This morning’s Psalm is especially powerful appearing as it does in our psalter directly following the pastoral tone of Psalm 23.  The opening verses are a bald statement of God’s authority as the creator of the universe, followed by a rhetorical question:

“Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?  Who may stand in his holy place?”

Verses 4-6 describe the blamelessness necessary to stand in the Lord’s presence.  Elsewhere in the psalter we are reminded just how difficult such blamelessness would be to establish:

“If you, O Lord, hold our sins against us, who could stand?”

But God has made provision for our cleansing through the blood of Chirst.