Psalm 84
For the director of music. According to gittith. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm.
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
Lord Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
Lord Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you.5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.
6 As they pass through the Valley of Baka,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.8 Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty;
listen to me, God of Jacob.
9 Look on our shield, O God;
look with favor on your anointed one.10 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.
11 For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.12 Lord Almighty,
blessed is the one who trusts in you.
My Heart is Happy in the House of the Lord
What is the last thing you yearned for?
I can think of plenty of things that I have wanted, things that I’ve looked forward to, but I don’t think that wanting to buy a new car or computer constitutes yearning, at least not the way the Sons of Korah talk about yearning in Psalm 84:
My soul yearns, even faints… my heart and my flesh cry out…[1]
When was the last time you were on the verge of fainting because you wanted something so badly? When have your heart and soul and body all been on the same page, wanting the same thing so much that you just wanted to scream?
I think I got close to that when I was a kid at Christmas. It wasn’t the presents so much as it was driving to Grandma and Grandpa’s house, staying up on Christmas Eve eating pickles and imitation crab while the whole family was together.
It hits differently this year, doesn’t it? The “second wave” is three times the size of the first. There’s talk that if we don’t get things under control soon then Christmas could be canceled, if that were possible. We’re already preparing for it to be very different. Church won’t be full on Christmas Eve. How will we blow out our candles after singing Silent Night if we all have masks on? My wife and I won’t be able to be with our families; some of you won’t either.
Does that get you yearning? Or maybe you lost your dad or your husband or your grandpa this year. Did that make your soul want to faint? Have you been stuck in quarantine for 2 weeks at a time, maybe even more than once? Has someone you loved been isolated so that you couldn’t see them when they needed you most? How did that make you feel?
2020 has been a year, but in my experience something happens every year that makes you yearn, i.e. makes you long for something more, something better.
The Sons of Korah didn’t just long for something. They said, “My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”[2] What the Sons of Korah wanted more than anything – what they ached for in their bones – was to be with God in his house.
That’s what we call church sometimes, don’t we – God’s house? Do you yearn to be here?
None of you were here for Easter. I wasn’t even here – we pre-recorded that service. There was a stretch of 19 services over 4 months where no one was here. We’re still not all together. Do you miss being here?
I mean, yes, we rejoice that we can worship anywhere at any time. You can worship in your pajamas in your basement, but the “house of the Lord,” i.e. church, is special because as soon as you walk in these doors, you have a 3,000lb reminder of your baptism. This is the place we have dedicated for sharing of the Gospel in Word and Sacrament. This building can be a sanctuary from all the hurtful, evil, exhausting things we deal with on a daily basis.
When I was young, I yearned for the fun things – Christmases, holidays, time with friends. Now, I yearn for relief from the unfun things – the daily grind, challenging people or circumstances, policies and protocols, guilt and shame. And so my soul yearns, even faints for relief, for rest, for a moment where I can breathe and be reassured that everything is going to be OK.
That’s why church exists – to be your sanctuary, to be your refuge where you hear the Word of God that soothes your aching soul, that calms your troubled fears, that gives you a moment to catch your breath and rest at ease.
Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion.[3]
It’s easy to skip over these verses because we don’t make pilgrimages anymore. Who of you even knows where the Valley of Baka is? It’s a trick question! Nobody does. It doesn’t exist. It’s a metaphor. “Baka” means “sorrow” or “weeping.” So the message is that as you go through sorrow and suffering – as you yearn for relief and release – God showers you with his blessings until they pool up around you. In fact, the Hebrew word for “pool” sounds an awful lot like “blessings.”
This weird, easily-skipped-over section is actually a metaphor about how God is with you while you’re yearning. It’s about how God is blessing you while you suffer. It gives you the reassurance that you will appear before God in Zion, which is just another way to say that you will dwell in the house of the Lord – only this time, we’re not talking about a church building, but the heavenly home of God.
That’s ultimately the real value of this earthly sanctuary – and the purpose of Saints Triumphant Sunday – to remind you that you have a home in heaven, and that nothing on earth can take that away from you, because you have a shield that protects you.
Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty; listen to me, God of Jacob. Look on our shield, O God; look with favor on your anointed one.[4]
Our shield – the thing that protects us from all harm and danger in this world and throughout our lives, the one who ensures that we will go to heaven – our shield is God’s anointed one. Literally, in Hebrew, that’s Messiah. In Greek, it’s Christ. Our shield is Jesus. And Jesus knows how you feel.
Jesus knew what it is to yearn for the courts of the Lord. He left those courts when he was born on Christmas. He showed a love for the house of God on earth when he was a boy and made his own pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. Even after his parents left, Jesus stayed behind. And when they came back to find him, he said, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”[5]
As an adult, Jesus showed that love for the house of the Lord by spending every Sabbath Day in the synagogues hearing and preaching God’s Word in every town and village. He felt like a nomad and wanderer with no real home to call his own, but he found his rest in God’s Word. He took shelter in the pages of Scripture.
Jesus went through his own Valley of Baka, his own sorrow and suffering. He grieved at the death of his friends. He wept over the state of the world. He even went to a cross for you. He hung on a piece of wood while his heart and flesh cried out for the living God, all so that you wouldn’t have to – all so that you could live in the house of the Lord, knowing that all your sins have been forgiven and that nothing can stand in your way of going to heaven.
Heaven is your home because Jesus is your shield and Saviour. Nothing – none of the things that exhaust you, none of the things that scare you, none of the things that make you yearn for something more or better – nothing can rob you of the hope of heaven, because Jesus is your shield and strength, Jesus is your Saviour from sin. Jesus is the one who opens heaven to you. And when you get there, Jesus will be the sun who lights your days too.
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. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold form those whose walk is blameless.[6]
I yearn for relief from the problems of this world. That’s one reason I look forward to heaven. But to cast heaven merely as an escape from our problems doesn’t nearly do it justice. The Sons of Korah say that they would rather spend a single day there than a thousand days anywhere else.
Heaven is better than a hotel room in the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise. Heaven is better than a private resort on a Hawaiian island. Heaven is better than 12oz Kobe strip steak, the first run down fresh powder, winning the lottery, or having your whole family gathered around the Christmas tree.
The worst day in heaven is better than the best day you could possibly have on earth, and that’s because the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Apostle John tells us that in heaven we won’t need the sun because the glory of God will be our light and Jesus will be its lamp. There won’t be any night, with unknown fears or unseen dangers, because Jesus will be our sun and he will give us light forever and ever.
The Lord bestows favor and honor. In heaven there won’t be any sin, which means there won’t be any guilt. There won’t be any fear of punishment. You will be living in perfection and you yourself will be made perfect. You can’t make bad decisions. There will be no wrong choices. Everything will be exactly the way God wants it.
No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. Maybe the best part of heaven is that you won’t have to yearn for anything ever again, because in heaven you will have every good thing. Here we have all kinds of stuff we wish we could change, but there, everything will be perfect, including the people.
This promise is for you, not because you’re blameless, but because Jesus was blameless for you. And finally, that’s our hope. That’s the hope for every believer – for all the saints that have gone before us. Heaven isn’t reserved for the best of the best. It’s offered freely to those God calls “blessed.” And, thanks to Psalm 84, we know who that is: Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in you.[7]
That’s John Shoults. That’s Darrel Napora. That’s Hilda Martel and Andrea Beach. That’s every believer from our congregation and around the world who is enjoying the triumph of Jesus even now. They trusted in the Lord Almighty and they’re living in his house right now, praising his name and waiting for the day that they’ll welcome you to your heavenly home too.
Take my health. Take my freedom. Take my Christmases for the next 40 years. My heart is happy in the house of the Lord – here on earth as I remember his promises, and forever in heaven when I’ll see them fulfilled. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord Almighty. Blessed are you. Amen.
[1] Psalm 84:2
[2] Psalm 84:2
[3] Psalm 84:5-7
[4] Psalm 84:8-9
[5] Luke 2:49
[6] Psalm 84:10,11
[7] Psalm 84:12