Psalm 24 invites us to open up to God in the spirit of the Hebrew term teshuva. Expressive of contrition and transformation, it is at the same time a reply to the question “Where are you?” (Gen 3;9). “A return to God is the answer to this question”, noted Abraham J. Heschel. These words are commented on by Fr. Dr. Piotr Kot from the Heschel Centre at the Catholic University of Lublin in his text for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord of February 2.
Psalm 24 is the song of the pilgrims who came to the Jerusalem Temple to worship and adore God’s majesty and splendour. It is a record of the dialogue between the human person and the Creator. Mount Zion (see Ps 48) was God’s privileged place on earth. The psalm’s background reveals a longing for the eternal sanctuary, the lost paradise (v. 1-2), which God designed in the six days of creation so that humanity could celebrate an endless Sabbath there, adoring the Creator, who is Love (1 Jn 4;16).
The psalm consists of two parts. It starts with a kind of “introductory rites” (v. 3-6), which echo the question of the spiritual and moral condition of the human person who, as a pilgrim, sets out on the journey towards Zion to “stand in the holy place” (v. 3). This image may bring to mind the story of Moses, who, on approaching the place of where he saw God, had to remove sandals from his feet (Ex 3;4-5). This was an invitation to abandon all human defences in the face of the One who is the fullness of life. Similarly, anyone who wishes to enjoy the fountain of grace and hope in the Lord’s sanctuary must not “set their heart on vanities” and literally “do not trust in an idol” (v. 4). The psalmist had before his eyes the people of the Covenant, who sometimes craved the created world more than the One who created this world. The beginning of Psalm 24 is, then, a call to a return to God in the spirit of the Hebrew term teshuva. Expressive of contrition and transformation, it is at the same time a reply to the question “Where are you?” (Gen 3;9). “A return to God is the answer to this question”, wrote the twentieth-century Jewish thinker Abraham J. Heschel in one of his books.
The second part of Psalm 24 (v. 7-10) describes the holy place which man, the pilgrim of hope, wants to enter. The holy place, the sanctuary, is filled with the presence of the King of glory, Lord of heaven, strong and valiant. The above terms point to the mystery of the God of Israel, who “overcame” the chaos of the Beginning (Gen 1;2) and subjected all creation, including the heavenly bodies, to His life-giving power, instituting a miraculous cosmic liturgy. God is the King of glory not only by virtue of the beauty of the sanctuary in which He resides, but above all in relation to man. This truth was eloquently expressed by St. Irenaeus of Lyon (d. ca. 202): “Life in man is the glory of God; the life of man is the vision of God”.
In his letter to Emperor Trajan (103 AD), Pliny the Younger wrote that Psalm 24 is the morning liturgy of Christians, for whom “the ancient doors to heaven” were opened by Jesus Christ, “the first-born of all creation” (Col 1;15; see Rom 8;29-30). It was He, the Lord and the Messiah, who initiated the “new Sabbath” of creation. It can be enjoyed by anyone who turns towards the One who is the True Light.
