Ps. 84.10 (space, time and liturgy; Pt. 1)

How much better / is a day in your courts / than a thousand others
I choose waiting / at the threshold / of the house of God
than dwelling / in the tents of the wicked. 

Time and space are the central motifs of this verse and what the Temple effects as to both is deeply significant. Space. It is the physical Temple space that is the object of affection here: the courts, the threshold, the house. It is nothing abstract. It is (to us, almost embarrassingly) particular. As such, for the psalmist, the cosmos is hierarchical—with the Temple being the pinnacle. There exists an entirely privileged center to the cosmos, a literal space that, as sacred, makes it ultimate (source and goal). There is, clearly, a beauty to holiness; but there is, here, a beauty physically located that is, itself, an incarnated holiness. As we have hinted at before: it is the Temple in particular that reveals the beauty of God, as no other way possibly could (just as the king does in his own form); the Temple is not merely a cipher for an aspect of God or a metaphor or symbol for his providing-love. It is for this reason that the literal space of the Temple here comes to utterly dominate the psalmist’s desire. The day and the threshold: this consuming and central beauty of the Temple stands in contrast to all that ‘is not the Temple’. This has been in view throughout, especially in so far as it relates to the ‘state of the pilgrim’ as he journeys from the ‘state of exile’ to ‘state of dwelling’. Here, the contrast between the Temple and all-that-is-not-the-Temple finds expression in time. Time within the Temple utterly transcends time outside the Temple. Just as the space of the Temple is desired more than any other space, so is time within the Temple desired more than any other time. This is key—everything we have indicated as to the unique nature of the space of the Temple can be applied as to the time spent in the Temple. As such, one could (tantalizingly) almost say that just as the space of the Temple is ultimate (as both source and goal) so too is the time of the Temple (both source and goal). 

Liturgy: space and time. Both of these insights as to space and time need to be seen in light of the fact that this psalm is a festival (or, liturgical) psalm. In other words, this psalm’s depiction of space and time is the ‘space and time of liturgy’. In liturgy one enters into this absolute (sacred) space and time, a realm that stands in contrast to all that is not liturgical space and time. It is not the case, I don’t think, that liturgy represents a type of ‘essence of space and time’. Rather, it is ‘something new’, made ‘new’ by the particular presence of God. We might say that it is not quantitatively different but qualitatively different. Furthermore, we must remind ourselves that this ‘newness’ is one that comes not from liturgy to an ‘it’ but liturgy to the ‘face’; it is one that is raised up by the personal encounter of God with his people. To those ‘Temple dwellers’, they exist within the perpetual-liturgy-to-God that is the Temple (a real participating within heaven).