October 16th, 2013
Psalm 134 — Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord. The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion.
As the text plainly suggests, today I’ve got worship — or more specifically, praise, on my mind.
Only Psalm 117 is shorter than this little gem.
Psalm 134 draws two beautiful pictures. In the first two verses, the pilgrims bid the servants of The Lord,the Temple Guards — who were Levites, to bless The Lord.
In the last verse the priests respond with a blessing in return.
The invocation is to “lift your hands in the sanctuary”, and to “bless The Lord”. As you watch over the temple by night, don’t slip into Inattentive sleep but be active, vigorous, be about the Lord’s business. And recognize your privilege.
The response is the answer from the temple to the pilgrims, perhaps as they are about to return to their homes. It is a blessing “from Zion”, from the ministers to the people.
The invocation starts with a peremptory “behold”. It’s like a “heads up”. “Wake up. Be alert!” Each of us is a priest, we are a holy priesthood, and it is a command we should all be listening to. We should be alert — watch and pray, as Jesus told His disciples in the garden. We should all be about the business of the temple. The believer who has no part in the work of the church is an idle priest, asleep at his post.
But just as we are all priests, so are we all pilgrims, and the response is a blessing to us each individually — and collectively to the church. The blessing is the High Priestly blessing. In Numbers 6 we find The Lord instructing Moses to tell Aaron how to bless the people — “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee”. The form here is a short form of that blessing. As we consider this Psalm, we may hear the blessing from above, The Lord in Zion directly blessing His people.
If we are a priesthood of believers, as Luther said, then this Psalm addresses us as priests and pilgrims both. On the one hand we are to be praising God continually as we go about our service. On the other hand, we should — like the pilgrims — always be going up to worship. As we do both, we are blessed. This beautiful psalm, which in the New Century Version is titled “A Song For Going Up To Worship” encapsulates all of our Christian experience in three short verses!