The Lord Is King: A Response To Psalm 97

Psalm 97 is another psalm of pure joy and celebration, a psalm which sees, even through the shadows of the present time, the resplendent brightness of the coming Kingdom, as it says in that beautiful line:

There is sprung up a light for the righteous: and joyful gladness for such as are true-hearted.

The psalm begins with the words ‘ The Lord is King’! For Christians reading this psalm that King and Lord is Christ himself, who died for his people and rose again, not only to reign but to share his kingdom with all whom he has redeemed, and some of those themes are taken up in my response to the psalm.

Frustratingly, the new WordPress software seems to strip out the breaks between the three line stanzas every time I put them back in. If you have the book you will see that the poem is intended to be laid out in five three-line stanzas, not a single block of 15 lines, but there seems no way of restoring this arrangement! Clearly WordPress is not intended for poets!

As always you can hear me read the poems by clicking on the play button or the title and you can find the other poems in this evolving series by putting the word ‘psalm’ into the search box on the right.

The full set of these poems has now been published as a book David’s Crown which you can buy from UK Amazon Here, or, in North America, it is available from Amazon Here.

XCVII Dominus regnavit

With our own joy, we will take up the song

Of all creation: Jesus Christ is king!

The whole earth will be glad, for there has sprung,

A light for all the righteous who will bring

A final judgment to the earth, as bright

As lightening, and the round world will ring

With jubilation. For the mournful night

Of our long exile will be ended then

As darkness flees before his glorious light,

The bright ark of his covenant. And when

We see that holiness unveiled, the dark

Devices, all the substitutes, the vain

And empty images, the shoddy work

Of our own hands will fall to nothingness

For Christ himself will shine as the true ark.

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