His Court

Psalm 84:2 ESV

My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.

What does it take to be a doorman? This question should be one of those that rarely comes but should come regularly. Psalm 84 begins with the heading “A Psalm of the Sons of Korah”. These men are defined by their birth. The family and lineage they were born to is that of a man discontent with God’s call on his life. Korah along with others wished to usurp Moses’s place and led a rebellion against him for just that purpose. All those still in his home were consumed by the earth as God opened the ground to receive him and his, but these were adult children who chose not to follow their father and saved their lives because of it. They were those who heredity had given the job of patching the door to the tent and later to the temple.

Spiritualizing these psalms will often rob them of their color and glory. Who doesn’t long for the perfect place of God’s presence? Who doesn’t look to the streets of translucent gold and have their heart skip a beat? Yet that is not what these men were singing of. Take your time and let that statement sink in. The eternal dwelling place of God was not the court or the doorkeeper position that was being sung about. When you think of that wonderful place do think of the sparrows and swallows’ nests in every eave? (see verse 3) Our first year in Lincoln we were blessed with a robin’s nest outside our door. We watched as the eggs hatched and birds flew away, it was messy. These men were well acquainted with the actual Temple, they spent hours cleaning up after said birds, and singing songs in said courts. In this environment they chose to sing of the great honor that was bestowed on them to be doormen in the house of such a great God that even sparrows were welcome to dwell. They were no nuisance but rather a sterling testament to the love of God for his creation, and spur for those of humble heart wishing to come to the house of the Lord.

They fully rejected their namesake’s view. They embraced the joy and honor given to them to be the greeters in the house of the Lord. Verse ten was not a spiritual musing of better times but a joyful praise that the reality of their preference for the position of greeter than for that of priest, to be at the door of the church welcoming people in than to be out playing Disc Golf, hunting, fishing, sleeping in.  The actual building with all its foibles was a joy to be stationed at and enjoy serving in, even when hypocritical kings come and worship. Even when Pharisaical priests walk by and turn their noses. These men still found joy being where God had set his name.

Yes, for us, we must look not to the physical Temple built by Solomon, or the one built by Herod, but to the place where God has chosen to set his name. Where Christ has said he would be present. We are told when the Church Gathers, He will be with us. He has chosen to place his name in the assembly of believers. It is such a place that often “nuisances” are present and making a lot of racket, living messes everywhere, but it is still the place God has chosen to dwell until Christ returns. The psalmist tells us that those who love God’s actual, earthly house, “go from strength to strength”. This remains the case for all those that LOVE God’s church, his bride, in its reality “warts and all” as Cromwell would say. Let us treasure the noisy messy sparrows and rejoice as those who greet strangers coming into the house of the Lord.

Coram Deo