Ours is not a faith or a religion in which the central message is: “Be all you can be.” The core of our teaching is that a covenant-faithful God creates a covenant-faithful people who earnestly desire him to be all he can be both in and through them to a world so desperate for his touch. Selah.
This is radically different than what the average church attendee understands and what the world thinks we believe. To know God is to be on pilgrimage; to be on pilgrimage is to have a passion—not to achieve your fullest potential —but for God himself. The goal of pilgrimage is to come to dwell in his presence, to earnestly desire that his glory and light would cover the earth and that all people would have knowledge of him. That is what The Psalms of Ascent are about.
When we get to that dwelling place, we enter into our highest calling, as pictured in Psalm 134.
Come, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, who stand by night in the house of the LORD! Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the LORD! (1-2)
The phrase All you servants of the LORD reminds us that only servants get into the Holy place. Every night, priests were engaged in overseeing the temple compound and preparing it for the early morning sacrifices. I don’t think that is the context for this particular reference. From both the Mishnah and Josephus, we learn that every evening during the Feast of Tabernacles, a special group of priests were in the temple making preparations for the coming festive day. In the morning, the High Priest would come out and commission them by calling: Come, bless the LORD! Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the LORD!
I say to you, my haverim (friends and traveling companions), the High Priest of our faith, Yeshua, is saying these words to you and to me. As priests in his kingdom, we are beckoned to: Come, bless the LORD! Lift up your hands and bless the LORD! The wording and format here are very consistent with liturgical practice in the Temple. Petitions would be offered, and then, in response to the petitions, the priest would speak on behalf of God and pronounce a blessing.
May the LORD bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth! (134:3).
Here is the picture. You have entered his dwelling place, into his very presence. The Living God has heard your petitions and prayers, and now he answers them by conferring blessing upon you. He puts his Holy Name upon you.
I have an important study on the priestly blessing that you need to hear because it is so misunderstood (The Wonders of the Priestly Blessing).
Pronouncing a blessing is not some magic formula involving the precise enunciation of YHWH. What happens is profound in its simplicity. God honors the blessings of his priests (Come, bless the LORD) by putting his name upon the people (May the LORD bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth!).
A blessing is a prayer as well as a promise that God will fulfill that blessing—based on his character—because he is faithful to his word. So when his priests stand and minister, God honors it by blessing his people.
There is a mysterious reciprocity in the heart of the Father. When you serve him and bless him; in turn, he blesses you. Because he blesses you, you are so enflamed with gratitude you bless him some more and yes, he in turn blesses you further. This is the way of love. It is a way of giving and receiving, of receiving and giving. As it is with our God, so it is to be with his people.
I think Paul references this dynamic interplay in Ephesians 1:3: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Do you see the reciprocal relationship?
How appropriate that the final psalm in our ascent ends with blessing. When the journey has been completed, and you come into the presence of the Holy One, he pronounces a benediction. It is only fitting because he alone is worthy to give the last word. And the last word is this: May the LORD bless you from Zion.
Who is it who blesses you? Yahweh, our great Creator—Maker of heaven and earth! It is noteworthy that in Psalm 134, we bless him twice, and he blesses us once. I think this clearly points to something we talked about earlier in our study. The truth is we must produce more than we consume. We serve and praise him. By his own volition and grace, he blesses us from Zion.
Please never forget that you are priests in the kingdom of God. It is impossible to overstate how important this high calling is for each of our lives.
It does not matter if you are rich or poor, male or female, young or old. You, and together we, are a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2). The current distinction between priests and laity is not found in the New Testament. It is something that didn’t develop until the 3rd century. What was lost is incalculable. Yet, in every generation, God bears witness to the truth; each one of his people is a priest unto him. Your kingdom work on earth is as important as mine and mine as yours.
Notice what is not found in this familiar passage: And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ (Eph 4:11-12). The highest office of all is not mentioned, which is that of priest. Why? You know the answer. Because that mantle rests on all of God’s people! The highest calling of all is for all. We are those who stand in the house of the LORD, blessing him and ministering his blessing to others in his Name.
These last three Psalms of Ascent (132-134) also reflect a glorious and almost incomprehensible vision of the future. There is coming a day in which a holy habitation, a bride without spot or blemish will be formed as a suitable place in which God’s glory will descend from above into this earth, and there he will find a dwelling place among his people. And with his coming and dwelling will be a restoration of the unity, both of man to man and of man to the animal world. This whole cosmos will be transformed and renewed.
Just as the unity between Adam and Eve in the garden was broken by sin, so was their relationship with animals and God’s created order. But in the end, we will go back to the beginning. The lion and lamb will dwell together in harmony. And we will return to that intimacy of unity, that oneness for which we were created.
This divine restoration will draw the people from all nations (according to Zechariah), and we will all flood the gates of the New Jerusalem, ascending in holy pilgrimage for the great festival of Ingathering, the Feast of Tabernacles. We will all go up in unity—people from every nation and language (Rev 5:9)—to that high and holy place to worship our God and serve him forever.
And what does he do, in turn? He blesses us from Zion with his presence, the source of all true peace and prosperity. My friends, hear me I implore you. He whom we now know in part will be made known to us in undisguised, unmediated, and unhindered presence.
Hallelujah!!
Best of all, God is with us! The blessing we seek is his presence. And in his eternally unfolding dwelling with us, there will be much rejoicing and joy unspeakable. There will be no more sorrow or darkness, only the radiating love of his pure light. Brothers and sisters, my fellow priests, there will be no more animosity as the universe itself enters into the symphony of God’s kingdom. And the music that will issue forth will resound to the ages, to the glory of the God of Israel.
Blessed be his name, as he blesses you from Zion. Amen, and amen!
