Notes from a Sojourn
May 21, 2020
Who is this King of glory?
A Sermon for The Ascension of the Lord (Psalm 24)
“Lift up your heads, O gates; lift them high, O everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in!” “Who is this King of glory?”
That’s the question the gatekeepers of the Jerusalem Temple ask the procession of religious pilgrims commanding admission to God’s dwelling place on Mount Zion.
Psalm 24 is a liturgy. It’s sometimes described as a “temple entry psalm” or a “psalm of ascent.” It’s a liturgy for pilgrims climbing mount Zion to enter God’s dwelling place, the temple – and like all liturgy, it invites participation through call-and-response of different actors with different roles and so it teaches important truths by enacting them dramatically.
The beginning of Psalm 24 starts with a question asked on behalf of the gathered pilgrims: “Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?” or “Who can approach the dwelling place of God?” A priestly group among them responds didactically: “A person whose actions and motives are pure and who does not swear loyalty to falsehood.” In other words, anyone who endeavours to be loyal to the truth and to integrate their life around it.
Then a promise is given to the pilgrims: those who approach God’s dwelling place with integrity of heart and action will receive this blessing: God’s righteousness. Once these pilgrims are figuratively ‘clothed’ in the gift of God’s righteousness, they can enter the temple to worship without fear or insecurity because they worship as God’s beloved children, secure in the faithfulness of God’s love and goodness.
It’s a beautiful psalm. But what does it have to do with the ascension of Jesus?
Since the day Jesus was resurrected from the dead, we Christians have always read backwards into the Hebrew scriptures to discover stories and symbols that can help us appropriate and make sense of our experiences of the Risen Jesus and his Spirit at work in our lives.
Be it Peter in Jerusalem re-interpreting a psalm to make sense of God’s Spirit poured out at Pentecost (as Patrick spoke about a few weeks ago); or Paul explaining Jesus’ life as a fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham to believers in Rome; or Jesus himself interpreting the meaning of his life through the writings of Moses, the prophets, and the wisdom teachers of Israel on the road to Emmaus on Easter Day, the meaning and significance of our Christian experiences – including Jesus’ ascension – are illuminated through ancient texts.
Texts like Psalm 24.
For example, an African Christian named Cyril of Alexandria (an outstanding theologian and communicator of Christian theology in the 4th and early 5th centuries) found Psalm 24 to be particularly illuminating for his understanding the significance of Jesus’ ascension.
Based on his personal experience of the Risen Jesus, and using his theological education and inspired imagination, Cyril re-imagines the ascent of ancient pilgrims up Mt. Zion to enter the Temple as the ascent of Jesus, the Son of Man, to enter the eternity that is God’s dwelling place.
I’ll quote Cyril at some length:
“For [until Christ’s ascension,] heaven was…completely inaccessible to us – human foot had never trodden that pure and holy country of the angels. It was Christ who first prepared the way for our ascent there. By offering himself to God the Father as the first fruits of all who are dead and buried, he gave us a way of entry into heaven and was himself the first human being the inhabitants of heaven ever saw. The angels in heaven, knowing nothing of the sacred and profound mystery of the incarnation, were astonished at his coming and almost thrown into confusion by an event so strange and unheard of. Who is this coming from [the earth?] they asked…But the Spirit did not leave the heavenly throng ignorant of the wonderful wisdom of God the Father. Commanding them to open the gates of heaven in honour of the King and Master of the universe, he cried out: Lift up your gates, you princes, and be lifted up you everlasting doors, that the king of glory may come in…”
Cyril imagines that until Christ’s ascension, the heavenly creatures, like us, do not recognize the full implication and strangeness of the mystery of Incarnation and Paschal Mystery: a human being ascending into the dwelling place of God? Can this be right? Hasn’t the unfaithfulness of humanity excluded it from ascending this ‘holy hill’ to share in God’s eternal life?
And, so, Cyril goes on to say this,
“Now the Word [of God], who has never before been clothed in human nature, has ascended as a [human] to show himself in a strange and unfamiliar fashion. And he has done this on our account and in our name, so that being like us…he might transmit to all of us the glory of being children of God.”[1]
This is the promise given to the pilgrims of Zion in Psalm 24, yet now it’s realized even more fully! Anyone who endeavours to integrate their life around the truth of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, will be given this blessing: God’s righteousness, which is Jesus Christ in us, the Word of God personified! As it was with those first witnesses to the resurrected Jesus, my witness and yours to the truth of Christ expressed in our hearts and actions will be answered by God with a gift: the gift of Jesus’ righteousness. Clothed in him any of us can enter God’s holy mountain, to worship God without fear, secure in the righteousness of Christ’s faith in us.
The Ascension of the Lord is not about Jesus disappearing into the ether and leaving us stranded ‘holding the bag’, so to speak, weighed down by the impossible task of imitating him ‘til Kingdom Come. Not only is that bleak, but it misses the point.
The Ascension of the Lord is about Jesus, the Word of God who has taken on the fullness of your human nature in every respect, bringing your humanity and mine into the very heart of God’s life for eternity.
Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?
Who can dwell in the eternity of God’s life?
Any one of us whose heart and actions are integrated around the mystery of God’s reckless love for us revealed in Christ’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and coming again in glory in order that where he is, we may be also.
The promise underwritten by Christ’s ascension is that your life and mine is secured in the eternity of God’s life through faith in the risen and ascended Jesus who carries it into the very heart of God. And, by faith in this promise, you and I are free to live this life without fear, bold in our proclamation of this Easter Gospel, and confident that the gift of Christ’s righteousness makes up for anything we lack whenever we seek God’s presence through him.
Colin+
[1] St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John, 9: Patrologia Graeca 74, ed. J.P. Migne (Paris, 1857-58), 182-3 from Celebrating Sundays: Reflections from the Early Church on the Sunday Gospels, compiled and introduced by Stephen Holmes (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2012), 157-58.
