The text: Psalm 47 – NRSV
On this “little Easter” we lift up one of the clear enthronement psalms that celebrates God’s kingship over all nations. That God is king of all nations and not just our own, or not simply a given “chosen” nation, is perhaps an easy thing to say and outwardly fitting and majestic, but should give us pause if we take it seriously. What does it mean for God to be king of all humanity? What relevance does any nationalism have if this is true? Absolutely none, of course. What relationship do we have with people of other nations, if this is true? Are we not all one people? As the psalm proclaims, the princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. In many ways this psalm envisages the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant, that God will bless all peoples of the earth through Abraham. It must be said that this proclamation seems contradicted by the realities of this or any other time (including the psalmist’s!); nevertheless, that God is king over all remains true, and the psalm looks toward a time when what it proclaims is fully true, and as Revelation says, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. Amen!
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