Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion.

 

Wednesday, September 20, 2023


Psalm 48

1 Kings 11:1-25

Matthew 5:13-27


Observance: John Coleridge Patteson, first bishop of Melanesia, martyr (d. 1871)


Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion.


The kingdom of heaven is a beautiful place. It is a spiritual place; the place where all the things that are good and lovely happen. There is forgiveness; there is peace. It is a place of no more tears.


The kingdom of heaven, because it is a spiritual place, is also a physical place. God has shown us, with the incarnation of Jesus Christ as the peak revelation, that spirit and matter are so closely connected that that which is truly spiritual can be considered as the material made perfect.


This is why there is such a clear link between Zion and God – it is the place where God’s blessings are strongest. There is also a strong connection between spiritual despair and the places outside Zion.


King Solomon loved that which was between his legs more than he loved God. He built places of worship for the gods of the women he slept with. These places were outside the holy city of Jerusalem. Most infamous of these gods would have to be Molech, the god who demanded child sacrifice. Jesus refers to the darkness of the place where children are sacrificed when He speaks of “the fires of Gehenna”: the place outside the city, where children used to be sacrificed, and was now used as a rubbish tip.


When Jesus was hung on a cross to die for our sins, He was hung outside the city. He went to that place of spiritual darkness and conquered its power through His own death and resurrection. If any of us want to go back out there, then be it on your own head. But Jesus has brought us back behind the protective walls of the city of God. Go on, walk around them. Admire the battlements. See the protection God has placed for us. Out there is wailing and darkness. In here, there is only joy.

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