Daily Lesson for April 22, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 84 verses 1 through 10:

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.[c]

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,[e] 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

For all who love a particular place of worship today's Psalm has something to say.

Yes; we can worship God anywhere.  The whole world is a Temple. And so is the home.  And so is the body.

But, nevertheless, there is something to be said of and for a Temple.  There is something to be said for a place.  As Wendell Berry says, "Things take place." And nothing can take the place of Temple made by hands which clutched dirt, or mixed mortar, or laid stone a hundred or a thousand years ago.

Something is indeed to be said of a Temple of Beauty which is open to and a gift from all people, rich and poor, king and pauper.

"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."

One day the sparrow shall return to the Temple, and the swallow sing her song amidst the lofty choir.

And the song shall say: "How lovely is Thy dwelling place, O LORD!"

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year.  Tomorrow's Lesson will come from 1 Chronicles 3-5 .