I’ve long had a collection of psalms I refer to as “My Psalter.” These are the psalms that have become extra special to me, that I have lived into deeply, meditating on them “day and night.” The Book of Psalms is my favorite in the Bible and I regularly pray through all, in order. But these that make up “My Psalter” are an even more significant part of my prayer practice. They have become both foundational and formational, they are truth in which I am both grounded in and growing into, making me like a tree planted by a stream of life-giving water, whose roots push deeper into the soil of the earth and whose branches reach with ever-intensifying longing for the heavens. I pray them often and they are mostly committed to memory, with very little real effort to do so.
A few years ago I was very blessed to hear that Eugene Peterson also had this practice. He said in an interview not long before his death that “prayer matures into the practice of memory.” He said he had a few spirit-selected psalms that had become his old-age prayers, the prayers of a man whose life had been prayer.
Up until today, My Psalter had consisted of seven psalms, but today an eighth was formally admitted into the canon—a big deal! A psalm that I’ve been drawn to more and more-Psalm 87, which I’ve named the Apokatastasis Psalm.
On the holy mountain stands the city founded by the Lord.
He loves the city of Jerusalem more than any other city in Israel.
O city of God, what glorious things are said of you!
I will count Egypt and Babylon among those who know me—
also Philistia and Tyre, and even distant Ethiopia.
They have all become citizens of Jerusalem!
Regarding Jerusalem it will be said,
“Everyone enjoys the rights of citizenship there.”
And the Most High will personally bless this city.
When the Lord registers the nations, he will say,
“They have all become citizens of Jerusalem.”
The people will play flutes and sing, “The source of my life springs from Jerusalem!”
Yes, Jerusalem—the scandal of particularity! Jerusalem is more beautiful and God loves it more than any city on earth! But the Psalmist prophesies—”All the nations of the earth have become citizens of Jerusalem!” Selah! And for those who take this passage very literally and consider the modern nation-state of Israel a fulfillment of prophecy, I remind them that the scripture says that everyone--Egyptians, Babylonians, (and evidently even Palestinians!) will enjoy the rights of Israeli citizenship!
Oh Lord, haste the day, when all the peoples of the earth will play flutes and sing, “The source of my life springs from Jerusalem!” Apokatastasis!
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