Worship Naked

Read. Think. Comment. Soli Deo Gloria.

Er … Um … Ahem …

Just because I'm not posting, doesn't mean I'm not worshiping … or thinking … or … er … um … ahem … yikes!

Pre-light

One of the joys in Advent this past year was seeing artistic gifts coming together in collaboration for the edification of the whole church. Perhaps the most exciting case was with a reading written and delivered by Karen and accompanied by images by Caleb on December 17. Here is that reading with images for your continued meditation. (There is a link at the end of this post if you'd like to download a copy in Word.)

Pre-light …

Shades pulled, curtains drawn, doors shut and bolted. Still, no rest.

All activity in her outer world has ceased. Yet, she is awakened by fitful thoughts and dreams. Entangled by anxieties and checklists, she longs for the sweetness of rest. But, does not find it. She enlists tricks to lull herself back to sleep: counting sheep … drinking warm milk … taking pills … Sleep’s embrace will not come.

Wealth and worldly success delude him. He speculates. Calculates how to pull himself up with prayer, grit and determination. Wisdom eludes and it costs. A deepening darkness intrudes, puts down stakes. Is there a worldly solution for his brokenness? His defeat? His sin?

When will the morning – their daybreak – come? The clock reads of a time in between time. Too early to rise and almost too late for the satisfying rest their souls long for. Almost … too late…

The people that walked in darkness…

“The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord.” Words whispered in pre-light. “He is their stronghold in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him.” (Psalm 37:39-40)

But, before the salvation … before the strength … before the deliverance … the agony: Concern for children. The job. A lifestyle threatened. A marriage dissolved. A purpose thwarted. A poor choice. A wrong turn. A test and a diagnosis. Isolation and fear of being alone … forever. Troubles stacking one upon the other upon the other.

And to those that lived in the shadow of death…

So, we wait. What else can we do? But wait through the darkness, through this time of pre-light and into the inevitable dawn. Help us, O God, to wait your coming … as surely as the sun rises.

The light has come…

Suddenly, light breaks forth.

Burdens shift. Hope emerges, fragile and tenacious, pushing us to our feet, granting us courage to meet the new day. We’ve been waiting for this. We see possibilities. The light lifts. Things look different now.

“O splendor of God’s glory bright, O thou that bringest light from light; O Light of light, light’s living spring, O day, all days illumining.” (Ambrose of Milan, 4th century)

God’s glory beams. His mercy is revealed. His immaculate love is cast upon us.

Text by Karen Young. © 2006. ARR. UBPO.
Images by Caleb Spencer. © 2006. ARR. UBPO.

Click here to download Pre-light in MS Word 2003.

Worship in the New Year

The first thing I did this morning, this first day of the new year, the first thing before even getting out of bed was to grab my copy of The Divine Hours and pray through the morning office.

The very first text, the Call to Prayer, was the BCP version of Psalm 34:3.

Proclaim with me the greatness of the LORD; let us exalt his Name together.

Mighty fine words for a worship leader. Mighty fine words for a worshipper. Mighty fine words.

Thanks be to God!

Whole Person Worship

I highly recommend Walter Wangerin's book Preparing for Jesus: Meditations on the Coming of Christ, Advent, Christmas and the Kingdom for the season of Advent (and after continuing to the 12th day of Christmas). I continue to be struck by his words reflecting on Luke 1:46-56 for December 15:

It never is just the intellectual meaning of the words that captures the messages of the Almighty! The messages consist as well of things that must be felt, experienced: God's ineffable love, our emotional and spiritual responses, elements whose truth cannot be objectively analyzed nor reduced to doctrine.

Praise and thanksgiving require more than our brains. They want our laughter, our capering bodies, our trembling delight, smiles and the sweet flush of delight - and song. Praise must be sung.

I love this quote partly because there is no anti-intellectual bias in these words. But there is a recognition of the limits of the intellect. To know God is so much more than propositional statements. And when we experience God in truth, our worship must go beyond the merely cognitive … not in contradiction, but in completion.

All of me, all of us for all of God.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Readings for the Fourth Week of Advent and Christmas

Readings for the Third Week of Advent

Advent Reading

I've begun (a bit late) to read Walter Wangerin's Preparing for Jesus: Meditations on the Coming of Christ, Advent, Christmas and the Kingdom. Wangerin has written several short pieces, one for each day December 1 through January 6 (Epiphany). The book just came yesterday, so today I read January 1 through 14!

Here's the prayer at the end of today's entry:

Fill then, O Jesus!
Fill our hearts with your love.
Fill our songs with your windy Spirit.
Let nothing we sing be empty
  or noxious or foolish or false.
For if you will be the cause of our carols,
  then we will have joined the heavenly choirs.
We, with Mary, may be transported,
  and joy will shed joy on everyone.

Amen.

Advent Worship is not about seasonal nostalgia. No, it's something so much greater.

God given wonder.

Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Readings for the Second Week of Advent

Waiting

We don't like to wait. Ever. Nothing new in that statement. It's easy to acknowledge it. Not so much on the living into the flip side of it.

I've found this to be true in people's approach to their own worship as well. "I don't wanna wait for it. Give me energy and excitement now. No silence. No reflection. No quiet. No waiting."

But Scripture is full of waiting. The whole Old Testament can be seen as waiting for the coming of the Savior, the Anointed One, the Messiah, the Christ. Jesus. And what about the 400 years of waiting between the Old Testament and the Advent of our Lord? God was silent and the people waited. Much of the New Testament leans into waiting, waiting for the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. We are called to be a people who wait.

And so we wait in our Advent worship. We have silence. We have quiet. We listen. We delay our arrival at the manger. We remember the waiting. We continue to wait.

This is not hopeless waiting. This is not waiting with no reprieve in the now. It's Psalm 27:13-14 (NIV) waiting: I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

I believe that in the waiting, we truly meet God.

Maranatha, Lord Jesus.

Readings for the First Week of Advent