Journey to Jerusalem Day 29

Wednesday, March 17 Psalm 122:1-5

1 I was glad when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord!”
2 Our feet have been standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem!
3 Jerusalem—built as a city
that is bound firmly together,
4 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.
5 There thrones for judgment were set,
the thrones of the house of David.

The Lenton Agon crescendos into Easter, the resurrection of all our hope. The liturgical year alternates reflective emphasis upon our past with timely preparations for our future.

Consider the optics within this cycle. For believers, men under judgment, Lent calls to mind Jesus atop his cross welcoming into glory our lesser representative at Calvary, the penitent thief. Judgment is the prerogative of the cherished figure placed beside our heavenly Father.

“I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” (Acts 7.56)
It is in the celestial Jerusalem where “the thrones for judgment” are set up and one of them is occupied by a Davidic descendant (v. 5). He is the Christ of Glory, alike judge and mediator, the one who pleads for the faithful at our judgment.

Even in our judgment the mercies of Christ shall yet again rain down upon us.

Grant us, Father, with all who have died in the hope of the resurrection, to have our consummation and bliss in thy eternal and everlasting glory, and, with all thy saints, to receive the crown of life which thou dost promise to all who share in the victory of thy son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and with the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
Amen.