The Best of All Consolations

O Lord of hosts, happy is everyone who trusts in you.

✙ Ps 84:12 ✙ 

Calvin's interpretation of this final verse of one of the most beautiful of the psalms is quite elegant. Referring to the psalmist, he states that it...

"seems to refer to the season of his banishment. He had previously described the blessedness of those who dwell in the courts of the Lord, and now he avows, that although he was for a time deprived of that privilege, he was far from being altogether miserable, because he was supported by the best of all consolations, that which arose from beholding from a distance the grace of God. This is an example well worthy of special attention. So long as we are deprived of God’s benefits, we must necessarily groan and be sad in heart. But, that the sense of our distresses may not overwhelm us, we ought to impress it upon our minds, that even in the midst of our calamities we do not cease to be happy, when faith and patience are in exercise."

In a way, Calvin here connects one theme of Psalm 84 to much of the rest of the psalter: Even when the church is not directly experience the salvation of God, remembering it is itself sacramental—it makes real that which once seemed far away. Is it any wonder that remembering is at the heart of Christianity? “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Help me, even in the season of despair, to behold your grace from afar and acknowledge your goodness. For I trust that, though weeping tarries for a night, joy comes with the morning. In the Name of him who died and rose again, even Jesus Christ who taught me to pray: Our Father...