Just Imagine

A blog based on a sermon I preached recently on Psalm 72.

(The sermon begins around 34 minutes in to the service.)

https://www.youtube.com/live/K915ykcmBBM

Fifty years have passed since John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Imagine” was released as a single in the UK which invited people to “Imagine”. For many “Imagine” was controversial, dismissing the establishment, upsetting the status quo, and rejecting the control of institutions. The song was written with the Vietnam War in view, but it has continued to snowball in substance as a song of hope, a song of defiance, or a song of solidarity. “Imagine” has been sung at numerous opening and closing ceremonies for sporting events. It has been sung poignantly after terrorist attacks across the world. It was sung at the very moving funeral of President Jimmy Carter in America at the start of 2025.

Around the same time that I watched Jimmy Carter’s funeral service, I was taking a closer look at Psalm 72. Psalm 72 is considered by many commentators to be one of the messianic psalms – the dozen or so that seem to mention or point towards a coming messianic figure or that connect with the accounts of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection. I was struck by how this psalm points us to Jesus.

One of my favourite lyricists and artists is Nick Cave who writes how “a dishonest line tends to deteriorate somehow after repeated singing; a truthful line collects meaning”. The psalms are prophetic - they speak the words of God, they touch the heart of God, and they capture something of God’s truth. We are looking at words that have been said and sung and chanted and prayed over the centuries. These truthful words have collected meaning.

Psalm 72 may have been written by King David in the final days of his life, addressing it to Solomon as he becomes king. The psalmist is expressing himself in poetry and by God’s Holy Spirit pointing beyond himself in words that God is revealing through him. David aims to foresee the ideal king for God’s people. The first two verses of Psalm 72 are particularly noteworthy:

God, give the king your fairness in judgment,


endow this son of kings with your righteousness,

so that he can govern your people rightly


and your poor with justice. (Psalm 72.1-2; CJB)

The coming king needs God’s mishpat – that is, God’s judgement/justice. Also, the coming king needs God’s tzedek – that is, God’s Righteousness. These refer to justice in terms of the legal code and adherence to the law and moral uprightness. The king needs to receive or experience these from God so that the people receive or experience these from the king.

Seen as a whole, the chiastic structure of the Psalm highlights vv12-14 as the central verses. There we discover the reason for the coming king’s success – seen in respect from other nations and national prosperity at home. The reason is not because of great military capabilities or superior technological advancements, it is due to the to the king’s care for the oppressed. The coming king does the things usually attributed to God in saving, redeeming, and valuing the people.

David is imagining a king who does what God does. A God-believing, God blessed, God-bearing, God-bestowed solution that is seen in action. Solomon and the many kings of Israel and Judah who followed were unable to live up to this ideal. This psalm speaks of a deeper hope that is only possible in God, that begins in God, that belongs to God, and that is brokered by God. This is “Imagine” multiplied by a million and transformed into real hope.

I like Lennon and Ono’s “Imagine” but the problem is that its vision is simply too small. It is good to imagine everyone living at peace, without conflict, without being controlled or dominated or oppressed. It is better and bolder to imagine that there is a heaven, that this a God whose heavenly kingdom can do something about the issues on earth.

Reimagining preaching for a brand-new congregation is the experience of many planters and pioneers. Deeper engagement with homiletical thought can build confidence in seeing how the preaching that is needed can find precedent and resources within the Christian tradition. Preaching does not have to be about explanation, persuasion, or application (although all of those things are good in some measure). Preaching for a response towards God and what God is doing.

Several years ago, I served as a Vicar in an urban estates parish where we started a monthly congregation based around a meal for those who attended the addiction-based groups that met in the church building. One of the hallmarks of our time of worship together was an unfiltered recognition of the ongoing struggle of life and genuine solidarity in the search to find afresh in the gospel “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow”.

To have faith in God is to imagine that that there is a purpose that transcends the futility we experience and imagine that there is ultimately going to be justice. It is to imagine a king who reaches out, reaches down, who redeems and rescues the world - a king who does what God does, love how God loves, who lays down his pride, his status, his ego, his life. Beyond even what the psalmist could imagine is Jesus. I can’t imagine what wouldn’t be better if more of us were more like him and looked to him for the places where heaven is touching earth.