Dear Faith Family,
"Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together...For there the LORD has commanded the blessing, life forevermore."
(Psalm 133:1,3)
If you have been around the Church for long, hearing familial affection and proximity being extolled as an ordained good, a foretaste of life eternal, is nothing new. Indeed, we are trained in our Scriptures and traditions to recognize the essential and blessed nature of the Church, of being a part, a member of the family of faith, a brother or sister in Christ.
While the proclamation of the psalm's beginning and end might not strike us as novel, the delight and blessedness of a life together with our fellow children of God, the middle does seem to hit us differently:
"It is like the precious oil on the head, running down the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robe!" (Psalm 133:2)
It is easy for us moderns to pass over the symbolism and references of verse two, perhaps dismissing the verse as disconnected poetic extravagance. But, as we discussed on Sunday, verse two really is the key. The key, not just to understanding the psalm, but to experiencing God's commanded blessing in our life together in Jesus today.
What the psalmist is saying is that the promised blessing of the presence of God, the Spirit of God covering us, sticking to us, and fragrancing our lives like oil, is mediated by our priestly sibilings. That's right, your brother in Christ, your sister in Jesus, is your priest, anointed by God, called and empowered to help you encounter God and remain on our shared pilgrim path.
The psalmist declares that the goodness and delight of life together are experienced because he has received the grace of God through his spiritual sibling. That in fact, God has commanded that this is how the blessing, life forevermore, is to be experienced along our ascending journey. We're not told how this grace is mediated, only that God has anointed your fellow sister and brother in Christ to be for you one who makes Him known to you.
Think about that for a moment. Think about your brothers and sisters in the faith. Name them. See their faces in your mind's eye right now. Think about each of them as being anointed, called, and empowered by God to impart His grace to you in a way unique to them and providentially necessary for you.
We are all aware that no matter how much the idea(l) is praised, making a life, dwelling with relations (whether spiritual or biological) is not always "pleasant." But what if, as verse two compels, rather than seeing in our siblings ones to compete with or even to serve, we see them as God's gift of grace, not generally, but specifically, to us. What might change in our feelings and experience of life as a faith family?
Perhaps, like the psalmist, we might be pressed to praise God for the daily refreshment of life through those we journey with Jesus alongside. Possibly, too, we might, as a brother or sister ourselves, be more inclined to lean into our God-annointed calling as well.
May we sing in experienced conviction with the psalmist and those beside us along the Way, "Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together!"
Love you, faith family. God bless.