The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice. Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Light shines on the righteous and joy on the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name. (Psalm 97:1-2, 11-12).

This psalm encapsulated both Israel’s present faith and their future hope.

The Lord reigns: even now, despite however things might look. And the Psalmist believes that to be good news. News that should bring all the earth into gladness and rejoicing. Why? Because righteousness and justice are the foundations of God’s throne.

The Kingdom of God, God’s own rule and reign is the essence of all that is right, sound, and solid in this world. God’s Kingdom is itself a living standard by which all things can and will be judged, but a standard that in the end brings all things back to the very fullest of life. And so the Creation can rejoice in the hope and knowledge that it will one day be liberated from its groanings and set free once again to flourish.

And so with our own lives too: there is a strange confidence the people of God hold on to that there is indeed a living standard of righteousness and justice that transcends our politicking--a justice out there that will “judge the justice for which we fight,” as Leslie Newbigin put it. Interestingly, that should never give us confidence that we are above the law, as Christians have sometimes done. No: this justice is clean, pure, and impartial, dividing soul from spirit and joint from marrow when it comes to it. There’s nothing hidden that will not be brought to light. So, our confidence resides not in the fact that we ourselves are righteous and just, but in the fact that we know a God who is. A God who knows what actually is wrong with this world, and who is also big enough to set it right.

Here then is the future hope of Israel found in this Psalm. Some of its images do indeed echo with our own book of Revelation, I think. In the middle of the Psalm, we find that all peoples see the glory of God, and those who have entrusted themselves to any lesser god are put to shame as the justice and righteousness of the Lord King of heaven and earth is powerfully revealed.

Of course, for the people of God, this is the moment when all suffering is redeemed as all injustice is set right. A moment we have been sitting in pews and folding our hands at bedsides praying and watching for all our lives. This is the moment when the light shines on the righteous and the people of God are made glad.

Oddly enough, we know that this somehow includes us, unrighteous though we may feel. “The righteous” includes us, not because we are above the law or have an in with the judge that would cause him to look the other way. No—this God is the very one who, after making a just appraisal of our situation, has nevertheless loved us, chosen us, and shown mercy and forgiveness to us in Jesus Christ.

So: “Rejoice in the Lord, you who [have been freely made] righteous, and praise his holy name.”