Ps. 63.1 (longing and Temple)

O God
You are my God / whom I seek;
my soul / thirsts for you
my body / longs for you
like a land / parched and weary / from lack of water. 

There is a seemingly obvious point to make about this verse that contains, I think, a profound point: that the psalmist is praying to God, who he calls “my God”, and yet describing his removal/distance from him. Notice the dynamic: God is designated in the possessive (“my god”) and yet, at the same time, the psalmist’s entire being is longing and thirsting for him. He simultaneously “has” God and does not. He can speak to him, and yet also desire to ‘drink’ and ‘see’ him. On the one hand, this is not so profound. It is similar to any form of communication between separated lovers. On the other hand, there are important insights to this. First, by describing God as “my God” the psalmist orients himself within the covenantal relationship (“I will be your God, and you will be my people”). Covenantal terms will recur (“loyal-love”, vs. 3). This covenantal aspect, however, is almost overshadowed by Temple imagery. Indeed, the “meeting place” and consummation of his longing is not in a mystical insight or spirituality but “in the sanctuary” (vs. 2). It is there that he has “seen” God, “beholding your strength and glory”. It is there, “under your wings”, that he is fed “with the food of a feast” (vs. 5). The Temple is the home of his praise (vs. 3,4,5,7,11) and the object of his longing. With this in mind we can see something more than simply a general ‘longing’ for God—it is a longing that originates from an experience of God in the Temple and desires that communion again. This very concrete reference is important too when we see how incredibly physical this psalm is. Nearly everything is oriented to a bodily experience: “my soul thirsts for you”, “my body longs for you”, “like a land parched…”, “I have seen you..”, “my lips praise you”, “I lift up my hands”, “as with food of a feast my soul is satisfied”, etc… The reason, as we have said, is that the goal is the physical Temple (the dwelling/home of God). The final point to make is this: that the longing for God originates in the experience of God the psalmist has had in the Temple previously (vs. 2). As with any lover, it is the experience of his (the psalmist’s) absence from the Temple, that creates this strong, bodily, desire to commune again with God. What this points to is that his current sense of lack points to a very profound experience of abundance. Only an over-powering and effluent experience of God could produce such a drastic sense of deprivation.  One wonders if, with the construction of the Temple and its centralization (away from the many shrines), this type of central longing for a particular place of communion, was not intended by God in order to heighten, purify and focus the longing of his people into a single place (as God is One). And, could we say that this focus (wittingly and unwittingly performed by God and Hezekiah), was to prepare the people for the full ‘enfleshment’ of God in one man, the new Temple, such that now all of this longing can be taken, nearly without interruption, into Christ?