Psalm 84:1-2

In Jesus’ name. This is Pastor Michael Lilienthal of Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, Albert Lea. Together, let us meditate on and wrestle with God’s Word: Psalm 84:1-2: How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. On one hand, the dwelling place and courts of God refer to heaven—that is where he resides in his glory. But he had set up a temporary dwelling place on earth, where he could be with his people: the tabernacle was set up after the pattern of heaven, where people could come to God for redemption and with their prayers. In this worship place, sacrifices were daily offered, morning and evening. God told his people then, in the book of Leviticus: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life” (Lev. 17:11). This demonstrates the beauty and loveliness of the courts of the Lord: this is where life is given for you. But even such a beautiful thing can be, and has been, misunderstood and misused. The sacrifices even were thought of as a reason to boast, not as a gift from God. Jesus speaks about very serious misunderstandings like this in his parable sermon: “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given…. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand” (Matt. 13:11, 13). But when Jesus gives that gracious understanding, giving faith to receive the truth, your heart can see the real value and the gift, and like one of his parables of the kingdom of heaven, you find “treasure hidden in a field,” found by a man, for which, in your joy, you can give up your own ideas and instead simply receive: “he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matt. 13:44). Amen. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.