"Three Meditations on Psalm 24"

      This morning's message is based upon Psalm 24, featured in the Easter section of Handel's Messiah. Meditations on the three main sections of Psalm 24 are placed into different spots in our worship service. Of all the psalms, Psalm 24 probably illustrates most clearly the fact that the psalms were used as the spoken part of cultic rituals. Through most of the Psalm, there is a series of questions and answers---a call and response---probably recited by pilgrims and priests.

KINGLY GOD

⁷ Lift up your heads, O you gates;
   be lifted up, you ancient doors,
   that the King of glory may come in.
⁸ Who is this King of glory?
   The LORD strong and mighty,
   the LORD mighty in battle.
⁹ Lift up your heads, O you gates;
   lift them up, you ancient doors,
   that the King of glory may come in.
¹⁰ Who is he, this King of glory?
   The LORD Almighty-
   he is the King of glory.
                     Selah

      The crowds mill and murmur outside one of Jerusalem's most imposing city gates. The adults are every bit as excited as the children! They've travelled a great distance, some of them. In the center of the crowd is a band of priests. In the middle of THEM, held high on long poles, is the dazzling golden Ark of the Covenant, the holiest object in all of Israel. Priests hold long poles thrust through rings mounted on the sides of the chest. No one dares touch it, not even the priests, for the Ark is holy; so holy, if they touch it, they will die.¹

      A ritual is about to be reenacted. Old and young alike recreate the moment when the Ark was brought into the

      city of Jerusalem by King David. Remember? There was dancing and music! There was even a sort of scandal---the King of Israel dancing in the streets.

      But back to the ritual---worship. In worship, the Lord is confessed as the God of creation. God brings about the renewal of the earth with the return of rainfall. The people reaffirm the ancient covenant enacted between Moses and God on Mount Sinai.

      And for us? Today? We worship God during the fall celebration of Christ the King. The long summer drought has broken a bit. Cool nights and brisk days greet us. We have enjoyed some welcome and nourishing rains. It's daylight savings time; we have gotten our warm sweaters out of the deep corners of our closets. A new year is about to begin. Our church calendars say, "it's time." Time is drawing near. It's time---today--- for the church's annual celebration of Christ the King. It's time to remind ourselves of the coming of the Christ and to reenact the waiting and the welcoming. It's time to celebrate God's Kingship as we move toward the Advent of God-With-Us. Next week it will be New Year's Day in the church (the first week of Advent). Soon it will be Christmas, when we remember God-With-Us, Immanuel.

      Time is drawing near. Let us worship God!

⁷ Wake up, you sleepyhead city!
   Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
      King-Glory is ready to enter.

⁸ Who is this King-Glory?
      GOD, armed
      and battle-ready.

⁹ Wake up, you sleepyhead city!
   Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
      King-Glory is ready to enter.

¹⁰ Who is this King-Glory?
    GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies:
    he is King-Glory.

HOLY GOD

³ Who may ascend the hill of the LORD?
   Who may stand in his holy place?

⁴ He who has clean hands and a pure heart,

who does not lift up his soul to an idol
   or swear by what is false. ⁵ He will receive blessing from the LORD
   and vindication from God his Savior.
⁶ Such is the generation of those who seek him,
   who seek your face, O God of Jacob. Selah

      Holy God, you are completely and utterly holy; completely and utterly different from us. Standing alone, we are unworthy to approach you. To go up to meet you on the mountain (as Moses did), to stand before you vulnerable and alone, frightens us. It shakes us to the core. We know, Lord, the old stories of how humans could not see your face and live. We know, Jesus, how we are not even worthy to fasten the strap of the sandal on your foot.

      We cannot approach you in our sinful state. So how? We know it is a fearful thing to approach you, Lord, and yet approach you we must. For we are drawn to you. We need you. We need your blessing, your healing, your holiness.

      Holy God, we are unworthy: we have to be made worthy. It is you who justifies us, you who makes us worthy, you who loves us despite all we have done to forsake your love.

      Who can come to you, Lord? Who can enter your sanctuary? Who can climb the holy mountain to stand before you?

      You, God, give us clean hands and pure hearts. The clean hands you mention aren't just about getting dirt out from under our fingernails. The clean hands you want reflect everything on our "outside": how we act toward others, how we meet you where we live; how we manage the temptations and challenges of life. And the pure hearts? Lord, that can be even more challenging, because that is everything on our "inside": all those things that go on in the privacy of our heads--- our secret longings, our silent thoughts, all the things we say to ourselves over and over again. Give us right thinking, Lord, the right kind of inward motivation; keep our faith strong and pure, help us do what is right and avoid what we know to be wrong.

      We know that clean hands (how we behave on the outside) and pure hearts (everything that goes on in the inside) go far beyond following rules.

      We prepare ourselves to receive you, God, in this time of worship and in this season of the year when our thoughts turn to the dying of the old to make way for the rising of the new. We know you call us again and again to meet you on the mountain, to live our lives in advent expectation.

CREATOR GOD

¹ The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
   the world, and all who live in it;
² for he founded it upon the seas
   and established it upon the waters.

      We get it---in no uncertain terms---God is in charge! God is Creator; God is source. When we hear how God founded the world upon the seas and established it upon the waters, we are reminded of Creation. God established boundaries of earth, sea, and sky. God created the world from nothing; God created order where there was no order.

      In the Ancient Near East, each culture had its own unique creation story. Creation was often depicted as a battle or a war. The Hebrew faith told a different story. There was no battle in the Hebrew account of creation, as we all know. The Hebrew God was very different, indeed.

      From the first time it set foot in the promised land, Israel had been in a religious tug-of-war with those who followed the gods of Canaan. Remember Baal? Baal was known for his victory over Yamm, the god of the primordial sea. Because of this, Baal was thought to have power over rain, lightning, and storm.

      So when the psalmist declares that Yahweh reigns over the seas and waters, everyone would have known this was a well-planned insult to the Canaanite god, Baal. Everyone would have known the Israelites were making a bold claim of the absolute #1 place of the one God, Yahweh.

      And when we hear all three synoptic gospel writers tell us how Jesus calmed the wind and waves, the storms on the Sea of Galilee, we know that everyone who heard these things knew exactly who this Jesus was: one and the same with Yahweh, the Creator God who established the world.

      Today we have heard all of Psalm 24. A psalm which tells us "Remember what God did in the past and get ready for what God has planned for the future! Open your gates for the good things God has in store for you! Get ready for Advent living, is clean living, joyful living, the very best of life."

      We are reminded as well of God's holiness. How blessed we are to get to share in even a smidgen of that holiness. How blessed we are to have a God who brings order out of chaos, without a battle, who can create something beautiful where there was once nothing. A God who so powerful that even in the storms and squalls of our lives, he is there to calm us, to pull us back into the boat, to quiet our storms, throw a blanket around our wet shoulders, and bring peace.