It is not one of the most famous psalms but it has always spoken to me. It probably started when I first heard one of Handel's Chandos anthems. These anthems aren't nearly as famous as the Messiah, but, like it, they set scriptural words to unforgettable music. One of the anthems is a setting of psalm 27 and I can't hear the opening words, 'The Lord is my light and my salvation,' without hearing Handel's soaring tune.
As the psalm unfolds, it keeps hitting me where I live. Part of it, certainly, is my vocation. In the Book of Common Prayer version of the psalm, verses five and six are:
One thing have I asked of the LORD; one thing I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life;
To behold the fair beauty of the LORD;
and to seek him in his temple.
The psalm continues with expressions of confidence in God in the midst of life's attacks and trials. And then comes my favorite verse in the psalm, and among my favorites in all of scripture:
You speak in my heart and say, 'Seek my face.'
Your face LORD, will I seek.
What moves me is the mixture throughout the Psalm of confidence and yearning. God's beauty and assurance are both always there and accessible to us and simultaneously just beyond our reach, something for which we yearn, something for which we seek.
I hope you can join me either tonight or Sunday as we seek the beauty of the LORD through the great poems of the Psalter.
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