Serving in Communion and Unity

There are days when it seems like everything works, everyone gets along, the team is totally in sync, and all is right with the world. In those days the water tastes better, the locker room smells better, our muscles ache less, the sun shines more brightly, and everything we touch turns into beauty. Those days are far too few, but they are wonderful when they arrive. 

The writer of Psalm 133 experienced such days and he paints a verbal picture for us to view. He starts with an observation about the goodness and pleasantness of loving, unified, communion between brothers, we would add teammates and colleagues. I would agree. It has. 

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is

For brothers to dwell together in unity! 

When our team is unified, we experience goodness in the purity of the relationships. When we experience communion among our colleagues, we find it pleasant to our senses and emotions. It’s very good and it’s very pleasant. 

The writer’s first simile to help his readers grasp the goodness and pleasantness of unity among brothers is anointing oil poured upon Levitical priests. His readers would have been familiar with this oil and all its properties as they would have encountered the priests on their regular visits to Jerusalem and the temple for festivals. Imagine the feel, the appearance, the aroma of anointing oil poured over the head of the high priest, dripping down all the way to his shoe tops. 

2 It is like the precious oil upon the head,

Coming down upon the beard,

Even Aaron’s beard,

Coming down upon the edge of his robes. 

Those we serve might feel this like a Gatorade shower at the end of a ballgame. It might smell like the goodness of a post-game barbecue. It might smell like a championship locker room or the sheets on the hotel bed after the performance of a lifetime. Every sense is awakened by this goodness and pleasantness. 

The psalmist’s next simile is on a grander scale, a mountain. Imagine the dew of Mt. Hermon rolling down to the valley, cool to your feet, refreshing to your soul, the very site of the Lord’s pronouncement of blessing. 

3 It is like the dew of Hermon

Coming down upon the mountains of Zion;

For there the Lord commanded the blessing—life forever. 

We can surely recall the sense of blessing, the freshness and beauty that has accompanied our best days of unified competition and training. We can almost feel on our skin the joy of communion among our brothers and sisters in sport. Our souls feel the weight of our blessedness as we are wrapped up, together, in the Lord’s life-forever blessing. 

May I challenge you to watch for and to embrace days like these? When you get the first hint of communion or unity, slow down and take it all in. Take the psalmist’s posture and, “Behold…” Feel the goodness of the unity, smell the pleasantness like anointing oil, taste the coolness of the mountain dew, and receive the Lord’s commanded blessing, life forever.