A Place To Be Seen

One of the greatest tragedies of Western Christianity is the privatisation of faith. The devolution of love-God-and-your-neighbour-as-yourself Christianity into the me-myself-and-I Christianity. Our passage, today, reminds us that true Christianity, and good theology, reveals that fellowship with God is best experienced in relational unity with others. This revelation is consistently unpacked throughout the teachings of scripture – God did not call or intend to redeem a person, but called and redeemed a people to Himself.

And so where does Psalm 133 fit into this progressive revelation of God’s desire and intention for fellowship with a united people? Well, Psalm 133 is one of David’s “Songs of Ascent”. These songs where sang by the people of Israel as they travelled to the Temple in Jerusalem for worship. Geographically, Jerusalem was located in a mountainous region of land, and the temple itself was located on a mountain within Jerusalem.

Hence, as the people travelled to the place of worship, it was a literally an ascent up “the hill of the Lord”. I imagine that during one of these trips to the temple, King David looked around and could see all of the people ascending together. One of the young men were carrying one of the younger kids on their back. A sister was encouraging others to keep going because “we are nearly there!” The less fortunate were helping the fortunate and vice versa. The more seasoned believers, who had been up to the temple many times before, were helping to guide newer believers for whom it was their first time. As King David looked and beheld the unity of God’s people ascending into God’s presence, I imagine it was at this point that the inspiration of Psalm 133 was given to him by the Holy Spirit – “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity”! King David would go in verse 2 and 3 to share powerfully vivid imagery about the blessing and anointing that results from unity amongst God’s people. Finally, he concludes that in the place and state of unity “the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore” Ps 133:3b. 

I believe that from King David’s inspiration, and further revelations, would have come the joy of Lord. This joy would have then produced life-strength for David and Israel to complete the arduous ascent into God’s presence. Furthermore, I believe that if we could also catch this revelation of God’s desire and excitement for our unity, we would also enter into a joy and longing for unity that would greatly encourage and grant life-strength to our personal walks and corporate fellowship. This is because whilst each step requires personal faith, each step is part of the corporate march and movement of God’s people. In other words, you are never alone in your journey of faith, and life always gets better when we do it together!