Psalm 63

Psalm 63

O God, you are my God, I seek you,
   my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
   as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
² So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
   beholding your power and glory.
³ Because your steadfast love is better than life,
   my lips will praise you.
So I will bless you as long as I live;
   I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,^*
   and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
⁶ when I think of you on my bed,
   and meditate on you in the watches of the night.
for you have been my help,
   and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
⁸ My soul clings to you;
   your right hand upholds me....

Sometimes people make fun of Christians who seem to be in ecstasy as they worship, eyes squinched shut, tears streaming down their faces, hands in the air, the word, Jesus, on their lips. These critics can have a valid point. Some Christians' faith can be out-of-touch with everyday life or with the death in the culture that surrounds us and may only be seeking an escapist experience. For Christians who have compartmentalized their lives in this way, church becomes entertainment, a place to be distracted from real life, to forget the demands of mundane existence and to experience euphoria for its own sake.

But don't reject the "mystical;" don't reject the experience of God; don't reject food and drink; don't "throw the baby out with the bathwater."

Here the psalmist sees the power and glory of God, not in nature, not in the lives of his people, but in the sanctuary, a place that exists solely for the worship of God. Looking in the sanctuary for God, he finds him. Praising God, thinking about God, looking for God, he is "satisfied as with a rich feast;" his thirst is quenched; he is revived; he realizes that God's "steadfast love is better than life." He clings to the God that loves and blesses him.

The experience of God, his praise and meditation, do not have to be a form of escapism, but rather what gives us life - the life we need to live in the middle of responsibilities and, even, threats to our existence (see the rest of the psalm).

This poem in its use of food and water points to Jesus as we see him in John's gospel: the water who gives us life, the bread that we must eat if we want to truly live.