"Pilgrimage to the True Temple" Psalm 122

Father, we thank you that we can open your word in peace and security.

Lord, the danger for us isn't persecution from outside, but it is a cold and apathetic heart.

! Lord, we pray that by your Holy Spirit you will enliven our hearts, that we may hear with spiritual ears,

that we would submit to your word with joy and gladness.

Lord, please remind us afresh this morning that you are with us.

You are the God that is close.

You desire to make your home with your people, and you have done so in your Son.

We pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Every religion has its sacred places and holy cities.

Islam requires followers to perform the Hajj in Mecca.

The Hindu pilgrims visit Varanasi and the River Ganges.

Buddhists travel to a location where the Buddha attained enlightenment.

Golfers go to St. Andrews in Scotland.

Why do people travel to these sites?

Is there a heightened sense of spirituality involved?

If you've been on a pilgrimage, I'd love to hear your story afterwards.

Is there an aura that is felt?

What's the significance of holy places?

And what does there, what seems to be universality in the human tradition,

reveal to us about our need to connect with the divine?

We're continuing our series in the Psalms.

This summer, we're looking at the Psalms of Ascent.

And we'll be looking at Psalm 122 this morning,

the psalm that celebrates the holy city of Jerusalem and the house of the Lord,

which was at its center.

It was the place of worship for God's people where they would gather.

I mean, the Psalms of Ascent, they're a series of pilgrimage psalms

where the people three times a year would travel to Jerusalem.

It was the place where joy and gladness and peace were experienced.

It was a place where God's glory and presence dwelt.

However, the temple and much of Jerusalem was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago in AD 70.

What's interesting is today is on the Hebrew calendar the 17th of Tammuz.

And it is recognized in the Jewish world as a day of mourning.

Why?

Because it is the day, among other catastrophes that happened to the Jewish nation,

but it's the day that the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Romans.

The temple doesn't exist anymore.

The history of Jerusalem has really seen that city lie in ruins.

It's been a battleground.

It has not been this city of peace,

the city of safety, what we'll read about, what has been read.

And yet, this psalm still remains God's word.

With the destruction of Jerusalem, God's word didn't somehow get nullified.

This is still God's word.

So we need to ask the question,

what is the significance of Jerusalem today for the Christian church?

And does this psalm offer any insight into why pilgrimage to sacred sites

is such a widespread human journey,

a thing that humans practice?

Put forward to you that the human heart seeks holy places.

Why?

Because we want to experience something of transcendence

here in this temporal, earthly life.

To find a place where the veil between heaven and earth

is as thin as possible.

A way that we can connect with the divine.

But will one find the same transcendence in Mecca and the river Ganges,

or St. Andrews for that matter,

as they would in Jerusalem?

The passage, Psalm 122,

will help us understand that the proper way

to connect with the divine,

to connect with God,

to seek Him out,

so that He will be found,

is through worship.

And specifically,

not any kind of worship that we engage in,

that we see fit,

but worship that God commands.

And this worship

has a necessity of God's presence involved,

has the requirement of unity involved,

and it has the longing for not just the earthly Jerusalem,

but the new Jerusalem to come.

So we'll jump right into the text this morning,

verses 1 and 2.

A song of a sense of David.

I was glad when they said to me,

Let us go to the house of the Lord.

Our feet have been standing within your gates,

O Jerusalem.

These two opening verses,

they're really almost like a love letter to the city.

David, he loves Jerusalem.

Not because it's beautiful,

not because of its gates or walls or towers,

but because he longs to be where God's presence dwells.

The word here for gladness,

I was glad when they said to me,

it's the same root word that is used

to greet one another at a high holiday.

It is a term that conveys a happiness,

a joyous and merriment,

a feeling of delight and of peace and of wholeness.

And it's very fitting because,

as I mentioned before,

the psalm and the psalms of ascent,

they were the hymns sung by the Israelites

as they ascended up to Mount Zion,

to Jerusalem,

so that they could worship the Lord

in the high holidays.

But there's more at stake here

than just a greeting during a holiday.

It is a sincere response to the promises made by God

that he has saved the people from slavery.

And not just Egyptian slavery,

but the slavery of death,

the slavery of sin,

so that they can dwell with him

and he with them.

So really what's at the heart of this

is this faith

that God is going to keep his promise.

And what is the promise?

Of his very presence.

That he would dwell amongst his people.

And that he would welcome his people

into his presence when they worship.

The temple and the tabernacle before it

were the places where God made his presence known.

And it's not to say that

God is limited to a specific locale.

God is everywhere.

He has made everything.

He is the creator,

the uncreated creator.

He is not limited to a spatial boundary like we are.

Yet he has made his home with his people.

He drew close.

He initiated this relationship,

this closeness.

Jerusalem is the place where God dwells.

And it is therefore the city of joy in worship.

And we see these in these opening verses.

It reflects this reality.

It says something to us

that is very important about worship.

That God's presence is indispensable.

To godly worship.

And this isn't, by the way, of saying

I need to feel goosebumps when I come to church.

I need to feel something.

Rather, it is this act of faith

so that when God says that he dwells

upon the praises of his people,

that he actually dwells upon the praises of his people.

Whether or not we have a spiritual experience or not.

That God is present when we are worshiping him

in the way in which he commanded us to worship.

That he is with us.

You know, I wonder if the pursuit of greatness in sport or in business,

the amassing of power,

the pursuit of pleasure,

I wonder if this is simply a misguided impulse to connect with God.

To be in his presence or something similar

so that we make ourselves large as possible

so that God would notice us.

We get as much power as we can attain

so that we would be worthy of being in his presence.

significance, attractiveness, strength.

The pursuit of this at,

in a way that goes above and beyond a regular,

good, healthy pursuit of good and godly gifts.

I wonder if it is not this cry to be in God's presence,

but in a very misguided way.

And yet such a pursuit apart from God,

it's a type of pilgrimage,

but it is a false type of pilgrimage.

It is not a pilgrimage up to Jerusalem where God's presence is,

but it is a pilgrimage towards a false Jerusalem,

a pseudo-Jerusalem,

a Jerusalem that does not have God at its center,

a Jerusalem that is not a holy city.

We want the benefits of Jerusalem.

We want the joy and the peace

and the prosperity that comes with connecting with God,

and yet we want to do so without him.

At the core of that sentiment

is what the Bible calls false worship.

The worship of a God either fashioned in our own image

and likeness,

or the worship of the true God in a false way.

The Bible is full of examples

of both of these kinds of false worships.

Friends, worship without God's presence

will lead not to happiness and joy,

but to emptiness and bitterness,

because the joy that one seeks

will not be found.

There will be an absence of joy,

an absence of peace,

because we are separated from the source of such joy,

such peace, such love.

And will also lead us to a separation from each other,

because worship is always this group activity.

You'll notice in verses 1 and 2,

there's a plurality of worshipers.

They said,

let us,

our feet.

The worship of God is a communal act

that unites otherwise divided

and even warring tribes.

So lead us to the second point

about what true worship is,

that it requires unity.

It requires God's people to come together.

Let me read verses 3 to 5.

Jerusalem,

built as a city that is bound firmly together

to which the tribes go up,

the tribes of the Lord,

as was decreed for Israel,

to give thanks to the name of the Lord.

Their thrones for judgment were set,

the thrones of the house of David.

Jerusalem is envisioned as a city that is secure,

that is unified,

and that is just.

It's governed by a divine and just king.

David's throne all throughout the Old Testament

and into the New Testament,

these themes are picked up,

that this is not just a temporal earthly throne,

but a throne that will never fade.

It is also the place that is governed

by devoted and godly priests.

So in verse 4,

the tribes go up,

the tribes of the Lord go up,

as was decreed for Israel to give thanks to the name of the Lord.

They're entering into temple worship.

It is a place where thanksgiving and worship can flourish,

and as a result,

a separated and warring people

gather around the one true God,

and they find unity.

In worship,

God's people begin moving towards unity,

not away from it.

We observe this in the progression of verse 4 and 5.

If you look at 4 and 5,

the tribes go up,

the tribes of the Lord go up,

now they're defined by the Lord in his covenantal name,

and then finally the singular term Israel is used

to describe the 12 tribes

and almost certainly foreigners

that have gone to Jerusalem to worship.

There is a movement towards unity,

towards connection to one another.

This is a unity that is not just around some kind of an idea

that isn't really defined,

but rather around a person,

a shared purpose and a shared citizenship.

If you worship the Lord,

if you are called according to his name,

you respond by faith,

then he calls you his own.

You are part of the spiritual people of Israel.

Israel.

They become family

because they share the same Father.

So as we worship the Lord,

we are gathered together

and we are united as a body.

And this doesn't mean, by the way,

that there's uniformity in everything.

There's space for style and tradition,

customs, language

that reflect regional and cultural expressions.

I heard it said beautifully

that at its best,

denominations,

they are like waves in the ocean.

You can see them distinctly,

but they are a part of the same body of water.

It's a beautiful thing.

However,

however,

it's problematic when the church

engages in disputes among ourselves

and even worse,

when such issues remain unresolved.

And all of a sudden,

all of a sudden,

there isn't one church of Christ,

but there are many different churches of Christ.

Which isn't a biblical concept at all.

In fact, it's an affront to what Christ has done

upon the cross.

There wasn't multiple Israels.

There was one Israel.

There were many tribes.

The tribes,

the 12 tribes,

they weren't dissolved.

But there was one Israel,

likewise for us in the church.

But when that is,

when that doesn't happen,

it becomes very problematic.

Quite possibly,

the holiest site in the Christian tradition

is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

If you've been to Jerusalem on a walk

or a Holy Land tour,

you have for sure

have gone to this church.

It is the traditional site of Golgotha

where Jesus was crucified,

but also the place where he was buried.

So there is an empty tomb there,

hewn out of rock,

but it is empty.

The church dates back to the 4th century

and has been occupied

by six different traditions.

The Roman Catholics,

the Greek Orthodox,

the Armenian Orthodox,

the Ethiopian Orthodox,

the Coptic Orthodox,

and the Syriac Orthodox.

And these groups have rarely enjoyed peace.

One church,

literally one church,

six different traditions

and a ton of disagreement.

Unresolved issues.

To the shame of the church

and because there is one church

and they are a part of this church,

it's a shame that rests on us

so that the keys of the church

of the Holy Sepulcher,

they are held in trust

by an Arab Muslim family.

Not a Christian family,

but an Arab Muslim family.

There's also the infamous

Immovable Ladder,

if you've heard of the Immovable Ladder.

Worth a quick Google search.

It's a ladder that sits,

if you go to the front entrance

of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,

right above the entrance

of the second story,

there's a ladder

with like eight rungs,

like it's an actual ladder

that is tilted up against a window.

It's been there for some 300 years.

It can't be moved

because there's no agreement

on what to do with it,

where to put it.

It's also become a bit of

a tourist attraction.

But during a pilgrimage

to Jerusalem in the 60s,

Pope Paul VI,

I think very aptly described it

as a viable symbol

of Christian division.

Why has the Christian Church

struggled so mightily

with unity?

There's countless pages

written about it,

historical and political reasons,

but I would argue

that the Church

consistently struggles

with remembering

their true purpose,

that it is worship.

It's to give thanks

to the name of the Lord.

It's not primarily,

actually,

to be unified,

although that is clearly

present in this text

in an indispensable part

of what it means

to be a part of the Church

as we worship the Lord.

Nor is it to become prosperous,

but the primary function

of the Church

is to worship the Lord,

to lift up His name,

to praise Him

for who He is

and what He has done.

The primary goal

of the Church

is worship.

And who is our prize?

What is our ultimate goal?

It is God Himself.

When that fails to be

the focus,

we get an immovable ladder.

We get disagreements,

we get splintering,

we get schism.

And it's not an easy fix,

okay?

I'm not suggesting

it's an easy fix.

Centuries and centuries,

very, very smart,

godly people

tried to navigate this.

The Church is still divided,

okay?

I'm not suggesting

it's a simple fix,

but what it requires

is this pursuit

of worship

where Christ

is the prize.

Not power,

not money,

not fame,

not to say,

hey,

we are the true tradition.

It's not that

we're trying to find

the lowest common denominator,

okay?

But it is about

valuing Christ above all.

This is an important part

of our consideration,

especially when we examine

how the pagan world

surrounding ancient Israel

approached worship.

See,

if the godly,

biblical vision

of worship,

what we see in Psalm 122

is to pilgrim

towards the holy city

so that we can

worship the Lord,

so that we can gain Him,

then pagan worship

is the opposite.

It is a type of worship

that means to secure prosperity,

status,

victory,

fertility,

crops.

Worship served

as the way to achieve

one's desires

and one's goals.

Make a sacrifice,

pour out libations,

receive from the gods

because now they owe you,

okay?

They're in your debt.

Similar to the Jerusalem of old,

this biblical vision

of the church

is not always fulfilled.

Sometimes we find ourselves

practicing

the Christian faith

in pagan ways,

okay?

We cry out to the Lord

in worship

and then when things

fail to add up

the way we want it to,

we say,

but I did all this for you.

And it is fine

to ask the Lord,

of course,

we bring our requests

to Him,

but when we fail

to see that the prize

is Him,

okay,

the prize is Him

above all

and we start to see

that,

in fact,

no, no, no,

we want His creation

more than Him,

the Creator,

that's when things

start to unravel.

Therefore,

we must constantly

and continually pray

for the peace

of the church

and look forward

to the return of Christ

when He will come

to judge the living

and the dead

and the new Jerusalem

will be realized.

This will bring us

to our third

and final point,

verses 6 to 9.

Read with me.

Pray for the peace

of Jerusalem.

May they be secure

who love you.

Peace be within your walls

and security

within your towers.

For my brothers

and companions' sake,

I will say,

peace be within you.

For the sake

of the house

of the Lord our God,

I will seek your good.

If you have been

at church for a while,

a bit of a student

of the Bible,

it is difficult

to read these four verses

without thinking

about the prayer

of Christ over Jerusalem

before His passion.

This is what He says

from Matthew 23,

Matthew 23:37–39

verses 37 to 39.

He says,

O Jerusalem,

Jerusalem,

Jerusalem,

the city that kills

the prophets

and stones those

who are sent to it.

How often would I have

gathered your children

together as a hen

gathers her brood

under her wings?

And you were not willing.

See,

your house is left

to you desolate,

for I tell you,

you will not see me again

until you say,

Blessed is he

who comes in the name

of the Lord.

Jerusalem has never fully

fulfilled its calling.

It ultimately rejected

the Prince of Peace.

Therefore,

interpreting this solely

as a call to pray

for the physical city's peace,

the city that exists today

in the capital of Israel,

the state of Israel,

it misses the deeper point.

And I'll just say,

pray for Israel.

Pray for Jerusalem.

Pray for it.

It's a contentious place.

Pray for it.

It's a good thing to do.

But the call here

is to pray for the peace

of Jerusalem

that fundamentally looks

towards the Messiah,

the one whom the ideal

of Jerusalem

and the temple foreshadows.

In fact,

all of the events

and the rituals

and the traditions

and the ceremonies

of the Old Testament,

they are merely shadows

of the shadows.

And the thing with shadows,

right,

and you see this a lot

in movies,

the shadow,

you see the shadow

and you see the outline

of the person,

especially if they're scary,

like Batman to the villain,

you see his little ears

or Darth Vader,

you see kind of the shape

of his mask,

but you don't see the details.

You know what it looks like,

what it,

the height,

the size,

but shadows,

they are just to prepare us

that something is coming,

someone is coming.

They are designed

to prepare God's people

to long for

and recognize

the Messiah

when he comes.

So as we pray

for the peace of Jerusalem,

pray that God's kingdom

will come on earth

as it is in heaven.

Pray for Christ's return

so that the new Jerusalem

will come in glory.

This new Jerusalem,

that it is

the culmination

of our hopes

and longings,

a place where

there is no tears

of sadness,

there is no cancer,

there is no

infant mortality,

there is no heartache,

there is no cheating

or stealing,

it is the place

where God dwells

amongst his people

in perfection.

Everything that

the Jerusalem of Psalm

122 points towards,

this is it,

but exponentially better.

There's also a prayer

that Christ's church

will be a blessing,

that Christ's church

will be outward facing

towards Christ in worship

and towards the world

in service.

That's what we see here

in chapter 22,

verses 6 to 9,

especially verses 8 to 9.

For my brothers

and companions' sake,

I will say,

peace be within you.

For the sake

of the house

of our Lord,

that is to say,

worshiping God,

I will seek your good.

this is something

we need to hear.

The Jerusalem of the Bible

murdered her prophets

and crucified her Messiah

and was raised to the ground

because of it.

And likewise,

when a church turns

from the Prince of Peace,

it will cease

to be a church.

I mean,

God will have mercy

upon his church,

but for a time,

think about

Christ's words

to the church

in Ephesus

in Revelation chapter 2.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

We can overlook

our calling in many ways.

We can get distracted,

but let me share

one example

that I think resonates

deeply with us today.

How we have this

problem with

commodifying the holy.

We live in 2025,

80 years after

the end of the

Second World War.

I was reflecting on this,

how post-war

technology has

absolutely boomed

consumerism.

It has been developed.

Legislation and regulations

exist to promote

consumerism.

I was thinking about this

because both sets

of my grandparents

were born before the war

and both sets

grew up without

running water

or toilets

in their house.

It's crazy.

And then within a generation,

they're driving cars

and washing

their clothes

in a washing machine.

It's wild,

the change

that has happened,

especially post-war.

But this is how to,

by the way,

I think it's great,

okay,

that it takes us

like five minutes

to do the laundry.

Okay, wonderful.

No hit against that.

But what's happened

is that we have developed

a consumeristic mindset

and we can't kind of

partition different parts

of our body

and our experience.

We are whole people

so that if we are consumers

in one area,

it's really hard not

to be consumers

in another area.

And as such,

the church

has become something

we consume.

And this is very problematic

because what do we do

with things that we consume?

We consume them

and then we move on.

We look for other things,

tastier things,

bigger things,

nicer things,

shinier things.

But the church

is not to be consumed.

The church is a place,

it was created

by Christ Jesus himself

because he spilt

his blood

for her.

This is a privilege

to be a part of the church,

to serve the church.

And that's not to say

that there's not going to be

issues and difficulties,

but at its core,

it is the place

where God dwells.

The church

becomes a type

of the temple

that God dwells

amongst us.

Right now,

here,

in this gym,

that is a sacred space

for us.

Christ is amongst us.

It'll be a part

of our communion liturgy.

Whether you feel it or not,

this is our reality.

This is not the mentality

that we should have

in treating the church

in a consumeristic way.

And when we do so,

we fail to worship the Lord

as he has asked us to,

and we fail to bless

those around us.

There are people

in the New Testament

that they commodified

the holy,

and Jesus turned over

their tables

and he called them

very, very mean

but very true names.

Let us take this

as a warning.

Let us not commodify

the holy.

I'll end with this.

All of humanity

is on a pilgrimage.

We seek to reach

a place of profound peace

with green fields

and gentle breezes.

We desire satisfaction,

belonging,

joy,

good order,

laughter,

delight,

friendship,

and connection.

So in a sense,

whether it's Elysium

or Nirvana

or Paradise,

it's still that same

human impulse,

okay,

to touch the divine.

we want this

not just for a moment

but forever

with the one

who created it all.

But here's the rub.

We don't know

where such a place is

and so we have no idea

where to travel towards

or how to travel

there to begin with.

And still,

we keep moving.

We keep pursuing

this ultimate goal,

but because we are

off course,

we become confused pilgrims.

Like I said before,

we create

and travel towards

pseudo-Jerusalem's

and false temples.

We make sacrifices

that at their core

are selfish.

Our souls are turbulent

messes.

We are left confused

and bewildered

and we become

atomized,

consumeristic,

and tribal.

But there is hope

for Christ Jesus

who pilgrimed

himself to Jerusalem

not to worship

at the temple

with a sacrifice

to offer

but rather

to offer himself

as the sacrifice,

the true and living

temple

where God's presence

dwelt amongst

his people.

John 1 says

that Christ

tabernacled

amongst us

the word made flesh.

It's the same word

that describes

the temple

that the Israelites

sorry,

the tent of meeting

that the Israelites

erected

and brought with them

throughout the desert.

It is

the picture

of God's presence

and that is

who Christ is.

And through him

the church would be born,

God's spirit

would dwell

with his people

forever.

It means we have

a clear pathway

to the new Jerusalem.

That celestial city

where the gates

will forever be opened,

and joys

will last forever

and where the sun

will no longer

be needed for light

as the very light

of God's presence

will illuminate us all.

This is the Christian hope.

There's nothing else

besides it.

This marks

Christ's kingdom

coming on earth

as it is in heaven.

So let's close

with the words

from the author

of the Hebrews

Hebrews 12:22–24

chapter 12

verse 22

to 24.

But you have come

to Mount Zion

and to the city

of the living God,

the heavenly Jerusalem,

and to innumerable angels

in festal gathering,

and to the assembly

of the firstborn

who are enrolled

in heaven,

and to God,

the judge of all,

and to the spirits

of the righteous

made perfect,

and to Jesus,

the mediator

of a new covenant,

and to the sprinkled blood

that speaks a better word

than the blood of Abel.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father,

we thank you

for Jerusalem.

We thank you

for the earthly Jerusalem

that exists today,

that so many cities

have come

and disappeared.

The Jerusalem

of the Bible

still exists,

but Lord,

we thank you

more so

for your son,

for he is

our Jerusalem.

He is

the place

where he,

the one we pilgrim

towards.

He is our prize.

He is also

the temple.

Lord,

we thank you

that he has

tabernacled amongst us,

made his home

with us.

We thank you

that we are

also a type

of temple,

for your Holy Spirit

dwells in your church,

and you are with us

even now.

Lord,

help us to worship you

in spirit

and in truth.

Help us to pray

for the peace

of Jerusalem,

that is to pray

your kingdom

come on earth

as it is in heaven.

And Lord,

we pray that you

would come

and you would

come swiftly

and that the new

Jerusalem would be

everything we could

ever hope for

and then some.

Lord,

we thank you

for the gift

and privilege

it is to be

called by your name

to worship you.

We pray all of this

in Christ's mighty name.

Amen.