Psalm 87

This psalm had always drawn my mind back to the hymn, "Glorious Things of You Are Spoken." What I'd always noticed before was the specialness of Zion.

But what is all this stuff about being born in Zion? Three times it says that.

I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon
to those who know Me.
Behold, o Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia:
"This one was born there."

And of Zion it will be said,
"This one and that one were born in her;
and the Most High Himself shall establish her."
The Lord will record,
when He registers the peoples:
"This one was born there."

Both the singers and the players on instruments say,
"All my springs are in you."


Somehow, some way, there must be something important about that "being born there." And interestingly enough, the psalm states that three times. Three. Such a trinitarian number.

But then there's that business about the Lord recording births in Zion. The Lord registers the people according to their birth in Jerusalem? What's up with that? Hmmmm. John clues us in (end of Revelation 20) that there is a Book of Life, and anyone whose name is not found written in the Book of Life will be cast into the lake of fire.

Wait a minute. Birth!
Unless one is born again,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God.


Ah ha! So THAT is what the final verse of Psalm 87 has to do with the rest of it. The springs --the waters of Holy Baptism-- are in Zion, the Church. We who are born in the Church --born of water and the Spirit-- are recorded in the Book of Life. And this is the "glorious thing" about Zion!