Romans 14:11 [Isaiah 45:23] “As surely as I live,” says the Lord, “every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will confess and give praise to God.”
Philippians 2:9-11 [Isaiah 45:23] God elevated Jesus to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
My friend Barb lives in a small village in northern France. She’s very active in this community. Here’s Barb:
Yesterday morning, as is usual for most every Sunday in my life, I went to church. I long ago noted that drums are the only percussion instrument played during the worship time. So, being a musical person myself, I bring my little tambourine-on-a-stick in my purse each week, and I play it appropriately to add to the spirit of the livelier songs.
Occasionally one of the little kids in church (who know me from being in our home group together) sidles up to me with a hand outstretched toward my tambourine, ready to play it. Yesterday it was little 5-year-old Paul. So I placed his right hand on the wooden stick, tapping his left palm to the beat of the music, as he’s seen me do. My hands remained on top of his hands to make sure he played the instrument correctly.
We were both enjoying the dinging sound of the tambourine and how it added to the joy of the worship songs as I guided his hands. But every now and then Paul would begin his own rhythm and tapping, and I could feel his resistance to my guidance. When this began happening, I tried to gently encourage him. “Relax, Paul,” I’d say. “Let my hands help you do the rhythm.” After these words, he’d ease up and let me guide him, which kept a better rhythm than he made on his own. And we both enjoyed the sound we heard and were pleased with our contribution to the worship time.
In the midst of this experience, the thought occurred to me that it’s just like what God wants to do in my life. It was as if I heard Him saying, “Relax, my daughter – let My hands – My infinite hands – guide yours, let Me make the music you’re trying to make, and let Me send it through your life to those around you.” Wow! What a message!!
And the more I thought on it, the more it struck me how true it is – He’s got His infinite hands on my finite ones, and if I don’t resist Him, He will guide me to fulfill His perfect will for my life – He’ll make His music – the BEST music – in my life for those around me to hear – His words drawing them to Himself. All because I submitted to Him as my Sovereign Guide to help me “play my tambourine.”
I guess it all boils down to submission, doesn’t it? Just like little Paul, when he submitted to the guidance of my adult hands covering his childish ones. My prayer now: “Father, help me to see where I’m resisting You in my life, where I’m not letting You make Your music in and through me. I now submit to Your infinite Lordship. In Jesus’ Powerful, Almighty Name, Amen.”
Praise him with the tambourine and dancing; praise him with strings and flutes! Psalm 150:4
Ephesians 5:18-19 Be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts.
Revelation 5:9 And they sang a new song, “… You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”
I’m home from a too-short visit to our daughter Valerie’s family in summertime Brazil in time for the biggest winter storm in recent memory! A bit of the whiplash we experience both directions.
A view of part of São Paulo our “hometown” in Brazil for twenty years. About 22 million people call São Paulo home.
Singing is one of the ways we express our gratitude to the Lord for his “But God” interventions in our lives. Worshiping again in Portuguese with our church in São Paulo last Sunday delighted my heart. Worship feels different to me in every culture and language I’ve been privileged to experience.
Someday we will all worship together before the throne of our Lord, people from every language and culture down through the ages. Try to imagine that incredible moment. I think I’ve touched the edge of that experience, in international settings. But the reality will be breathtaking. I’m already asking God to enlarge my heart’s capacity to hold such enormous emotions, such awe of our Lord. I think part of that training is to engage as fully as I can with worship now.
Following up on our look at the recorded biblical songs related to Jesus’ birth as a human baby, I want to look at the references to songs in the rest of the New Testament. As I’ve studied them, each one has something special to offer us. I’m also asking a friend who regularly writes worship music to tell us what that is like for her, and what inspires her most in using her gifts this way.
While writing this series, I want to pay more attention to the role and impact of singing and worship in my own life. I invite you to do the same!
Meanwhile, here is one of my favorite worship songs in Portuguese, about the river of life, as Jesus described the work of the Holy Spirit in John 7:38-39. Enjoy!
(We’ve known Ana Paula since she was a child—God used her father to inspire Dave to move to Brazil way back in the 1980s. Because of Karis’s illness, we were only able to move there in 1990.)
If you want more of Diante do Trono, try here and here.
Here’s an English translation of the lyrics:
There is a river, Lord, that flows from your great love Waters that flow from the throne Waters that heal, that cleanse,
Wherever the river passes, everything will be transformed For it carries the life of God Himself This river flows in this place
I want to drink from your river, Lord Quench my thirst, cleanse my heart I want to flow in your waters I want to drink from your fountain Fountain of living waters
Hosea 3:1, 5 The Lord still loves his people, even though they have turned to other gods and love to worship them. … But afterward they will return and devote themselves to the Lord their God. … In the last days, they will tremble in awe of the Lord and of his goodness.
You feed and walk your dog and give it affection and shelter.
Your dog thinks, “You must be God.”
You feed and care for your cat and give it affection and shelter.
Your cat thinks, “I must be God.”
Shutterstock: Bachkova Natalia
We, too, inevitably worship. If not ourselves, then something or someone else.
We worship what we most prize or most fear, that which at our core orients and motivates us, that which we count on and build our lives on. Our highest value may be our own pleasure or happiness or “fulfillment,” which we think we can obtain on our own or we manipulate others into creating for us.
Hosea talks a LOT about the misplaced worship of the people of his day—which doesn’t end well. Yet he keeps repeating this message of hope: God still loves you. He invites you to turn to him, so that he can heal you and share his goodness with you (Hosea 3:5; 5:4, 15; 6:1; 7:10; 11:5; 14:1-2).
Humans fight with each other over what or whom they worship, fearful, often, that if others get more, we will get less. We take sides to defend what we have and are often aggressive in taking from others what we tell ourselves the “others” don’t deserve or have obtained unjustly. We even claim God is on our side (making him into our image, rather than God making us into his) and decide the others are not only wrong; they are evil.
Thinking about this, I received an email from Jim Hobby (houseofgladness.com). Jim wrote, “The question for us is never whether the Lord is on our side. Human “sides” will never circumscribe the Lord’s side. Every human ‘side’ will always fall short of God’s kingdom. The question is whether we are on His side. Are we following Him, imitating Him, listening to His voice, being transformed by His presence, transcending our ‘side’?”
God keeps on inviting us to his side. Not because we deserve it. Simply because he loves us. And when we choose to worship him above all else and all others, including ourselves, we may discover those “others” aren’t so very different from us. We all need God’s provision and care and affection and shelter. And forgiveness for our arrogance.
Hebrews 12:18, 22 You have not come to Mount Sinai, a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind … and terror and trembling. … No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering.
Can you imagine being part of that joyful gathering, surrounded, buoyed, overwhelmed by thousands of angel voices raised in worship of the Lamb, the Lamb who laid down his life for you?
A couple of years ago, I had a tiny taste of what this might be like. I was standing in worship in my church in Pittsburgh when all at once, I could see into Heaven. I can’t explain this; I can only tell you what I experienced. I felt goose bumps; a depth of wonder I don’t know how to describe. Awe.
And gradually I realized: the angels were singing with us. They sang the song we were singing in honor of the Lord. I wish I remembered what that song was.
The time of worship ended. The vision faded. I was so overwhelmed I had to sit down. After the closing prayer I looked around me. Did no one else see what I saw? How could I ever describe it? Was I meant to share it with others? To what end had God given me this glimpse of glory? Was it for me alone, to encourage me in a time of sadness?
I don’t fully know the answer. Tonight, I feel I am to share this with you. Perhaps you are in a moment of discouragement, wondering whether your life will ever come right. Perhaps this second-hand peek into the reality of God’s “heavenly Jerusalem” will prompt you to ask for your own deepened understanding of the joy-filled wonders that await us.
I offer this as a gift, passing on a gift given to me, Heaven touching earth. May the Holy Spirit use it to bless you as only he knows how to do.
Shutterstock: Bruce Rolff
I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne … And they sang in a mighty chorus: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.” And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They sang, “Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.” Revelation 5:11-13
But God’s kingdom encompasses all he created March 28, 2024
Psalm 103:19-22 The Lord has made the heavens his throne; from there he rules over everything. … Praise the Lord, you armies of angels who serve him and do his will. Praise the Lord, everything he has created, everything in all his kingdom.
Litany of Penitence 12
For our failure to commend the faith that is in us
Lord, have mercy upon us,
For we have sinned against you.
In The Psalms, Jesus’s Prayer Book, Volume 3 Psalms 73-106, Douglas D. Webster says:
“Psalm 103 reminds us that we bow before King Jesus. The third stanza widens the circle of praise to include all of creation. All the angels and the heavenly hosts are summoned to worship before the throne of him who rules over all. Total praise. There are no spectators. Everyone is in the choir and everything is centered around the throne of the Lord. … Whatever your perspective on worship styles … in the end we’ll be worshiping together. … The key concept for the future of the human community is doxology.”
So, besides confessing our failure to “commend the faith that is in us,” how can I, how can you, share our hope with all whom we love, so they too can join this worship fest around the Throne? How can we free the River of Life to overflow from our hearts?
A beautiful hymn, based on Psalm 103, celebrates much of what we’ve been considering this Lent as we’ve worked our way through the Litany of Penitence: Praise my Soul the King of Heaven, by Henry Francis Lyte, 1834, sung by St Laurence’s Church.
This evening our church has a Maundy Thursday service. The word Maundy comes from the Latin for “commandment” – Jesus’s “new” commandment (John 13:34) to love others just as he has loved us. If you know Spanish or Portuguese, think mandamiento or mandamento. The service includes footwashing (John 13:1-17). At the end of the service, the lights will slowly dim as the altar is stripped of all ornamentation (and we remember Jesus’s arrest). As we find ourselves in total darkness, a voice reads Psalm 22. We exit in silence.
Tomorrow, we watch with Mary as her Son hangs on the cross from noon until 3:00 p.m., when he cries “It is finished.” Artists in the congregation have created pieces depicting each of the Stations of the Cross. (I featured last year’s Good Friday artwork on this blog.)
On Saturday, a quiet day of meditation, I’ll post the final prayer from the Litany of Atonement and the final line from Psalm 103.
Easter Sunday at 6:00 a.m., we enter the sanctuary in darkness, and the first half of the service is held by candlelight. Gradually, daylight filters through the stained glass, but remember, the last time we were in this space, it was stripped of all other adornment. When the lights suddenly come on, though, and the organ and trumpets and choir announce Jesus’s resurrection, we see the church filled with fragrant flowers. All of our senses are engaged in this magnificent celebration of restored Life. Once again, we can sing and say “Alleluia,” which we have not done since Lent began.
While all this is wonderful, I find it bittersweet, because Karis loved Easter so much. But in a flash I remember: all we can do is but a shadow of the incredible joy of being in the very Presence of God on his rainbow throne. We may still experience waves of grief. But for her, and for each one of our missing beloved ones and yours, all is glory.
I’ll wish you and your family now a lovely Easter.
Isaiah 52:13, Acts 2:33 See, my servant will prosper; he will be highly exalted. … Now Jesus is exalted to the place of highest honor in heaven, at God’s right hand.
When Jesus appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.
Therefore, God exalted him to the place of highest honor
and gave him the name above all other names,
that at the name of Jesus …
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
Isaiah 40:8, 21; John 1:14 The Word of our God stands forever. … Haven’t you heard? Don’t you understand? Are you deaf to the Word of God—the Word he gave before the world began? … The Word became human and made his home among us, full of unfailing love and faithfulness.
In the beginning, the Word already existed.
The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He existed in the beginning with God.
God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.
The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought life to everyone.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
Isaiah 52:6 I will reveal my name to my people, and they will come to know its power. Then at last they will recognize that I am the one who speaks to them.”
Advent begins tomorrow, December 3, and continues until Sunday December 24. Advent means “coming.” These four weeks are set apart in some Christian traditions for reflection on Jesus’ first coming (which we celebrate at Christmas) and to prepare for his second coming, whenever that may take place.
As part of my own observance of Advent, I’ve been thinking about the names and attributes of God in Isaiah, and particularly the names of Jesus. I’ve devised an Advent ABC to share with you each day of Advent with a simple format: One of Jesus’ or his Father’s names, a single verse of Scripture, a two or three-sentence reflection, and a hymn or carol with that theme.
If you experience even a part of the profound worship I have enjoyed preparing this series, I will be thrilled. I hope it will deepen and enrich your focus on the One who left heaven’s glory to take on our fragility, our brokenness, our sorrows, our temptations. Across the universe, through all time, there has never been anyone like him, or a greater mystery.
1 John 5:19-20 The world around us is under the control of the evil one. And the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. … He is eternal life.
My heart is so full of the blessing of yesterday–I want to share a few of many special moments with you. Dave and I love attending the sunrise service at 6:00 a.m. The service begins in total darkness as we review God’s work leading up to this day. We are each handed a candle, and the first half of the service is conducted by candlelight.
Before I go on, a bit of context:
On Thursday evening, at the end of the footwashing service, the altar had been stripped of every decoration as the light gradually lowers until the pastor ends with the reading by candlelight of Luke 22:39-53. Verse 53 ends with, “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.” As he says “the power of darkness,” the pastor blows out his candle. At the same instant, all remaining light in the sanctuary is extinguished. We sit in silence in the darkness, and when we’re ready, leave in the same way.
On Friday, from noon until 3:00, in various ways, including art works from people in the congregation, we shared in Jesus’s suffering on the cross, suffering for each of us. We are invited to write our sins and burdens and walk forward to leave our folded papers in a basket at the foot of the rough wooden cross, bearing a crown of thorns, at the front of the church. At the end of the service, these are taken outside and burned, to symbolize Christ bearing them for us.
On Easter morning, as we enter the dark sanctuary, we have in our minds the stripped altar and the cross. But at a certain moment in the service, the lights and the choir explode, and we see the sanctuary full of flowers. Madly ringing bells we have brought from home for this moment, the congregation joins the choir in wholehearted praise.
This year, when the lights came on, we also saw an amazing mosaic at the front of the church. This also requires a bit of context, going back to Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22. We were invited to bring to that service a piece of pottery from home, which we placed in a big metal tub and smashed with hammers at the end of the service, to illustrate our brokenness.
An artist, with the help of anyone from the church who wished to participate, took those broken pieces and created beauty from them. People crowded around after the service to admire it and to identify pieces from their own broken cup or bowl or pitcher. Many of us were in tears at this visual, visceral symbol of God’s transformation and healing offered us through Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross. The photo I managed to capture:
The mosaic reminded me of the last chapter of Suffering and the Heart of God. Diane Langberg waxes poetic as she describes Jesus on the cross, and then restored to life, healing our brokenness. Here’s part of what she says:
The cross is a place of death and evil; decay and wrath. It is a pace of darkness, thirst, isolation, rejection, abandonment, and bondage. It is the absence of God and all that is good. It is hell itself.
And whom do we see there? The Lily of the Valley, the Rose of Sharon. We see the fairest of ten thousand, the beauty of God incarnate. We see purity, holiness, infinite love, compassion, and eternal glory. …
Death and evil seemed to have won. But God had so much more up his sleeve:
What happened that third day? Decay was transformed into glory. Death was swallowed up by life. Evil was transfigured into holiness, and the wrath of men into praise. Darkness was changed to light, and hell defeated by heaven. Thirst is transformed into living water and brokenness into the bread of life. Alienation led to restored relationship and bondage led to freedom.
If garbage can be transformed into beauty on such a scale as this, then surely it can happen in my small life and in the lives of others. … The cross, a thing of beauty? Yes, for it is at the cross that we behold all of the beauties of Christ in perfection. All of his love is drawn out there. All of his character expressed. The wounds of Jesus are far more fair than all the splendor of this world. …
Children of God in a world controlled by the Evil One. I fear the odds are against us. Our wits are too slow, our understanding finite and our strength too frail. But, glorious but, “the Son of God has come … to transform garbage into beauty, first in our lives and then in those we serve. … So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen (2 Corinthians 4:18). And what is it that is unseen? The Lord of Glory, the Lord of all Beauty, who wears the appearance of a slain Lamb as his court dress. …
May we count Him alone as worthy and all else as rubbish. May we desire one thing—to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek his beautiful face. And then may the beauty of our Lord be upon us. May he establish the work of our lives.
I invite you to enjoy our choir’s Easter anthem, called “Glad of Heart,” written in 1568, here (start at 1:39:50) Of course, you can watch any of the rest of the live stream you wish–or either of the other two services. The worship during communion begins at 1:59:23. Here is the text:
Now glad of heart be everyone! The fight is fought, the battle won, the Christ is set upon his throne, alleluia, alleluia!
Who on the wood was crucified, who rose again, as at this tide, in glory to his Father’s side, alleluia, allelluia!
Who baffled death and harrowed hell and led the souls that loved him well, all in the light of lights to dwell: alleluia, alleluia!
To him we lift our heart and voice and in his paradise rejoice with harp and pipe and happy noise. Sing alleluia, alleluia!
Then rise all Christian folk with me and carol forth the One in Three that was, and is, and is to be, alleluia, alleluia!
Though this has become a long post, I want to share one more thing, related to verse 4 of this anthem. Several weeks ago I started practicing with my grandchildren a simple piece of music (“Allelu, allelu, allelu, alleluia, Praise ye the Lord) to share with their parents at our Easter brunch, accompanied by a variety of simple instruments. The adults at the table each had an instrument as well, to join in the song after the children “taught” it to them. “Happy noise” indeed! It was such fun that we sang and “played” other songs as well, ending, at Talita’s request, with “Twinkle, twinkle, little star.” Since the morning sermon had referenced Jesus as the Morning Star, each of us to reflect his glory, this seemed oddly appropriate!
Debra Kornfield 