he “Worship Wars” have brought us some frustratingly shallow in-fighting in the Evangelical community of believers. We fight over presentation style, appropriate instrumentation, intentional quality or lack thereof, use of technology, musical genres, and so much more. And in the midst of the ongoing struggle, we seldom hear anyone ask the clichéd but appropriate (in this case) question: “What would Jesus do?”
So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the first. And he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tablets of stone. The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.
So as I was reading in Exodus this morning I noticed that God has given us a very good example of what he wants to hear in our worship. It seems to me that it might be good to ask God his opinion.
Moses had gone up into the mountain to receive the Law. God had given him the law on the tablets and Moses had returned to find the people worshiping the golden calf. Aaron told Moses that he threw the people’s golden jewelry into the fire and “out came this calf,” an amazing story, to be sure.
Moses then asked that God show him his glory. God (Yahweh, which I believe refers to the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ) tells him that he can’t look on his face without dying, but that he will allow him to observe his back.
So Moses goes to the spot the Lord tells him to go to and there is Yahweh, the pre-incarnate Christ, praising God with these words:
“The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
So there we have it. This is God praising God. This is God demonstrating what we should be doing when we praise God. And he is not saying, “you thought of me above all.” He is proclaiming God’s attributes—both positive (merciful, gracious, steadfast, faithful, forgiving) and negative (will not clear the guilty and will exact punishment for iniquity).
In the English Standard Version, I don’t see any mention of the use of organs and pianos or of the avoidance of guitars or drums; I don’t see any mention of genre or musical style; I don’t see any mention of liturgical cadence or avoidance of liturgical methodology. I see only God’s attributes and acts being proclaimed.
This is not just what Jesus would do; this is what Jesus did. And it is what we should concern ourselves with as well, rather than being distracted by our own man-made ideas of what makes worship good and enjoyable.
Bingo! Oops, sorry, is that allowed?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, Decadent. You're allowed to respond as you see fit.
ReplyDelete(Especially when you agree with me)
:-)
I think she means, "Is Bingo allowed?" :-) :-)
ReplyDeleteAw, man, I was hoping she was agreeing with me.
ReplyDeleteI'm fine with Bingo as long as it's not in the sanctuary. Or were you calling out, Decadent, that you had completed your Bingo card? If so, you won!!
Guess I've always wondered, Did Jesus only sing the sanctified music from the period of the great composers, too? Nope, His music was decidedly cultural. Most of our western ears could not stand a long worship service with the style of music our Savior most often heard. This is a great assessment, Rich, and one of the biggest reasons I love music by Keith and Kristyn Getty.
ReplyDeleteI hope that the Gettys and Stewart Townend spark a resurgence of contemporary hymn writing leading us away from the shallow waters of so much of today's praise music and back to the theologically sound and pedagogically rich church music that is seen in the Psalms and in many older hymns.
ReplyDeleteGod asks us to "bring some of the old and some of the new," but our new should seek to be sound and excellent not just new. I'm sure there were some terrible hymns written in the last few hundred years, but most of them have not withstood the test of time so we do not (and God does not) have to endure them now. But when we write new songs of praise, we should seek to write songs that will stand the test of time--songs without vapid and self-centered lyrics.