In a sermon, our pastor taught how David, in Psalm 133, illustrates (“oil, dew”) a sensory experience of worship in community. There is imagery (not idolatry) in worship together. Do you know the source of this biblical image? Or what it may illustrate?

A pastor friend once observed that New Testament worship is not as sensory as Old Testament worship: roasting sacrificial lambs at the tabernacle or temple was like experiencing aromas during a visit to a barbecue.

The imagery of communal worship, as visual illustrations, do not promote the veneration of religious images (icons or idols). *

* The Byzantine church had an icon controversy (7h - 8th centuries). Both the Puritans (16th - 17th centuries) and Presbyterians warn that “smells, bells, visuals” can distract or become idolatry. But there’s an appropriate decorum in our communal public worship. Our senses are engaged. Even “low church” Protestants note: in the Lord’s Supper, we “taste and see” that the Lord is good. In both sacraments, God applies to our lives the accomplished redemption of Jesus. There is no more bloodshed, but our experience is savory, sensory, and visual.

In a vision of the future temple, Ezekiel (41:17-20) saw carved images of cherubim and palm trees. Each cherub had a man’s face toward one palm tree, and a young lion’s face toward the next. These alternated around the whole temple.

My musing (not an infallible interpretation): in worship we encounter God’s presence (in the “lion of Judah”) but we must also face our own perilous human condition. But, in Christ, God offers a life-giving oasis. We face God but must also face ourselves.

Malcolm Muggeridge once observed to William F. Buckley Jr.: “Think of the steeple and the gargoyle. The steeple is this beautiful thing reaching up into the sky admitting, as it were, its own inadequacy — attempting something utterly impossible — to climb up to heaven through a steeple. The gargoyle is this little man grinning and laughing at the absurd behavior of men on earth, and these two things both built into this building to the glory of God.”

May we savor worship together as the community of Jesus.