1 Behold, how good and pleasant it is
when brethren dwell together in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head,
running down on the beard,
on the beard of Aaron,
running down on the collar of his robes!
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
life forevermore.
It reminded me of our Psalm yesterday, 128, in which Andy led us in a beautiful refrain:
The Lord bless you from ZionI'm still singing it. I shared with Andy (but forgot to share it in my sermon) that I thought it was a perfect example of what our homes can be like in the Lord. This song ever being sung, husbands blessing wives, wives blessing husbands; parents blessing children, children blessing parents; the Lord blessing the family, and the family blessing the Lord.
the Lord bless you from Zion
all the days of your life
all the days of your life...
This is what can be called the "economy of mutual blessing." The idea that the principle biblical narrative is God's desire to bless and be blessed - this was his original intention in creation, and the whole biblical story (including the exceedingly important, but technically subtheme of sin and redemption) is about God bringing about the consummation of what he began.
A cool, and also very difficult, part of the economy of mutual blessing is that it is designed to flow in relationships of "differentiation." That is, God and humans - different but blessing one another; men and women - different but blessing one another; one generation to the next - different but blessing one another... and a huge one in the biblical story, Jews and Gentiles - different but blessing one another (Genesis 12), pointing ultimately to Jesus the Jew of whom all people are called to bless: "blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
The Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life.
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