I was tired last night. However, I couldn't sleep. The thunderstorm was crazy last night, and after a winter of no thunder storms, I get excited as soon as lightning flashes across the sky and thunder rolls. So I sat in the love seat that is right under our window (much to the chagrin of parents who always tell their children never to be by windows/doors when a thunderstorm is rollin), threw on some Latin choral music that dealt with the Savior's death, and allowed myself to be almost in a trance. The music fit the storm; the storm fit the music; and both fit my mood.
O vos omnes, o vos omnes qui transitis per viam
attendite, attendite, attendite et videte:
si est dolor sicut dolor meus,
O vos omnes, o vos omnes qui transitis per viam.
From Lamentations 1:12 -
All you people who pass by
Look and see if there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow.
Matthew 27 -
From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
47 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
48 Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 49 The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split 52 and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53 They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
54 When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
Now, we wait.
It is wonderful to look back and know that He doesn't stay in the tomb. It's wonderful to realize that death has NO hold on Him because He never sinned and died in the place of those who did. But let us not take these days any less seriously because we know this. Remember that you, too, had a hand in His death. That, before the foundation of the world, God knew the plan to atone for your sin. And it included the death of the Son.
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato passus, et sepultus est.
He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, He suffered and died.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
They Hung Him on A Tree
I went to the mall today; I would have rather been in a church. However, by the time I thought about it, it was too late. Something just didn't seem right - studying and shopping on Good Friday, while myriads of storefront associates greeted me and then waved at me while I walked out the doors saying, "Happy Easter!"
Why is it that when Christmas comes around, they have to say, "Happy holidays!", but when Easter comes around, it's no problem to say, "Happy Easter!"? I realize that "Christmas" has the word "Christ" in it, but generally the same people who balk at the word "Christmas" have no problems using Christ's name as a curse word. Is it that Easter is just another holiday to buy lots of chocolate and wear bunny ears that we've forgotten that the implications of the celebration of this day are forgotten?
Family of God - the implications should never be forgotten.
From Maundy Thursday to Good Friday to the Easter Vigil on Saturday to Resurrection Sunday, we should continually be remembering that our sins nailed the Son of God to a tree for our righteousness.
Especially today, as Good Friday, remember this.
Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung on the tree,
The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped on the face. The bridegoom of the Church
Why is it that when Christmas comes around, they have to say, "Happy holidays!", but when Easter comes around, it's no problem to say, "Happy Easter!"? I realize that "Christmas" has the word "Christ" in it, but generally the same people who balk at the word "Christmas" have no problems using Christ's name as a curse word. Is it that Easter is just another holiday to buy lots of chocolate and wear bunny ears that we've forgotten that the implications of the celebration of this day are forgotten?
Family of God - the implications should never be forgotten.
From Maundy Thursday to Good Friday to the Easter Vigil on Saturday to Resurrection Sunday, we should continually be remembering that our sins nailed the Son of God to a tree for our righteousness.
Especially today, as Good Friday, remember this.
Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung on the tree,
The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped on the face. The bridegoom of the Church
is affixed to the cross with nails.
The Son of the Virgin
is pierced with spears.
We worship thy passion oh Christ
We worship thy passion oh Christ
We worship thy passion oh Christ
Show us also thy glorious Resurrection
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Unseen Attacks
I have recently begun reading, once again, the works of C.S. Lewis. I'm a BIG C.S. Lewis fan - he's made such an impact on my life that I joke that when I get to Heaven, I'm hugging Jesus, Peter, and then making a beeline over to hug C.S. Lewis (the jury is still out on whether I'll call him "Clive" or "Mr. Lewis" yet...). In this re-reading of his work, I have recently re-picked up The Screwtape Letters. Now, if you're not a Lewis-head like myself, you may not know what the Screwtape Letters are. If not, here's a plug: READ THEM.
Screwtape is an evil spirit, writing to his nephew, Wormwood, who has been sent for "training" on a mission to live in the life of an unnamed man, also known as "your patient" in the letters. He is supposed to keep in correspondence through letter writing to make sure that Wormwood is doing the correct things in keeping his patient from becoming a Christian (or, later, staying one), and in the process of these letters, we soon start realizing that the enemy tempts humanity in more than one way. In these letters, everything is from the viewpoint of a demon/evil spirit; therefore, whenever God is referenced, he is called "the Enemy." This can lead to confusing reading at points when we're so used to the enemy being Satan; but, seeing as we're reading it from the viewpoint of a spirit who sees Satan as "our Father", having God be "the Enemy" is only natural. Lewis notes in the foreword that, "Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar. Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own angle...There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth" (Lewis 125). With that short foreword to this blog, let me commence.
Often times we think that when we're in the Church we are safe. We are surrounded by praying people, we are led by someone that (we hope) is grounded in the Word, and being part of the body means being equipped with armor. We say nasty words to our families in the car before coming to church and then once we're in the building, we magically become one body that, at the end of the service, dismembers itself and we become who we want to be on the weekdays. This is the sad state of our churches today. Let me propose this -
Lewis puts it this way:
This is not only deadly for the individual, it will also hurt the Church. If we are going to go on the body imagery of the Church, then think of it this way. When people put themselves in the place of God, they become dead cells. Dead cells quickly turn into tumors. Before long, the body needs to go under surgery to rid itself of the tumor - but the body will never be the same. Other parts of the body will feel the pain of the incision, the tug of the sutures, the healing of the place where the tumor was removed. Things will be healed, but they are awfully painful at the moment.
Our mindset as we enter worship changes worship for the entire Body of Christ. Our treatment of our fellow Body-members changes the way worship looks.
We desperately need humility in the Church.
So what does humility look like for you?
All text taken from : Lewis, C.S (Clive Staples). "The Screwtape Letters". The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. HarperSanFrancisco: SanFrancisco, 2002.
Screwtape is an evil spirit, writing to his nephew, Wormwood, who has been sent for "training" on a mission to live in the life of an unnamed man, also known as "your patient" in the letters. He is supposed to keep in correspondence through letter writing to make sure that Wormwood is doing the correct things in keeping his patient from becoming a Christian (or, later, staying one), and in the process of these letters, we soon start realizing that the enemy tempts humanity in more than one way. In these letters, everything is from the viewpoint of a demon/evil spirit; therefore, whenever God is referenced, he is called "the Enemy." This can lead to confusing reading at points when we're so used to the enemy being Satan; but, seeing as we're reading it from the viewpoint of a spirit who sees Satan as "our Father", having God be "the Enemy" is only natural. Lewis notes in the foreword that, "Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar. Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own angle...There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth" (Lewis 125). With that short foreword to this blog, let me commence.
Often times we think that when we're in the Church we are safe. We are surrounded by praying people, we are led by someone that (we hope) is grounded in the Word, and being part of the body means being equipped with armor. We say nasty words to our families in the car before coming to church and then once we're in the building, we magically become one body that, at the end of the service, dismembers itself and we become who we want to be on the weekdays. This is the sad state of our churches today. Let me propose this -
When we are together on Sunday mornings, we are more prone to attack.Sure, the devil attacks us on weekdays (if you want to get a better picture of this, please read The Screwtape Letters. It opened my eyes to new arenas of spiritual warfare.) But what he hates a LOT is when we worship. He wants to be the focal point of worship, and if we go in asking, "What can be done for me today?" forgetting to ask how we can help each other, essentially, we will be worshiping him. The devil is the epitome of selfishness; he wanted to be God. You may know the phrase: "Better to be a god in hell..." yeah. What else is that other than selfishness?
Lewis puts it this way:
One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like 'the body of Christ' and the actual faces in the next pew . . . Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous . . . What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favourable credit-balancei n the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these 'smug', commonplace neighbours at all. Keep him in that state of mind as long as you can. (129-30)False humility is as much of a vice of Satan as is sexual sin, lying, etc. False humility is pride, and we so often get caught up in it, thinking that we deserve God more than the person next to us who didn't put as much in the offering plate as we did, even though we know that they make more money than we do. We then put ourselves in the place of God. It's idolatry at its finest - not only do we craft idols for ourselves, we become our own idols. We've conjured up thoughts of ourselves that are so lofty that we take the place of God.
This is not only deadly for the individual, it will also hurt the Church. If we are going to go on the body imagery of the Church, then think of it this way. When people put themselves in the place of God, they become dead cells. Dead cells quickly turn into tumors. Before long, the body needs to go under surgery to rid itself of the tumor - but the body will never be the same. Other parts of the body will feel the pain of the incision, the tug of the sutures, the healing of the place where the tumor was removed. Things will be healed, but they are awfully painful at the moment.
Our mindset as we enter worship changes worship for the entire Body of Christ. Our treatment of our fellow Body-members changes the way worship looks.
We desperately need humility in the Church.
So what does humility look like for you?
All text taken from : Lewis, C.S (Clive Staples). "The Screwtape Letters". The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. HarperSanFrancisco: SanFrancisco, 2002.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Good morning, world. It's April 18, 9:28 AM, and it's a beautiful day with....snow?!
I opened my bleary eyes this morning, and looked past the half-opened curtain. I couldn't believe my eyes. My thoughts were interrupted from "Oh look. Fog" and "Good morning, God." by disbelief, and, to my dismay - anger. "God?" I said. "You're a little late on your April fools joke this year. Snow? It's the middle of April! Last week, I got sunburned! and now...this? Really, God? Really?"
Most of me WANTS to have good intentions. I'm just angry on behalf of the farmers. Or maybe, "But the buds? What about the buds? What about the trees?" But the realist side of me that has no good intentions whatsoever is just shouting, "GET ME WARM NOW! THIS IS NOT FAIR, GOD!"
How foolish of me. And yet, I don't give up on my tirade. I feel I have something to contribute to the rest of West Michigan who are probably all yelling the same thing. Alas, I don't.
Welcome to Holy Week. In some ways, this is really symbolic. This is the week in which we look forward towards the ULTIMATE new life. We look forward to Resurrection Sunday, also known as Easter. We look forward. But at the same time, we remember - during this week, we suddenly see ourselves nailing the Savior on the cross to take our blame. Many times we celebrate that it is only by the blood of the Lamb that we are saved. Hallelujah! But we forget the first part of the Romans 6:8-9, "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him."
We LOVE thinking about the fact that Christ was raised (Hallelujah! Praise be to God Almighty!) for that means that we get to live forever too! We HATE thinking about the fact that Christ died. We tend to gloss over that fact. If we were going to put this verse in the way we'd speak, it would be this: "NowifwediedwithChrist we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised fromthedead he cannot die again; death has no mastery over him!."
Do you catch my drift?
To put in other terms: Why are Maundy Thursday/Good Friday services sparsely attended while Easter morning, church walls can hardly contain the people who have come? It's because we want to think happy thoughts! We want to celebrate! Death is uncomfortable to think about, especially because each and every single one of us are murderers. We don't want death to hit us. We don't mind being emotional in church as long as it doesn't include feeling exceptionally sorry for our sins. We don't mind emotions in church as long as they make us "feel good."
Before we get to Easter, we MUST pass through Maundy Thursday/Good Friday. There's no other way. We must deal with the fact that Christ was nailed upon a tree (and according to Deuteronomical Law, cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree), shed blood for us, was whipped and lashed far too severely for his conviction, and died so that we don't have to. The Son of God died on our behalf.
The Son of God was murdered for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The weight of sin was upon him.
Yes. It is uncomfortable to think about this. Rightfully so. But we cannot get the full essence of the gospel without realizing that Christ died for us. We cannot simply attach ourselves to the spirit of postmodernism where we talk about only things that make us "feel good".
This snow represents death. Remind yourself this day that to get to spring, one must go through winter. To gt to Easter, one must go through Maundy Thursday/Good Friday.
Don't JUST invite your friends who don't know about Christ to the Easter Service. Invite them to Maundy Thursday/Good Friday services, and THEN invite them to the Easter service. They need the full extent of the Gospel; so do you.
Most of me WANTS to have good intentions. I'm just angry on behalf of the farmers. Or maybe, "But the buds? What about the buds? What about the trees?" But the realist side of me that has no good intentions whatsoever is just shouting, "GET ME WARM NOW! THIS IS NOT FAIR, GOD!"
How foolish of me. And yet, I don't give up on my tirade. I feel I have something to contribute to the rest of West Michigan who are probably all yelling the same thing. Alas, I don't.
Welcome to Holy Week. In some ways, this is really symbolic. This is the week in which we look forward towards the ULTIMATE new life. We look forward to Resurrection Sunday, also known as Easter. We look forward. But at the same time, we remember - during this week, we suddenly see ourselves nailing the Savior on the cross to take our blame. Many times we celebrate that it is only by the blood of the Lamb that we are saved. Hallelujah! But we forget the first part of the Romans 6:8-9, "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him."
We LOVE thinking about the fact that Christ was raised (Hallelujah! Praise be to God Almighty!) for that means that we get to live forever too! We HATE thinking about the fact that Christ died. We tend to gloss over that fact. If we were going to put this verse in the way we'd speak, it would be this: "NowifwediedwithChrist we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised fromthedead he cannot die again; death has no mastery over him!."
Do you catch my drift?
To put in other terms: Why are Maundy Thursday/Good Friday services sparsely attended while Easter morning, church walls can hardly contain the people who have come? It's because we want to think happy thoughts! We want to celebrate! Death is uncomfortable to think about, especially because each and every single one of us are murderers. We don't want death to hit us. We don't mind being emotional in church as long as it doesn't include feeling exceptionally sorry for our sins. We don't mind emotions in church as long as they make us "feel good."
Before we get to Easter, we MUST pass through Maundy Thursday/Good Friday. There's no other way. We must deal with the fact that Christ was nailed upon a tree (and according to Deuteronomical Law, cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree), shed blood for us, was whipped and lashed far too severely for his conviction, and died so that we don't have to. The Son of God died on our behalf.
The Son of God was murdered for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The weight of sin was upon him.
Yes. It is uncomfortable to think about this. Rightfully so. But we cannot get the full essence of the gospel without realizing that Christ died for us. We cannot simply attach ourselves to the spirit of postmodernism where we talk about only things that make us "feel good".
This snow represents death. Remind yourself this day that to get to spring, one must go through winter. To gt to Easter, one must go through Maundy Thursday/Good Friday.
Don't JUST invite your friends who don't know about Christ to the Easter Service. Invite them to Maundy Thursday/Good Friday services, and THEN invite them to the Easter service. They need the full extent of the Gospel; so do you.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Worship for "Real People"
I remember it well. It was the first assignment due in my Designing/Leading Worship class, Winter semester of 2010. I was overwhelmed when my professor told us what kind of worship service we needed to plan: Worship for "Real people". Now, in my years of experience, helping my mom plan worship at my home church and planning chapel services for the Kuyper College community, not once did I ever think to myself, "Hey, let's plan a worship service for fake people today!" So, when Carol said, "Real people" the first thing that popped into my mind was Pinnochio, jumping up and saying, "I'm a REAL boy!"
Carol didn't mean for us to plan a worship service for a group of Pinnochio's, did she?
(Answer: no. She didn't)
What she DID mean was that there are people in the church that are hurting, that are trying to make it day by day. Some people in the church are living paycheck-to-paycheck; others don't know how they're going to pay off student loans; others may have just lost a loved one; and still others may be troubled due to stresses at work, abuse at home, or a desparing sense of loneliness. How do we plan worship accordingly? How can we tell people to "rejoice in the LORD always when worship seems to be just another thing they have to check off an extensive to-do list?
I planned my service. I incorporated a time to lay burdens down at the altar, a time to be prayed over, and songs that dealt with how we will go through pain. One of my favorite songs dealing with this is "Lay 'Em Down" by Needtobreathe. For your listening pleasure, here is a video of it.
However wonderful that song is, I've recently started realizing what it is like to worship as a REAL person. I'm wonderful at making myself put on a mask when I enter into a worship service - everything is hunky-dory. Life is good. God is good (all the time; all the time, God is good). I can speak Christianese like it is a second language. But this past week, I got the challenge to plan the music for a sermon that will be on Hosea. If you've never read the book of Hosea, let me break it down for you:
God calls to a man named Hosea and says, "I want you to marry a prostitute. She will be unfaithful to you. She will hurt you. But you must love her. You must raise her children." So Hosea does. Through this, Hosea is reflecting to Israel the relationship between Israel and God. God is faithful to an adulterous nation. Hosea and Gomer (his wife) have 3 kids, named Jezereel - fortelling the destruction of Israel at Jezereel; Lo-Ruhamah, meaning "not loved"; and Lo-Ammi, meaning "not my people." If you know anything about the naming of children in the Middle Eastern culture, their names are who they are. Imagine yourself with the name "not loved." Ouch. So Gomer goes out and prostitutes herself, ending up living with a man who is not Hosea. Hosea is called to woo her back to himself. After a long and hard marriage, he gets his wife back - no. He BUYS his wife back. He will not leave her in sin; he will protect her and carry her back to himself, even though she is sinful and unrepentant.
God's never-ending love is enough to bring anyone to their knees - let alone the idolater, the lonely, the adulterer, the broken.
I have had the first line of "He Loves Us" by Kim Walker stuck in my mind for most of the day - "He is jealous for me." For the past two weeks I have been bombarded by papers, tests, and projects. For some odd reason, all of my classes had papers or projects due within the same time frame, and all of them are difficult. They are time consuming. They have driven me to the point of tears more than once in the past week. I have made an idol out of schoolwork; I have made an idol out of my life. I have let myself be so consumed with myself that it broke me multiple times in one week. I forgot to learn about that which I was writing.
Ironically, I was writing about headship and submission as gender roles within marriage. That is too big of a topic to tackle here (if you would like to read my 18 page discourse on it, ask me and I'll give you a copy), but one of the things that drew my attention was that in creation, humanity was allowed in what Timothy Keller in his book Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism calls the "dance of the Trinity." Early Church fathers called this dance "perichoresis" (which just so happens to be one of my favorite Greek words ever. Just say it... pear - ee - core - ee - sis) and it describes the mutually self-giving motion of the Trinity. Each person revolves around the other two, glorifying them and honoring them. "God is love," Christ statess, and He is love because He is always giving of Himself. He is constantly outporing, as Harold Best puts it. He knows nothing more than to pour out of Himself and into His Selves. When humanity walked with God in the Garden of Eden, we were invited into that dance. And we bowed out far too early. When we stopped dancing with God, however, we stopped dancing with each other. We became static, self-serving. We wished to dance only if others would orbit around ourselves - and if everybody is waiting for others to orbit around them, no one will dance.
Christ came to save us from the sin that has our feet bound and commanded us to move. By his death on the cross, we are able to not only be in the presence of God, but the Holy Spirit dwells within us. The Holy Spirit is constantly moving in our lives, making us turn outward to others - or it should be. We should be continually looking out of ourselves and looking out for the interests of others. Our minds should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-9)
What does worship for REAL people look like? It acknowledges the pain of living in a world that is still filed with sin, but looks toward the cross. It acknowledges that people are coming in from all areas of life and continually preaches the Gospel. It looks to glorify God in the presence of pain. It looks to remind people of Christ's words, "Come, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Worship should ALWAYS be cross-centered; it should always have its foundation on the one who bore our sins and took them to the cross. It should always glorify the only One who deserves praise and adoration -God. One of my friends told me a story when she was in a worship service and she said that the music just wasn't touching, the sermon seemed non-applicable and she complained to someone, "I didn't get anything out of the service today." The person she was talking to replied with these words: "Good, because it wasn't for you."
Worship should preach the Gospel from the beginning to the end. That is what worship for "real people" looks like.
Carol didn't mean for us to plan a worship service for a group of Pinnochio's, did she?
(Answer: no. She didn't)
What she DID mean was that there are people in the church that are hurting, that are trying to make it day by day. Some people in the church are living paycheck-to-paycheck; others don't know how they're going to pay off student loans; others may have just lost a loved one; and still others may be troubled due to stresses at work, abuse at home, or a desparing sense of loneliness. How do we plan worship accordingly? How can we tell people to "rejoice in the LORD always when worship seems to be just another thing they have to check off an extensive to-do list?
I planned my service. I incorporated a time to lay burdens down at the altar, a time to be prayed over, and songs that dealt with how we will go through pain. One of my favorite songs dealing with this is "Lay 'Em Down" by Needtobreathe. For your listening pleasure, here is a video of it.
However wonderful that song is, I've recently started realizing what it is like to worship as a REAL person. I'm wonderful at making myself put on a mask when I enter into a worship service - everything is hunky-dory. Life is good. God is good (all the time; all the time, God is good). I can speak Christianese like it is a second language. But this past week, I got the challenge to plan the music for a sermon that will be on Hosea. If you've never read the book of Hosea, let me break it down for you:
God calls to a man named Hosea and says, "I want you to marry a prostitute. She will be unfaithful to you. She will hurt you. But you must love her. You must raise her children." So Hosea does. Through this, Hosea is reflecting to Israel the relationship between Israel and God. God is faithful to an adulterous nation. Hosea and Gomer (his wife) have 3 kids, named Jezereel - fortelling the destruction of Israel at Jezereel; Lo-Ruhamah, meaning "not loved"; and Lo-Ammi, meaning "not my people." If you know anything about the naming of children in the Middle Eastern culture, their names are who they are. Imagine yourself with the name "not loved." Ouch. So Gomer goes out and prostitutes herself, ending up living with a man who is not Hosea. Hosea is called to woo her back to himself. After a long and hard marriage, he gets his wife back - no. He BUYS his wife back. He will not leave her in sin; he will protect her and carry her back to himself, even though she is sinful and unrepentant.
God's never-ending love is enough to bring anyone to their knees - let alone the idolater, the lonely, the adulterer, the broken.
I have had the first line of "He Loves Us" by Kim Walker stuck in my mind for most of the day - "He is jealous for me." For the past two weeks I have been bombarded by papers, tests, and projects. For some odd reason, all of my classes had papers or projects due within the same time frame, and all of them are difficult. They are time consuming. They have driven me to the point of tears more than once in the past week. I have made an idol out of schoolwork; I have made an idol out of my life. I have let myself be so consumed with myself that it broke me multiple times in one week. I forgot to learn about that which I was writing.
Ironically, I was writing about headship and submission as gender roles within marriage. That is too big of a topic to tackle here (if you would like to read my 18 page discourse on it, ask me and I'll give you a copy), but one of the things that drew my attention was that in creation, humanity was allowed in what Timothy Keller in his book Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism calls the "dance of the Trinity." Early Church fathers called this dance "perichoresis" (which just so happens to be one of my favorite Greek words ever. Just say it... pear - ee - core - ee - sis) and it describes the mutually self-giving motion of the Trinity. Each person revolves around the other two, glorifying them and honoring them. "God is love," Christ statess, and He is love because He is always giving of Himself. He is constantly outporing, as Harold Best puts it. He knows nothing more than to pour out of Himself and into His Selves. When humanity walked with God in the Garden of Eden, we were invited into that dance. And we bowed out far too early. When we stopped dancing with God, however, we stopped dancing with each other. We became static, self-serving. We wished to dance only if others would orbit around ourselves - and if everybody is waiting for others to orbit around them, no one will dance.
Christ came to save us from the sin that has our feet bound and commanded us to move. By his death on the cross, we are able to not only be in the presence of God, but the Holy Spirit dwells within us. The Holy Spirit is constantly moving in our lives, making us turn outward to others - or it should be. We should be continually looking out of ourselves and looking out for the interests of others. Our minds should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-9)
What does worship for REAL people look like? It acknowledges the pain of living in a world that is still filed with sin, but looks toward the cross. It acknowledges that people are coming in from all areas of life and continually preaches the Gospel. It looks to glorify God in the presence of pain. It looks to remind people of Christ's words, "Come, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Worship should ALWAYS be cross-centered; it should always have its foundation on the one who bore our sins and took them to the cross. It should always glorify the only One who deserves praise and adoration -God. One of my friends told me a story when she was in a worship service and she said that the music just wasn't touching, the sermon seemed non-applicable and she complained to someone, "I didn't get anything out of the service today." The person she was talking to replied with these words: "Good, because it wasn't for you."
Worship should preach the Gospel from the beginning to the end. That is what worship for "real people" looks like.
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