“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!” - Psalm 84:1
I am looking out my living room window as I write this, the Chugach Front Range radiating God’s light and beckoning me to come ... Don’t those mountains know that there is work to be done? I’m struck by how powerful and majestic they are, strong and beautiful, and yet full of mystery and adventure, foreboding, and terrifying at times. It’s no wonder that for so many years God’s people saw the mountain as the dwelling place of the Lord. What better place for God to abide? Just by their presence, the mountains remind you of God. They don’t have to say anything, you already know.
Of course, as God has revealed to God’s people throughout time, God doesn’t only dwell in the mountains (though, if I were up there right now surely God’s presence would be known). Indeed, God has had many homes over the course of history. In the Arc of the Covenant, in the Temple, and in the hearts and homes of each and every one of us. How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
Just the presence of God makes this world lovely.
As I feel frustration, anger, exasperation, impatience, fear, worry and exhaustion amidst the unfolding of the coronavirus pandemic, I am also aware of a tenderness. A streak of compassion for one another and the world. A certain vein of loveliness.
Though we cannot gather within the walls of the St. John sanctuary, how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! Though we cannot go to work and to school, how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! Though we maintain our separation and refrain from gathering together, how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
Friend, find peace in knowing that wherever you find yourself, how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
Amen.
- Pastor Emily Carroll