[1] Behold! How good and sweet it is
when brothers dwell together in unity!
Inspired, David sings the praises of something too rarely tasted by us. Familial, heavenly communion is elusive, despite our best efforts to capture it. Holiday gatherings are strained; church meetings are polite but dry, awkward; even the best friendships seldom know the delighted unity of this Psalm. In fact, so little do we know of true unity that we despair of it. It is easier to believe, with Sartre, that “Hell is other people,” that permanent togetherness is intolerable, that mutual vulnerability is preposterous. We’re caught and pulled in different directions; we want unity, but we cannot imagine it… but we must have it. We would wither and die without it. As another singer laments, “I can’t live with or without you.”
David did not always taste unity. He sings of it, proclaims its goodness; and he sings for it, yearns for its sweetness. The health and wholeness of true communion characterized his life and relationships too little, but he thanks God for what he has seen. He sees it as more than the proximity of friends. It is spiritual and divine, the meeting place of God and his people.
[2] It is like the good oil on the head,
descending on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
descending on the collar of his robes!
As the priest, Aaron represented God’s people as he went into God’s presence. He wore holy garments for glory and for beauty. On his skillfully crafted shoulder pieces were two onyx stones, set in gold, engraved by a jeweler, with the names of the tribes of God’s people. Aaron bore their precious names before the Lord. And as he was consecrated for this service, the rich, fragrant, holy anointing oil was poured on his head. The Psalm sees the unity shared by God’s people as the purifying grace of God lavished upon us together, descending upon us, from the head down.
The New Testament knows Jesus Christ to be the Great High Priest, the head of his body, the church. At his baptism, as he pledged himself to us as our Priest, Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit—the very Love of God himself. He was anointed on our behalf, and he was anointed in order to anoint us with the same Oil of Gladness, the same Love, the same Spirit he received from God his Father. Just as the holy oil—a unique blend of liquid myrrh, sweet-smelling cinnamon, aromatic cane, cassia, and olive oil—was not to be poured on the body of any ordinary person but was reserved for those consecrated to God’s service, so the Holy Spirit is not bestowed upon just anyone but upon the saints, the holy ones who serve God in his living temple. Now, because our Priest lived and died and rose again for us, and because he has poured out his Holy Spirit upon the church, we have divine unity as a spiritual reality. We have familial, heavenly communion with the Triune God and with each other. It is a free gift of his grace.
[3] It is like the dew of Hermon
descending on the mountains of Zion!
For there the LORD has commanded the blessing:
life everlasting!
This gifted, Triune communion is the essence of everlasting life. Jesus prayed to his Father, “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” This gift is found where God has commanded the blessing: among his people. The church’s unity has descended upon her from heaven, where to love is to live forevermore, because God is the ever-living God, because God is love, and he gives himself to us.
Anyone in the church may enjoy spiritual unity by faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The dews brought refreshment and life to otherwise arid and barren places, so that orchards and gardens grew in the desert. The dews that fell on Hermon, on the highest mountain in Israel, also fell on Zion—just a humble hill, but the meeting place of God and his people. In Christ, we no longer wither and die for lack of unity; we have the fellowship of the Holy Spirit! Now we can attest that Heaven is other people, bound together by divine love, sharing in delighted peace, flourishing in glorious intimacy forever. Because of God’s gracious love, we look at one another—here and now, in the church—and we no longer taste hell, but heaven itself.
Behold! How good and sweet it is
when brothers dwell together in unity!
