Psalm 48: Universal God in Particular Times & Places, ☧ of Mt Zion

Rev. David Boisclair, pastor of Faith and Bethesda Lutheran Churches in North St. Louis County, Missouri, joins host Rev. AJ Espinosa to study Psalm 48.

“Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels, that you may tell the next generation that this is God.” Psalm 48 celebrates how God protected Jerusalem from foreign invaders, sending them into “panic.” The triumphant tone lines up with the Biblical account of the Assyrian invasion of Israel & Judah, before the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. The paradox is that through very specific times and places we encounter the universal God of “all the earth”—but when we talk about God in broad generalities, we end up with a god very specific to our own imagination. In Christ, we are numbered with the saints of Mount Zion along with the whole universal church.