Walk About Zion

As the choir was singing the Gradual this morning, I think I understood the words of Psalm 48 for the first time.  "Walk about Zion, go around her, number her towers, consider well her ramparts, go through her citadels."  The Lord wants us to explore His Zion, His holy Church, to know her nooks and crannies.  He wants us to enjoy and revel in this mighty fortress He has provided for His people to live in.  And what are her towers?  Her ramparts?  Her citadels?  Are they not the mighty teachers He has continually graced His Church with, who keep us from all "false teaching and evil living" and summon us to find in Christ alone our life, our hope?  Today we explored a wee bit of that Church as we remembered and thanked God for the towering witness of the Reformers. But we remember that they stand not alone.  They stand with many others through the years.  We need to know them, to explore their stories, to learn them well that we "tell the next generation that this God, our God forever and ever!"  They all steadfastly point to one Lord and witness to Him with their very lives.  We explore Zion's spacious palaces and especially her defenses that we might the more safely and joyfully witness to the next generation the great deeds of the Lord in preserving for us a Church, a place of refuge in this world.  Glory to Him forever!