Sermon Text: Psalm 24
Date: April 2, 2023
Event: Palm Sunday (The Sixth Sunday in Lent), Year A
Psalm 24 (EHV)
By David. A psalm.
1The earth is the LORD’s and everything that fills it,
the world and all who live in it,
2because he founded it on the seas,
and he established it on the rivers.
3Who may go up to the mountain of the LORD?
Who may stand in his holy place?
4He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
whose soul is not set on what is false, who does not swear deceitfully.
5He will receive blessing from the LORD
and righteousness from the God who saves him.
6Such are the people of Jacob who look for the LORD,
who seek your face.
7Lift up your heads, you gates.
Lift yourselves up, you ancient doors,
and the King of Glory will come in.
8Who is this King of Glory?
The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle.
9Lift up your heads, you gates. Lift up, you ancient doors,
and the King of Glory will come in.
10Who is he, this King of Glory?
The LORD of Armies—he is the King of Glory.
Here Comes the King of Glory!
When I was younger, I can remember the wait that never seemed to end when company was on the way, especially grandparents. Sitting by the window, continually checking the driveway. Every car that went down the street, wondering, “Is that them? Did they get a new car?” Sadly, no; Grandma was never driving the giant pickup truck or the tricked-out sports car that both made enough noise to alert the whole neighborhood of the vehicle’s presence.
That feeling of waiting, of anticipation, is both stressful and wonderful. This morning on Palm Sunday, we have a lot of anticipation. Jesus’ arrival into Jerusalem brings a lot of thoughts and feelings. We’re anticipating the events of Holy Week that will resonate in the coming days; we’re looking forward to celebrating the victory that we know is coming; but we’re also looking forward to the true, final arrival of our King of Glory. So, this morning, let’s lift up our heads and pour our anticipation into meditation on Psalm 24.
It's not exactly clear when David wrote Psalm 24 or for what occasion. Some have theorized that it was for when the Ark of the Covenant came to the city of Jerusalem. Perhaps it was a psalm written with the idea that it would be used at the dedication of the temple when his son, Solomon, completed that project. Perhaps it didn’t have such a specific purpose as much as it was meant to celebrate God’s goodness, promises, and faithfulness to his people.
Regardless of the original purpose or idea behind it, the points made in the psalm are clear. David begins with a reminder of why we matter at all to God: The earth is the LORD’s and everything that fills it, the world and all who live in it, because he founded it on the seas, and he established it on the rivers. Why do we matter to the Lord? Because we are his dear creation. We are the people he made. As we’ve seen in our Bible study on Sunday mornings, human beings were created not just as part of the creation, but as the creation’s crown. More than the plants and animals, more than the mountains and rivers and oceans, and even more than the angels themselves, God created human beings as the most important part of creation and tasked us with taking care of it. You are important to God because he made you and you belong to him. And in a special way that goes beyond anything else in nature. As Jesus once observed comparing God’s care for us to his care for the rest of the world: “You are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:31).
This special status is something we do well to treasure and value. You are not an afterthought to God; you are his dear one! What great love he has for us!
David continues: Who may go up to the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, whose soul is not set on what is false, who does not swear deceitfully. And now we’re into something that might cause us some trouble and heartache. Who can approach God? Who can be with him? The person who has clean hands and a pure heart, whose soul is not set on what is false. If that isn’t the polar opposite of my life, I don’t know what is. My hands are filthy with sin; rebellion drips from my heart like a crude oil spill. Intentionally or unintentionally, I seek my own good or my own desires, even if it means trampling on others. I cling to lies that I want to believe about myself and others. I do not want to consider my sin.
If you are honest, you’ll see yourself that way too. None of us are the people God expects us to be or who he created us to be. We have fallen impossibly short of his standard of perfection. Thus, to apply David’s reasoning we are to be excluded from those who can go up to the mountain of the Lord and stand in his holy place. Our sin separates us from God, and we can’t do anything about it.
Thankfully, David doesn’t stop there: He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God who saves him. Such are the people of Jacob who look for the LORD, who seek your face. Notice the preconceived notion here: the one who has clean hands and a pure heart is the one who will receive blessings from the Lord. But this same God is the one who gives righteousness, who saves him. When David spoke of people with clean hands and pure hearts, he wasn’t talking about people who could make that claim on their own. David knew as well as you and I that earning that, deserving that on our own, is an impossibility for every human being because every human being born since the Adam and Eve’s fall into sin has been born in sin. We all start out disqualified.
But though our sin separated us from God and ruined our relationship with him, God gave us his righteousness, a proper relationship with him. God, when he saved us, took away those sins and nailed them to the cross. We who were so unworthy to approach God are now worthy because God has washed our hands and purified our hearts. God makes us worthy to stand before him, to have a relationship with him, not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus did for us, for Jesus is truly the LORD who gives blessing and righteousness, the God who saves us.
So, this morning, we stand with the crowd on the road as Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey. We join our voices in shouting, “Hosanna!”, a Hebrew word of praise that means, “Save us, please!” We wave palm branches, the ancient symbol of victory, as this King enters the city. Lift up your heads, you gates. Lift yourselves up, you ancient doors, and the King of Glory will come in. Who is this King of Glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, you gates. Lift up, you ancient doors, and the King of Glory will come in. Who is he, this King of Glory? The LORD of Armies—he is the King of Glory.
The King of Glory is the promised Messiah. The King of Glory is the covenant God of the Old Testament, Yahweh, or in our English Bibles, the all-capital-letters LORD. The King of the Glory is the one who promised to save us from sin and death. The King of Glory is one who did just that.
As we journey into this Holy Week, we will see the King of Glory do everything you and I needed him to do to save us from our sins. He enters amid shouts of praise, but the cries of “Crucify!” that people will shout later will be the nauseating way in which God rescues us. Because the King of Glory comes—to die. The gates receive him, only to see him leave their protection carrying a cross. Before this week is over, it will not be the gates of Jerusalem welcoming Jesus, but it will be the rough opening of a cave tomb that will receive his lifeless body. The King of Glory will look defeated, but we will hear from his own lips that this death means that his work is finished.
Because this is how you and I are washed and purified—not with soap and water but with the very blood of the King of Glory. His glory is not in his outward show of power, but in his self-sacrificing love that saved us. His glory is in paying for the sins of the whole world, including you and me. His glory is in his humility that he endured so that you and I would be exalted.
Holy Week will be a roller coaster. We will delight in the intimacy of Maundy Thursday—“this is my body… this is my blood… love one another.” We will struggle with greatly mixed emotions on that horrendous Friday that we dare to call “good” because we know that despite the horrid brutality of his suffering and death, there will be Jesus’ love for us as clear as it can be. There will be our victory in what appears to be his defeat. And then, a week from today, we will gather again, not in sorrow and anguish over the death of our Savior, but in shouts of praise that outshine the Palm Sunday shouts of “Hosanna!” more than the sun outshines the moon. On Palm Sunday, the praise is a request for the King of Glory to save us. On Easter? It will be praise and thanks that he did just that.
My dear brothers and sisters, here comes the King of Glory! Let’s follow him through this week to see what our sins cost him, a price he willingly paid. The King of Glory will triumph. The King of Glory will bring us into his glory forever. Amen.
