As long as I can remember, I have loved churches.  Partly, it’s the architecture—especially of the older churches; more, though, it’s the atmosphere, the feel.  My sister would say the aura, but it’s not an aura.  It’s the saturation of the place with the faith of the people, the imprint of a people’s history of faith.  It’s the holy hush of the sanctuary, the light streaming through the windows, speaking words of light—the sense that God is here, somehow, someway, here, or that, somehow, here is a doorway, a window, that God has opened to there.  It is good to be in church.  It is good to be in church alone in a pew, praying.  It is good to sing together in church.  It is good to help and share together in church.  It is good to hear and receive God’s Word, in church.  It is good to be in church.  “How lovely is Your dwelling place LORD Almighty!” (84:1).

In times gone by, a church was called the house of the Lord: “You’re in the house of the Lord,” they’d say.  We know God does not live here; this is not His physical address.  Bethel has no monopoly on God!  But beloved, God is alive here, because he is alive here, in our hearts.  That is what it means to be a church with a heart: the king is in residence, there.  And that becomes clear in this house of the Lord.  That reverent love leaves traces, permeates the space, the air, the atmosphere.

“How lovely is Your dwelling place.”  Lovely is a fine, common translation.  The word in Hebrew, yedeed, can mean lovely, pleasant, also beloved.  How beloved is Your dwelling place Lord Almighty!  If we come here, it’s at least in part, maybe in large part, because we love being here, because this is a beloved place, with beloved people, beloved music—which pastor needs to remember more often—here also, God-willing, is the beloved Word.  I have been to churches where it was difficult for me to discern the Word of God; that was a hurtful thing.  I do not doubt there are things I have said that have caused hurt for some, who left feeling that God’s Word was not here.  God forgive and help me.

We come, like this worshipper singing this psalm, yearning “for the courts of the LORD” (84:2).  “[M]y heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (84:2).  Do we say so, too?  What sort of person feels this way?  The psalmist feels as if there is no better place on earth than being in church—not the mountains’ aspiring beauty, nor the long, loud stretch of the mighty sea, nor the sun-slanted corridors of fragrant pine and oak, but here, even here, in our little out of the way church: the best place on earth.  Beautiful.  Such longing for God, for those deepest associations we have with God.  God fulfills all our longing; it can take a long time, and a lot of hurt, shame, and sorrow to understand that, beloved.

Before church becomes a beautiful place for us, a refuge, a fountain, a gateway, we seek our strength in many other places, many other people, many other things.  Now, here, we may have come to a point in our lives when, together, we can sing, with profound alleluia, “Blessed are those whose strength is in You, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage” (84:5).  In ancient Israel, it was expected that all God’s people would make regular trips to Jerusalem, to the Temple.  Pilgrimage.  In Europe, faithful Catholics and others who wish to experience something of that spirituality still make pilgrimages to worshipful places like Santiago de Compostela in western Spain; Lourdes, there at the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains in France; or Assisi, in Italy.  The deeper reality behind it is that God’s people are all pilgrims on this earth, in this life.  God’s people are on a journey to a holy destination, a better country.  Let us set our hearts on that place.  God will strengthen those whose hearts are so inclined, for He is the one who sets our hearts there.  We find our strength in God by faith, the gift of God, who calls us onto the journey, together.

The psalm seems to name a place along the journey up to Jerusalem.  The city being built on hills, people traveled up to Jerusalem, from wherever they were coming.  The pilgrims pass through “the Valley of Baka.”  As they do, “they make it a place of springs” (84:6).  It’s not quite clear what that means.  I would think God would make it a place of springs for the pilgrims.  The Hebrew raises questions it doesn’t answer.  We don’t know whether there was an actual Valley of Baka or where it would have been.  You may have heard of the Bekaa Valley, but that’s far to the north, in Lebanon, never Jewish territory.  Another translation of the Hebrew could be the Valley of Weeping, the Valley of Tears.  As they pass through the Valley of Weeping, they make it a place of springs, as though the tears of the pilgrims copiously water the ground, there on the way to God.

We tend to associate weeping with sorrow, grief, hurt, and there is that; we have been hurt enough, and we have doled out enough hurt already, in this life, to make us weep with contrition, weep in repentance.  Yet we also know tears of joy, the tears of a full heart.  How strange, to weep when we are so joyful, but this is God’s way for us.  If the psalm is singing of weeping, it might not be for sorrow but for joy, joy that we are on the journey, that God has put us on the journey, that God is at the end of the journey and Jerusalem nearly in sight.  Most likely, the tears are a mixture of sorrow and joy, trouble and peace, all jumbled as we stagger and sing our way on up.  It is good to be on this journey to Jerusalem, together.

There’s an additional thought about this valley of weeping.  The tears make it a place of springs, of waters upwelling to satisfy and soothe, because our penitent tears are met by God’s blessing, welcomed by God’s Spirit, who gives us water to wash, to soothe, to refresh, like streams in the desert.  God renews us, strengthens us, on this journey.  God provides waters for those who weep.

The pilgrims “go from strength to strength” (84:7).  God gives more strength, the further along the journey: there is encouragement!  There is strength in the Lord.  What seems so difficult and demanding now will become less difficult as we continue on this journey.  Another translation renders the verse “go from height to height”: what loomed so large, down in the valley, will become small and far away, as we ascend the mountain—perspective changes the appearance of many things.

The pilgrims ascend “‘til each appears before God in Zion” (84:7).  We go together yet we go singly—I can’t make your journey for you; you can’t make my journey for me, but we can go together; it is good to go together, just as it is good to be here together, and to arrive together, and to praise God, together, and to weep with fullness of joy, together.  Each pilgrim who finishes the journey will appear before God: lovely, wonderful thought; frightening thought!  To appear before God, the source and standard of purity, righteousness, holiness—who can stand?  Fear of the Lord, remember?  Yet He strengthens us in Christ who stands in His presence, Christ who will stand with us in His presence; He strengthens us by His Holy Spirit, which He gives us, freely, not grudgingly, generously, not stintingly, so that we may stand, for it is God’s good pleasure that we appear before Him for blessing, for life.  With Christ, in Christ, there is no condemnation.  Apart from Christ there can only be condemnation.

Considering the destination, and the one who calls us there, and the one who is with us along the way, let us long for that beloved place!  The psalmist sings it true: “Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked” (84:11).  Those tents are outside these doors, beloved.  There are sights inside those tents, sounds, whispers of promises of pleasures.  Those tents call out to us, to draw us inside, to indulge fully every covetous lust, not that any of us indulge any covetous lust!  Eew.

The doorkeeper, the gatekeeper is furthest from the throne room, closest to the outside, as close to being outside as one can be and still be within the house.  If only as a doorkeeper, brothers and sisters, let us long to be in the house of the Lord.  Ask God to set your heart on that place, to direct your heart away from the places you don’t want to name but God knows, places you’ve been, places beckoning to you still.  Even to be a doorkeeper is better, to see those near glimpses of the glory, to smell the holy incense, to hear the sound of His voice—better by far, than to see only the darkness of wickedness, to hear only the despair of stubborn ignorance, to smell the rot of our trash.

“[N]o good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (84:11).  A good conscience, a cleansed conscience, being purified by the Spirit.  I’ve been thinking much about purity lately.  I’ve been thinking much about purification because I’ve been pondering how impure are the times in which we live.  There has always been wickedness; it has always been bad enough.  Now, wickedness seems to be in the ascendent.  Wickedness is the new righteousness, and that troubles me, deeply.  Church has been a refuge for me; I hope it has been for you, too.  Yet this refuge can only be temporary, a foretaste of the greater refuge, the eternal, beloved glory that we shall enjoy on that day when we arrive, when God brings us there.

No good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless.  Strive for a blameless walk—avoid what is impure; pray fervently and often for God to give you the perseverance, the grace, to walk through temptation, upright, God-devoted.  Have faith—have faith when it feels you are succeeding—it is not you but God at work in you.  Have faith when it feels you are failing—God is at work and has not and will not abandon you—His love will not let you go.  “LORD Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in You” (84:12).  Amen and amen.