Christmas is IDEALISTIC – On day where we live expressing LOVE and JOY without WORRY or FEAR.
Advent is REALISTIC – Where we live with the knowledge that our LONGINGS yet to be REALIZED.

The Psalms of Ascent:

  • Psalm 120 is the psalm of REPENTANCE
  • Psalm 121 is the psalm of TRUST
  • Psalm 122 is the psalm of WORSHIP

In Psalm 122 Peace is:

  • Right relationship with God
  • Right ordering of community
  • Right administration of justice

PEACE BEGINS WITH GOD’S DWELLING, NOT HUMAN EFFORT - Peace does not begin inside the pilgrim’s heart; it begins with God choosing to dwell among his people.

 JERUSALEM REPRESENTS PEACE AS ORDER, UNITY, AND JUSTICE - Peace (shalom) is not merely the absence of conflict but the presence of wholeness, order, and flourishing. Conditions that can only emerge where righteousness governs and wrongs are rightly addressed.

 WORSHIP REORIENTS OUR BODIES AND INWARDLY REORIENTS OUR LOVES - This pattern runs throughout Scripture:

  • Worship recalibrates desire
  • Disordered loves produce anxiety and violence
  • Ordered worship produces peace

FROM: Psalm 122:1 I rejoiced with those who said to me, "Let's go to the house of the LORD."

TO: Luke 2:15 "Let's go straight to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us."


Jesus is the BETTER Jerusalem. The peace of Jerusalem becomes Personal, Powerful, Transcendent.
Jesus is the BETTER Temple. The presence of God becomes Tangible, Reliable, Embodied.

Psalm 122 – Peace accomplished NOT in the ASCENT of Pilgrims but the DESCENT of Christ:

  • He replaces the Temple John 2:21 CSB he was speaking about the temple of his body.
  • He reconciles heaven and earth Colossians 1:20 CSB and through him to reconcile everything to himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

He is our peace Ephesians 2:13-14 CSB - 13 But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility