Ps. 63.2 (seeing God)

So longing / I have seen you / in the sanctuary
beholding / your strength and glory. 

It is here where the sensory deprivations of the first verse are satisfied. We noted in our previous reflection the very physical aspect of this psalm. There, the focus was on bodily longing and thirst. Here, when longing is actually relieved, the psalmist shifts his focus and reveals it to be a visual one. Thus, it would seem as if it is that experience of seeing (perhaps at least primarily) that led to the profound sense of deprivation in the first verse which became clothed in the sense thirst and a “parched land”. This “beholding” is, to the psalmist, like rain to a desert place. It is not merely satisfying. It is both supremely joyful and life-giving. And, it is clearly liturgical. But, we must be clear about what he sees that creates this. The “glory” of God is one of the modes of his manifestation that is most visceral; it points to the theophanies at Sinai and the institution of the Temple when God came is “fire and cloud”. It portrays, in this dual image of light and darkness, the profoundly ‘lordly’ aspect of God and is always met with trembling. Perhaps this is the reason it is paired here with “strength”.  The psalmist, then, is not just being given a ‘vision of God’. Rather, it is upon seeing God’s strength and glory that the psalmist’s longing is met and his life given (back) to him. When God is “seen” he is “beheld” in ‘strength and glory’. To see God is to see the High King. He is not seen in abstraction from the incredible demand that such a vision imposes upon the viewer. We might say, to see God is to be seen by God. Isaiah’s vision of God is clear in this regard (Isaiah 6), as is every other ‘beholding’ of God. In that context, to behold God is to be ‘missioned’ by God. There is a simultaneous ‘satisfaction and transformation’. (I wonder how this ‘vision of God’ is affected in an ancient verses a modern context. It seems to me that for those who want to “see God” today they want to see him in order to know of his existence. They want a display that he in fact is real. For an ancient, and for a biblical man, the focus seems different: to see God would be to be impressed not by his existence (that was never questioned) but by his power and authority. In such a context, to ‘see God’ would carry with it the sense of be(come)in a servant/follower of God.)