Further Up, Further In
Further Up, Further In
Lord, remember David and the oath that he swore from his throne/He said: “Why should the God of Jacob dwell in a tent while I’ve a palace of stone?/ No, I will not lay my head ’til my God has a place for His Spirit to rest!”/And so now within walls built my human hands, will You make Yourself a home?
Arise and come to us, Oh Lord our God/Inspire within our hearts this antiphon/”Come now in trust and in Spirit/Come worship our God where He is/Come further up, come further in”
Lord, for the sake of Your servant, remember the promise You made/You said, “If your sons keep my covenant, forevermore they shall reign”/Yes, light a lamp for David ’til all generations behold Your Anointed One/Lifted high upon Zion’s mountain bringing an upside down kingdom
Arise and come to us, Oh Lord our God/Inspire within our hearts this antiphon/”Come now in trust and in Spirit/Come worship our God where He is/Come further up, come further in”
We hear the music beckon to all who long to worship You/’Til not one was found within these sacred rooms/But now the chorus swells again for Your temple put on flesh/To seek out all those who could not enter in/So, let us follow Him/Further up and further in!!
Arise and come to us, Oh Lord our God/Inspire within our hearts this antiphon/”Come now in trust and in Spirit/Come worship our God where He is/Come further up, come further in”
So, this song is somewhat of a nerdy one. It is written from Psalm 132. Highly suggest you take a quick read! This psalm is a psalm of ascent. Jew would have sung it as they walked up to Jerusalem for their feasts. It is a Psalm commemorating David’s vow to the Lord to build Him a house, and the Lord’s returning covenant promise to build for David an everlasting house (of sorts…to build His family house). From David would come the promised Messiah. This Psalm also focuses on temple worship and God’s blessing to come to Zion’s mountain, the temple, Jerusalem, and all God’s people.
This Psalm is actually the first time I fell in love with how beautiful and interesting the Bible is. Verse 6 says, “We heard it in Ephrathah, we came upon it in the fields of Jaar.” What did they come upon? Words of praise calling God to visit His people and His people to worship their God in Jerusalem. Well, I found it interesting that Ephrathah is a region that I recognized: Bethelehem Ephrathah is the region David is from, and where our Savior was born. The fields of Jaar? This is where the house of Abinadab the priest was, where the ark was kept for a time? My mind was BLOWN when I realized their song called people from where the Presence of God was (the ark’s resting place before Jerusalem) and where the Presence of God would be (Jesus born in Bethlehem) to where the Presence of God is (at the that time, Jerusalem). Wow. [Side note: it also could be calling from where both the priestly line and kingly line where from and uniting them in Jerusalem, which Jesus also did. But like I said, super nerdy!]
However, that always blew my mind. I wanted to write a song about it, but it took a long time to take shape. And, it is hard to get that main idea across when in the current age of the New Covenant with no earthly temple – the Presence of our God is accessible all the time, to anyone who comes to Him through Jesus. Although, I think we could still stand to listen to the call to come into His Presence, because how often do we actually realize we have that privilege?
So my song became: “Inspire our hearts with this antiphon!” Antiphon is a song or a chant that is sung antiphonally, which means, call and response, or in a round. We want to continue to spur each other on to seek His Presence and come before Him. I believe that is also what the original song was doing when the Jews sang it on their way to Jerusalem – they were also beckoning the Lord to draw near.
The bridge speaks to Jesus. He is very evident in the Psalm, as the end references David’s descendent that will come triumphant and dwell in Zion. But, I have to imagine that for much of Jewish history, they were traveling to a Jerusalem where the temple was not in its former glory, it was occupied by enemies, or it was completely torn down. Where could the Jewish people go to encounter the Presence of the Lord?
When Jesus came, he said of Himself, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” He is the temple. He is the Presence of the Lord among us because he was fully divine. When love for the Father waned and the temple was full of false worship and there was none left to sing His praise, Jesus came and sought out His worshippers. Those in John 4 that he says “will worship Him in Spirit and in truth” and location doesn’t matter. We can follow His lead in what it looks like to worship the Father, anywhere.
To wrap up, I think we still have “somewhere to go” in our worship of God, it just may not be physically moving to another space! We have so much to learn about repentance and humility as well as what right exaltation of God looks like. So, hence the call to “come further up and further in.” Was that stolen from C.S. Lewis’s “The Last Battle”? Absolutely. But, they were also in search for the true Presence of their Savior.
There is a lot of layers there, but I hope it is nicely wrapped up in a song that shows Jesus to be the fulfillment of the Psalm!