Who Is the King of Glory?

upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.

Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O ancient doors!
that the King of glory may come in.

Who is the King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O ancient doors!
that the King of glory may come in.

I just read the last four verses of Psalm 24. If you read the whole psalm, you will see that it describes a great procession when the whole congregation of Israel joyously and festively enters into the Jerusalem Temple. In other words, the psalm describes a liturgical celebration like we would enjoy on a Palm Sunday or an Easter but on a much grander scale. Such a celebration probably took place in Jerusalem every year.

The psalm begins with this declaration: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it; for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers.” (24.1-2) So it calls to mind what we also talked about last night. God is the Creator who orders the void and the darkness, whose Spirit moved over the face of the deep and brings the world and all that is into bei ng. Only God has the glory and power to order the chaos and darkness in ways that made worldly life possible.[1]

Having made those affirmations about God’s glorious dominion over the whole created order, the psalm concludes by describing the grand procession as it approaches the Temple. The liturgy orders the gates of the Temple to be opened. “Be lifted up, O ancient doors!” [Here’s one artist’s depiction of the ancient temple doors.]The one who enters first, who leads the procession, is not the priest or the people, but God, the “King of glory.” And when this liturgy was enacted, most likely the ark of the covenant — covered in gold, inside of which were the Ten Commandments, and upon the top of which sitting between the golden cherubim was the invisible, triumphant God — the ark entered the Temple. “Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.” (24.10)

The same artist who painted this [“O Ancient Doors”] also painted this [“The King of Glory”]. And she called it the “The King of Glory.”

I have been pondering this painting for awhile now and the more I look at it, the more painful it becomes. And if ever there was a painting to reflect the portion of the servant song we read from Isaiah tonight, this is it.

upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.

It is unclear who Isaiah may have had in mind when he wrote those words. But in the mysteriously multivalent way that is scripture, the meaning of Isaiah’s servant song for Christians cannot help but be seen in Jesus dying on the cross.

This painting is by an artist named Grace Carol Bomer. She happens to be a Presbyterian and lives in Asheville, North Carolina. In the late 1980s she, along with several other artists, painted a series of crucifixion scenes. They would gather on Good Friday at the First Presbyterian Church in Asheville. A live model of Christ on the cross was posed in the nave of the church and the music of Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion was played as the artists worked.

Bomer began with blue and red acrylics to represent the blood and the water that flowed out of Jesus’ sword-pierced side. Blood and water are symbols of the sacraments, Holy Communion and Holy Baptism. She later added the black veil or curtain that Jesus’ death split in two[2] and the gold-leafed title given to Jesus, “The King of the Jews.”[3] (Mark 15.26b)

But why call this painting “The King of Glory”? Why use those very words to bring to mind Psalm 24 with its glorious picture of God in splendor and magnificence?

For me the answer is in a story I read in a sermon preached a few years ago by Barbara Lundblad who teaches preaching at Union Seminary in New York. In this sermon she talked about a woman named Alice. That’s not her real name but she is a real person. Alice is the kind of person people just like: a beautiful, open face with a gracious smile, a lively sense of playfulness and also deep compassion. But Alice’s life had been very troubled for a long time.

Her parents divorced when she was quite young and her mother worked long hours to support Alice and her brother. When she was seventeen, she dropped out of high school and moved to New York. She thought she was madly in love but the relationship soon fell apart and she found herself adrift in a sea of parties. Marijuana turned to cocaine, friends turned out to be dealers, and an older boyfriend coaxed her into prostitution. “Just for a while,” he told her, “until you pull yourself together.”

“Just for a while” turned into several years. She couldn’t break out of the cycle of drugs and pimps and johns and she couldn’t think of anybody she knew who was outside that cycle. It was her whole life.

Then, one morning she got up, packed a suitcase, left the apartment and never went back. She had a phone number and an address, and took the subway to Phoenix House, a drug rehab program and checked herself in. And it worked. She knew it didn’t work for everyone. But it worked for her. She finished high school, went on to the community college, married, had children. She finally did “pull herself together.”

It was after all of this that Barbara got to know Alice. One day she asked Alice how she managed to make it.

Alice said, “I know you’ll think I’m saying this just because you’re a pastor. But the real truth is God got me out of there. I never went to church in those years, never went much as a child either. But I never gave up on God. Something happened to me when I was pretty young — maybe eight or nine. My brother and I were home alone. We were often home at night by ourselves because our mom worked late. One night our neighbors across the hall invited us to go with them to church. They were always in church — not just Sundays, but almost every night. I don’t remember much about the program … lots of singing and some cookies. But there was a woman who sat down with us in a circle and she taught us a prayer: “Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.” She told us if we prayed those words, we’d never be alone. I remember she kept looking at me like she thought I needed that prayer more than anybody else.”

“When we got home, my mom was still at work. My brother and I went to bed as we did every night … but that night, I felt particularly lonely. Even a little scared. Then I remembered that prayer, “Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.” I closed my eyes very tight and said the prayer over and over — and when I opened my eyes, there was my mother standing in the doorway. She looked like an angel.”

Alice went on to say that she probably thought the prayer was magic! But she never forgot it. She took that prayer with here everywhere, into some pretty dreadful places. She said, “I know it must sound like it took a long time for the prayer to take hold in my life. But I’m thirty-five now and I consider myself to be a miracle.”[4]

That story speaks to me about why this painting is named as it is. If our only image of God were of might and power, if God were only the Creator of this unimaginably immense universe, if all we knew of God was Psalm 24, then there would be no room for Alice and her little prayer. In fact, there would be no room for you and me either.

But the glorious one is also the suffering one. That’s why this week is so incredibly important. For as painful as this is to behold, “by his bruises we are healed.” Because Jesus on the cross is the King of Glory, we can pray, “Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.” Amen

[1] Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, James D. Newsome, Texts For Preaching, Year B (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1993) 424.

[2] Matthew 27.51: “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split.” Mark 15.38: “And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” Luke 23.45: “… while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.”

[3] Matthew 27.37b: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” Luke 23.38b: “This is the King of the Jews.” John 19.19b: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

[4] Barbara K. Lundblad, “Marked for Life,” www.goodpreacher.com/backissuesread.php?file=27, Internet, 27 February 2008.