Psalm 48
"Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise, in the city of
our God, his holy mountain"
I have been lucky enough to visit some amazing places in this
world, though I've never been to Israel or closer to the Middle East than
Turkey or the airport in Dubai so I've never seen Jerusalem. The closest I've
come to Rome is Turin so I've never seen "The joy of the whole earth"
or "the greatest city on earth"
There are seven wonders of the ancient world recorded and any
number of modern ones...
In this Psalm Jerusalem is so impressive that when the kings
joined forces, they were astounded and fled in terror.
In reality it took a while to capture Jerusalem, but the city was
captured and destroyed more than once.
Changing the subject - perhaps the Royal palace and fortress of
the tower of London is as close as we have to Jerusalem here in the UK - though
it is probably not the best.
The Yeoman warders who act as guides to the tower explain some of the subtleties of the architecture that make the building special. (I plan to visit the tower of London at some point!)
From Jerusalem the praise of God reaches to the end of the earth.
Walk about Zion, go around her, count her towers, consider well her ramparts, view her citadels, that you may tell of them to the next generation.
There is a strong tradition in the Jewish and Christian faith of telling young people the history and traditions of the faith, it is a bit of a sad indictment on the British nation that this tradition has not been carried on and now we get people like David Beckham who said that he wanted to get his son, Brooklyn, christened "but I'm not sure into which religion"
This year is 800 years since the signing of Magna Carter, perhaps we should take as much trouble over our Christian heritage as our secular one?
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