Isaiah
56:6-7
…all who keep the Sabbath, and do not
profane it, and hold fast my covenant-- these I will bring to my holy mountain, and
make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of
prayer for all peoples.
Sunday worship
is among the most important things the Body of Christ does when it gathers
together. As Christians we understand
that offering an adoring response to the God who loves us and gives us life is
fundamental to our relationship with Him.
Sabbath worship
is obviously important to God. He gave
us the Sabbath and made it His 4th Commandment. The Sabbath is not only a day of resting, it
is a day of resting in the Lord, a Holy Day to honor God and to be with
Him.
A striking
feature of Christian worship is that it is a celebration of the immanence
(presence, closeness) of God. Most
religions celebrate their god’s transcendence (his or her aloofness and
untouchableness). We do the same, of
course, as attested to in the stateliness and reverence of our Anglican
liturgy, but it is the intimate presence of God upon which we focus and
celebrate. We do not gather to celebrate
a memory or an idea of God being aloof and far off; we gather to celebrate His
presence. Matthew 18:20 says, “For where
two or three gather in my name,
there am I with them.”
We also gather
to celebrate a victory, an Easter victory.
This is why our Sabbath is on the
first day of the week, the Day of our Lord’s Resurrection. Our expectation in worship is that Christ,
the risen and living God, comes to us as His people gathered, as surely as He
came to the Apostles in the Upper Room on Easter morning.
Sunday morning
worship offers us the opportunity to step out of our normal routines, step out
of time and space, and step into eternity and into the presence of God, albeit
for only an hour and twenty minutes on a Sunday. Each Sunday we recite from Isaiah 6 (The Sanctus)
which reminds us that we, like Isaiah, are being brought into the presence of
the Almighty. Isaiah records, “In the year that King
Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the
train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were
seraphim, 3 And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole
earth is full of his glory.” 4 At the sound of their voices the
doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.”
This passage from Isaiah, along with
other Scripture such as Chapters 4, 5 and 7 of the Book of Revelation, remind
us that we are not the only part of the created order that has worship
as a fundamental response to our Creator.
Angels also worship, and it is not hard to imagine that as we worship on
Sunday mornings, we have the heavenly host worshiping with us.
Worship is
offering something very precious to God - ourselves. Our Eucharistic liturgy says, “we offer ourselves, our souls and bodies, as a living
sacrifice,” and Scripture speaks of us offering a sacrifice of
praise: Hebrews 13:15- “Through Jesus, therefore, let us
continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly
profess his name.”
We Christians therefore recognize our
responsibility to God and our fellow Christians to be present at Sabbath
worship. Too often we come on Sunday
mornings seeking what we will get out of worship, which is a good and proper
expectation to have, but we first come seeking the face of God, honoring God, offering
a sacrifice of praise, and supporting our brothers and sisters in doing the
same.
A joyful truth about our worship is that the Holy Spirit,
God Himself, empowers and anoints us to worship Him. Our worship is Spirit-filled and Spirit-lead,
if we will allow it to be. In Jesus’
conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well in John Chapter 4, our Lord
says, “Yet a
time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the
Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the
Father seeks. 24 God
is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The Holy Spirit creates true and Spirit-filled worship, for as Paul
writes in 1 Corinthians 12, “No one can
say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit.”
It is the Holy Spirit who checks our unworthy instincts, inspires
our prayers, moves us to praise, convicts us, and changes us. Our expectation is that we leave worship differently
from how we came in, and, as we know, it is the indwelling Holy Spirit who is
the instrument of Godly change in our lives.
Finally, Christian worship is permeated with
a deep sense of participation, mutual support, and fellowship. We did not come to have someone worship for
us. Early Christian communities gathered
for worship to honor and celebrate God, to seek a touch from Him, and to
support fellow Christians in their desire to do the same. We get a sense of this in Acts 2- “They devoted themselves
to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to
prayer. 43 Everyone was filled
with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had
everything in common. 45 They sold property and
possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together
in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with
glad and sincere hearts,
47 praising God and
enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily
those who were being saved.”
Is being absent from Sunday worship a
sin? It depends, of course. What we do know is that sin is anything
outside of the will of God for us, and the Lord obviously wills that His people
be gathered together with Him on the Lord’s Day. My suggestion, therefore, is to be
there. God will be glorified by your
presence and you will be blessed by being in His. Father Rob+
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