truly replace our need for seeing people face-to-face. And as wonderful as well-shot videos are, they do not equal the experience of really being there.
Our minds and bodies respond to the change of places. There is often a new level of emotional and psychological engagement just in changing locations and routines and seeing people in person instead of on a screen. Going anywhere forces us to engage our minds and bodies in ways that can stir creativity, increase energy, and help us refocus on the things and people that are important to us.
But traveling has its own way of making us tired. Long drives, dead time in airports, changing planes, renting cars, or riding trains can be fatiguing in and of themselves. So imagine if you were on a spiritual pilgrimage in ancient times and you were walking miles over many days. Certainly, there would be friendly discussions with friends and family and shared meals along the way, but it seems that somehow quoting or singing the songs of ascent were about the daily experience of travel.
As we get to the last three psalms in the 15 psalms of ascent, imagine that now we are so close enough we can see the city of Jerusalem. Usually, as you near your destination, there is a surge of energy around getting there. As we come to the final days of our journey through the psalms of ascent, we can almost feel that energy in the last three psalms.
Promise and prophecy
Psalm 132 gives us a snapshot of the history of King David, both his hardships and his great desire to build a dwelling place for the ark of God.
Reading it leads us quickly to realize the connection to us as followers of Jesus. This psalm quoted by the Jewish pilgrims on the way to their annual celebrations contained a promise and prophecy: From King David’s sons would come the Messiah of God, the King who would reign forever. “One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne,” it says. “If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne.”
Peter in his Pentecost sermon made reference to this psalm: “Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne” (Acts 2:30). In the very crowd that stood and heard Peter’s sermon would have been Jewish pilgrims who had quoted psalm 132 just hours or a few days before. Now they had arrived at the very moment when God poured out his Holy Spirit on the apostles and launched his church that you and I are now a part of.
Life together
During the great shutdown that Covid brought to the world, Christians were able to connect through technology to worship together. Technology is a wonderful thing we can use in so many ways. But technology can’t replace the mental and physical shift that happens when we move and walk, drive, and gather together face-to-face in worship. Technology is helpful, but God in his wisdom calls us to celebrate life together in communion with each other.
The writer of Hebrews calls us to remember the importance and the joy that come when we gather together as the family of God: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV).
Lord, we are grateful for all the amazing ways you have met our needs. Thank you for psalms written centuries ago that spoke of the importance of remembering what you have done in the past but also point to our future together. Thank you for the gift of a Savior who came to save us from our sins and unite us as your family. Stir us that we may not grow tired and weary of gathering as your children to worship and to work to build your kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven. Come Lord Jesus, Amen.
Your Time with God’s Word
Psalm 132 ESV
Photo by Ryotando on Unsplash
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