Introduction & Definitions
This week we begin a new message series that looks
at worship through the stories of four characters in the advent story. The four characters we’ll be exploring are
Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, Mary, the mother of Jesus, the shepherds
and the wise men. Today we’ll be looking
at worship through the story of Zechariah.
Before we dive in to Zechariah’s story, I’d like to
clarify some terms & set some ground rules for the message. The first thing to clarify is what we mean by
the word ‘worship’. In our North
American Christian subculture, the term ‘worship’ has come to pretty much
exclusively apply to singing. When we
say we are going to enter into a time of worship, what we really mean is that
we’re going to sing songs to God. And
while that’s an important aspect of worship, I’d like to suggest that it’s a
limited definition of what the word really means and what the real intent of
worship is.
Worship as defined in the dictionary is to bring
adoring reverence or regard to someone or something sacred. It means to come with an attitude of deep
respect and awe. It can come with the
idea of paying homage to God. Paying homage is a declaration of your belonging
to God and a promise of your loyalty and service to Him. The word worship comes from the old English
words of ‘worth – ship’, of declaring the worth of someone. So really worship is this act of coming with
reverence and awe, this sense of both being wowed and a little terrified, to
declare your love, your adoration, your loyalty to, your devotion to God and to
declare all of the reasons why God is worthy of devotion and praise and why He
is valuable and important to you. And while
this most definitely can be expressed through our singing, and in reality three
of the four advent stories we’ll look at involve songs, our worship is not
limited to song. True worship can range
from the silent heart cries, a brief moment of thankfulness to God and a sense
of wonder at the beauty of a sunset, the cool of ice cream on out tongue or the
smile of a child, to any visible expression of love and adoration to God to
acts of service, caring for the poor, giving of time and money, taking
risks. I hope as we look at worship in
this advent season that we expand our definition of worship and recognize that
worship is really part of our life blood.
So much of the everyday either is or can be this declaration of God’s
worthiness, of His presence and value in our lives.
The second term I want to clarify is the word
‘advent’. I didn’t grow up with a
tradition of ‘advent’ and so I have to learn as an adult what that means. Advent as a word means ‘a coming into place,
view or being’. Advent is about
arrival. In the Christian tradition, Advent
is the start of the liturgical calendar. It’s a time set aside to enter into a
season of reflection and waiting. The
goal of advent is to have us reflect on waiting for Christ in two different
ways. First of all, advent asks us to
reflect on the ancient longing for Messiah.
We get to enter into the waiting for Jesus’ birth at the Nativity, at
Christmas. And secondly, we reflect on
our current waiting for His second coming.
So the point of advent is not to give us a countdown
of crossing off the days before Christmas, but to help us reflect on a heart
posture of waiting and longing. As we
reflect on the longing for Messiah, in the longing for Jesus’ first coming, we
realize there was no end date where they knew the longing would end. There was only the waiting, the struggle of
the unknown. There was the promise of
this one who would be the fulfilment of prophesy, the fullness of hope, love,
joy, and peace. But there was no
knowledge of when He would come. As we
really enter into the story of advent, as we bring not just our mental
recognition of waiting, but really bring our hearts into the longing, we find
that advent is a time to, yes, be excited and grateful for what we have, but
more than that, it’s a time to acknowledge our aches. It’s a time to give voice to the deepest
longings of our heart. Advent is a time
to give voice to the twinges of sadness we maybe try to close off during the
rest of the year. It’s a time to
recognize that no matter how good things are, there is something that we’re
missing in life. It’s a time of
recognizing the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom.
There are unanswered prayers, questions without answers, itches that
can’t be scratched, longings that find no fulfilment. As we give voice to all of these, then it
makes the arrival of Christ that much more meaningful as we find that all of
our longings find their rest in Him.
And so as we go through this message series on
worship in advent, we need you to be present.
We need you try to move past just enduring another Sunday morning talk
(though I won’t blame you for having to endure my talk), to move past just
listening to a lecture. We ask that
you’d bring your heart to these stories.
We’d ask that you let the characters in these stories speak to you of
their journey of advent, to let the great cloud of witnesses speak to you of
their longings and waiting. And in
really hearing their stories, we hope that you’ll find that their stories
reflect a bit of your own story and that you’ll find your life story woven a
bit more deeply into the greater Jesus story that is being told through all of
history.
Zechariah’s story: The First Half
And so with that, let’s dive into the story of
Zechariah. His story can be found in the
first chapter of Luke. His story is sort
of at the beginning of the chapter and at the end of the chapter. We’ll read the beginning of his story now and
then look at the rest of his story later on.
Let’s start with Luke 1: 5-24:
“In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was
a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife from the
daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. They
were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the
commandments and requirements of the Lord. But they had
no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both advanced in years.
Now it happened that while he was
performing his priestly service before God in the appointed order of his
division, according to the custom of the priestly
office, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
And the whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside
at the hour of the incense offering. And an angel of
the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense.
Zacharias was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear [gripped
him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid,
Zacharias, for your petition has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear
you a son, and you will give him the name John. You
will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no
wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his
mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the sons of
Israel back to the Lord their God. It is he who will go
as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of
the fathers back to the children, and the
disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people
prepared for the Lord.”
Zacharias said to the angel, “How will I know this for
certain? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.” The angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the
presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this
good news. And behold, you shall be silent and unable
to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not
believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.”
The people were waiting for Zacharias, and were wondering
at his delay in the temple. But when he came out, he
was unable to speak to them; and they realized that he had seen a vision in the
temple; and he kept making signs to them, and remained mute. When the days of his priestly service were ended, he went back home.
After these days Elizabeth his wife became pregnant, and
she kept herself in seclusion for five months, saying, “This
is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days when He looked with favor
upon me, to take away my disgrace among men.” ”
Personal Silence: How long ago was his prayer?
In re-reading this story to prepare for this
message, I was really struck with Gabriel’s announcement that “God has heard
your prayers, Zechariah”. In all of my
past readings I assumed Zechariah was praying in that moment about wanting a
child and God was ‘overhearing’ Zechariah’s immediate prayers. This year, reading the story again while
Darlene & I wrestle with infertility, I have to wonder when was the last time
Zechariah prayed for a child? As Darlene
& I go through this journey with infertility, there are a seemingly endless
list of choices and ‘plan b’s’ to consider.
We have our hopes that this round of IVF will work, but there’s this
list of ‘what if’s and ‘what’s next’ that are in the back of our mind. Almost subconsciously we try to manage our
hopes versus disappointments in having other options to fall back on. The ‘Plan Bs’ become a bit of a security
blanket to guard against the fears of running out of options. But even with this desperate clutching for a
security blanket, we know deep down there’s a time clock on all of these other
options. We desperately ache for
children, but how old do we have to get before we give up on that possibility?
For Elizabeth and Zechariah, I think they’re way
past the point of being able to hold out any hope of having children. I don’t know how old they are, but from the
way they’re speaking, this isn’t like some late pregnancy. They’re not in their 40’s and hoping for a
child to come later in life. They’re
well past that and into the point where having a child would be beyond a
statistical anomaly, but would be a complete miracle.
So again, when was the last time Zechariah prayed
for, hoped for a child? Where was the
point where he prayed that prayer for the last time? When did he and his wife give up on hoping to
hear the cries of a little one and cauterized the aching wound in their heart
to try to silence those cries in an attempt to live in a ‘manageable level of
despair’? When did Zechariah & Elizabeth give up on hope and tried to numb
the ache of longing unfulfilled? How did
they deal with the silence of God to their lifetime of unanswered prayer? How did this affect their worship, of how
they viewed God? How can you adore,
praise and swear loyalty and service to a God that seems to have left you in
the places where it matters, where it hurts, the most?
The Greater Silence
And so Gabriel’s words tear open the wound
again. If it wasn’t coming from an
angel, it would seem like cruel mockery to re-open a promise of a child after
having given up on a child many, many years earlier. And to add to this, not only does Gabriel say
that God is bringing Zechariah and Elizabeth a child, but he says this child
will be the forerunner to Messiah.
And this maybe touches on the greater silence that
we think about as part of Advent. The
book of Malachi, the last book in the Old Testament, ends with these words,
quoted in part by Gabriel: “Behold, I am going to send you
Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the
hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children
to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”” These are the last official words that Israel
heard from God through the voice of a prophet for four hundred years. Can you imagine the weight of that
silence? For the nation of Israel, God’s
voice was heard over and over again through the mouths of His priests, prophets
and kings telling them that they were a chosen people, loved by God and part of
His plan to show His light to the world.
They were a people blessed by His presence. But in the four hundred years since these
words were spoken Israel was ground under the heel of conqueror after
conqueror. Their nation was in bondage,
their way of life systematically choked out as they are forced to adapt to the
changing world around them. There was no
voice to tell them they were chosen, loved or part of any plan. Occasionally in the 400 years, there would be
evidence of God’s presence, small glimmers of deliverance or miracles, a small
glimmer that they were not forgotten, but did that make things better or worse? Would it be easier to believe that God had
died, or never existed, or had just left them?
Would it not be harder to live with the evidence of God’s presence but
the reality of His silence? It’s like a
divorce, like a walking death where the one you love, the one you’ve shared
your most intimate moments with now refuses to speak to you.
Zechariah’s Response: Looking for Proof that it’s Worth Risking on
Hope Again
I’m sure that Zechariah as a priest is keenly aware
of the weight of this greater silence, as well as the silence of God to their
prayers for a baby. The role of a priest
was to intercede, to go between God and the people, to bring the requests of
the people to God and to bring God’s words back to the people. But if God is silent, then what’s the
point? There are no answers to the cries
of the people. There are no words of
comfort to speak. How much of
Zachariah’s life, of his worship, was just going through the motions. Morning and night making sure the candlestick
in the temple, meant to symbolize God’s eternal light and the light He shines
in the lives of His people, didn’t go out.
Morning and night burning incense at the altar of incense, meant to
symbolize the prayers of the saints, of God’s people, ascending to God night and
day. How much of his priestly duties
just felt so hollow and empty in the overwhelming silence of God’s temple
without any sense of God’s presence.
So when this silence is broken by the presence the
angel Gabriel telling Zechariah that both the personal silence in his life and
the national silence of God is about to come to an end, it’s no wonder that
Zechariah asks, “How do I know for sure this is true?” We are maybe quick to judge Zechariah’s lack
of faith in this passage, but I want to challenge us to feel the place that
Zechariah is coming from. When we
consider the heartache, the numbness, the long endured pain of silence, the
well of tears that have run dry years ago, is it not a miracle that Zechariah
is able to respond this way at all. If
it were you, would you lash out at Gabriel, letting years of anger and
disappointment explode out? For
Zechariah to have a hope of believing these words requires a resurrection of
hope in him and so it makes sense in some ways that he asks for proof. To hope again, to feel again is a huge risk
for this man. His heart is numb from
broken trust and so to hope again, to have faith again, his head wants
assurances that this is not one more foolish hope that’s going to meet in more
disappointment.
God’s Response to Zechariah’s Questions:
Punishment or Revelation?
And so how does God respond to Zechariah’s request
for proof? Gabriel tells Zechariah that
he will, “be silent and unable to speak until the day when
these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be
fulfilled in their proper time.” The
religious part of us can figure this is a justified punishment for Zechariah’s
lack of faith. The parts of us that
understand honest doubt wonder why God would be so cruel to punish Zechariah
for asking an honest question. But in
looking at this story again, I’d like to suggest another possibility that maybe
this was less punishment and more a gift of understanding. All through the Old Testament, God’s prophets
are called to live out the message that God wants to deliver through them. They become spectacles for the nation. They act out some holy pantomime that gives
an illustration of what God is trying to speak.
As you read these stories you find that the message of God is shaped by
their stories. Even the harshest of
message from God becomes tempered by the prophets knowing the heartbreak of God
trying to win back the heart of an unfaithful love.
And so I wonder if God leaving Zechariah unable to
speak was something like that. That
instead of punishment, Zechariah was being shown God’s heart. Have you ever experienced a kid at Christmas
trying to keep a secret? “Mommy, I’m not
supposed to tell you what your Christmas present is because it’s a secret that
we got you a new necklace.” Kids are
horrible at keeping secrets and at waiting on delivering good news. There is something in our nature that doesn’t
wait well when we have the perfect gift for someone. We ache to join in others happiness.
So imagine Zechariah’s silence. Previously the wrestle has been not hearing
God’s voice. Now he’s heard God’s voice,
but can’t speak. Imagine Zechariah’s
coming home to Elizabeth and wanting to share what’s happened but being unable
to speak. Sure he can write stuff down,
but it’s not the same. Notes and
messages written to your love are nice, but they are normally the exception
rather than the rule. There is a gift in
marriage of talking with your best friend and sharing everything from the
humdrum of your day to the excitement of your biggest joys. Imagine the new pain of Zechariah not being
able to tell Elizabeth every little thing of his encounter with Gabriel, to
express that there is new possibility in the routine of love making. Imagine the new pain of not being able to
speak when Elizabeth tells him that they’re pregnant and to be able to tell her
how much he loves her and how excited he is to see the silence broken and God’s
words becoming reality.
Imagine for Zechariah the shift of perspective as
the reality of Elizabeth’s pregnancy sinks in.
If God is breaking the silence of childlessness, if He is fulfilling His
promise of a child for Zechariah and Elizabeth, then is He not also fulfilling
the promise of this child being the forerunner to the Messiah. Suddenly the 400 years of silence starts to
drop away as Zechariah starts to see everything in the scriptures in new life
and light. These are not dusty old
words, empty promises with no meaning.
It’s all coming true, the long wait, the long silence is almost over and
Zechariah can’t tell anyone. It’s like
knowing the punchline to the biggest joke.
It’s like that kid trying to hold in a secret at Christmas. Imagine Zechariah hearing the cries of the
people complaining of their subjugation to Rome and complaining that God has
left them and his desire to tell them that, no, they’re wrong, God hasn’t left
them. God hasn’t forgotten. That in less
than 9 months the forerunner is here and after that can the Messiah not be far
behind?
Fulfillment in the Proper Time
Looking at Zechariah’s story, I think it gives me
new perspective of God’s silence. The
angel says that God’s words are fulfilled in their proper time. We who are bound in time, who live for only
the smallest fraction of eternity, for us time is the relentless taskmaster of
our days. We feel the sand slipping
through the hourglass, we feel the sting of the curse as our bodies decay and
aches and pains start to become harder to shake, where we notice grey hairs and
wonder if this is all there is. Time is
sometimes our enemy. We are not good at
waiting. Waiting means losing so much of
what little time we have left. For us,
soon is measured in seconds, maybe minutes at the most. But God is not like this. He lives outside of
time and is the one who starts and stops the clock at the moments of His
choosing. He knows that growth, that
change, take time. Plants require
seasons to grow. It takes nine months to
grow a baby. We spend a third of our
life in sleep. Time does not scare
Him. He will never run out of time. All things are done in order and with purpose
and will fit within His great plans. His words are fulfilled in their proper
time. As an example, five years ago, I
stood up here sharing a poem at advent about the ache of 37 years of singleness
and it was on that day that my wife, Darlene, was also here and her heart was
hooked and we started the journey that brought us together. Maybe meeting earlier in life would have been
nice, but I know in my heart of hearts how thankful I am for His perfect timing
in bringing us together at just the right time.
And so I wonder if it wasn’t this kind of revelation
that Zechariah received in his time of being unable to speak. Maybe he realized
that it is not that God does not want to speak or that He does not want to
declare His love and remind them of His plans.
It was that He, in His wisdom knew that maybe the words wouldn’t mean so
much until people could see the promises fulfilled. In the middle of the ache, words are not
enough. We retort with our “how will I
know this for certain”. “I’ve heard
these promises before, now I need you to prove it.” God knows our hearts and as much as it breaks
His heart to keep silence, He knows that sometimes silent presence is the best,
most loving support that can be given.
Many times, the most intimate expressions of love are found in the
silence of shared presence.
Zechariah’s Story: The Rest of the Story
Now let’s look at the rest of Zechariah’s story
(Luke 1: 57-80) :
“Now the time had come for Elizabeth to give
birth, and she gave birth to a son. Her neighbors and
her relatives heard that the Lord had displayed His great mercy toward her; and
they were rejoicing with her.
And it happened that on the eighth day they came to
circumcise the child, and they were going to call him Zacharias, after his
father. But his mother answered and said, “No indeed;
but he shall be called John.” And they said to her,
“There is no one among your relatives who is called by that name.” And they made signs to his father, as to what he wanted him called.
And he asked for a tablet and wrote as follows, “His name is
John.” And they were all astonished. And at once his
mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he began to speak in
praise of God. Fear came on all those living around
them; and all these matters were being talked about in all the hill country of
Judea. All who heard them kept them in mind, saying,
“What then will this child turn out to be?” For the hand of the Lord was
certainly with him.
And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit,
and prophesied, saying: “Blessed be
the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for
His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David His servant— As He spoke by
the mouth of His holy prophets from of old— Salvation from our enemies, and from
the hand of all who hate us; To show mercy
toward our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore
to Abraham our father, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our
enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him
all our days. And you, child, will be
called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare
His ways; To give to His people the
knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender
mercy of our God, with which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, To shine upon those who
sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to
guide our feet into the way of peace.”
And the child continued to grow and to become strong in
spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to
Israel.”
Lessons in Worship: Worship in
Silence
So reflecting on Zechariah’s story, what does this speak to us about worship?
First of all, I’d like to suggest that there is a place for worship in
silence.
I think there is a place where
sometimes worship is a going through the motions, of doing things not because
of how it feels or because we are encountering God.
Some parts of our life we live in the ‘not
yet’.
We live in this season of waiting
for advent, of waiting for Christ’s coming both in terms of longing for his
second coming and also in longing for Him to break silences in our lives.
Each time we take communion, it may not be an
amazing expression of deep heartfelt worship of longing for His coming, but it
is a regular repetition of that declaration of longing. We do this ‘until He
comes’ over & over again.
There are
regular expressions of love that we need to give; frequent “I love you’s”, a
peck on the cheek before leaving for work or school, bringing coffee to a
friend.
These are the signs of adoration
that sometimes can be so powerfully dripping with meaning and in other moments
can become the ho hum of everyday repetition.
With our worship of God, we almost need these regular expressions built
into our lives; taking communion, getting up on a Sunday to go to church,
saying grace before a meal.
These are
the regular expressions we use to build in us a ‘muscle memory’ of worship,
these little acts of worship that we do without thinking.
Sometimes in the silence of God, we need
these to anchor us, to keep us in the place of waiting and longing.
They keep us in the dialogue of silence.
Even in our pain and anger in response to
God’s silence, there is something beautiful in the places where we keep yelling
at Him.
Even this is an act of
worship.
If He wasn’t worthy of our
heartbreak we’d just move on and find somewhere else to go.
Even our ache finds its home in Him. There is
great power in the humble worship of faithfulness, of stubbornly showing up
with God even when it feels like He’s stopped talking to you long ago.
Lessons in Worship: Worship in the
Light of New Birth
The second lesson in worship that I see from Zechariah’s story is the great
shift in worship and faith that can comes out of enduring the silence and
waiting.
Zechariah’s prophetic song of
worship to God after the birth of his son quotes out of Psalms 18.
Zechariah speaks of God raising up a horn of
salvation and bringing salvation from their enemies.
These are portions of Psalms 18, a Psalm that
David sang when he was delivered out of the hands of all his enemies.
When I look at this, I think, what has
changed in Zechariah’s life?
Israel is
still under occupation by the Romans.
The Jewish nation is still a downtrodden people.
There is still injustice and suffering
everywhere and yet Zechariah is singing of God’s promises fulfilled, of justice
come of all things made right.
In
reality, Zechariah is living in the ‘not yet’ of the kingdom, but singing like
all he can see is the ‘now’ of the kingdom.
So what’s changed for Zechariah?
It
is the birth of a child.
And not just
any child but it’s his child.
With the
fulfilment of one of God’s promises to Zechariah, his worship is transformed
and he now sings songs as if all of God’s promises are already fulfilled.
There is something so powerful in our
worship where even the smallest of births in our life which come after the long
waiting to end our drought of silence that transforms us.
I love being in this place during worship and
seeing the kids, as noisy and annoying as they may sometimes be. It’s so
beautiful to see them here, some of which were maybe at risk of not being
here.
Going through infertility and
seeing all the statistics and how many things there are to prevent you from
having a child, let alone a healthy child, it makes you realize that every
child, every birth is such a gift.
It breathes
new life into the words of Psalms 8, “
From the mouth of
infants and nursing babes You have established strength because of Your
adversaries, to make the enemy and the revengeful cease.” We are always one
generation away from extinction, from the end of the church, or from the end of
hope. Because of this, every birth is a
messenger, an angel, of resurrection.
Messengers that the promises of God will continue past the small moments
of our days as God’s great plan relentlessly marches towards eternity. Zechariah sings of Jesus as the Sunrise, as
the Dayspring. In metaphor, each new
sunrise is a resurrection of sorts and Jesus, the Messiah, is the resurrection
and the life. His dawning, His birth,
changes everything and ensures that life and hope will always win.
Lessons in Worship: Worship from
Knowing God’s Heart
Thirdly, as I look at the story of Zechariah I see
that worship is impacted by our understanding of God’s character, of knowing
who He is. When it comes time to name
the baby, their friends tell Elizabeth and Zechariah to name the child after
their father. They say, name him,
“Remembered of Jehovah”, which is what Zechariah means. Continue the lessons of the past. Cling to the reality that God has not
forgotten you, but He remembers you.
Zechariah, as inspired be the words of the angel replies with, “No, his
name is John.” The name John means
‘Jehovah is gracious’ or ‘Jehovah is a gracious giver’.
In metaphor, this speaks so much to me of a shift in
understanding that Zechariah gained and one that I’ve wrestled with to understand. In the silence, the main question to be
answered is, ‘Does God even remember me?’ and it’s important to go through the
motions and maintain our worship of a God that doesn’t forget us. But worship flows so much more freely when we
understand that our worship is given to a gracious God, to a God who is a giver
of good gifts. He is a God that lavishes
His favour on us. He is a God of extravagance
and moves mountains to show His love. In
the silence, the voice of the accuser comes to tell us all of how God is not
worthy of love and trust, of faith and devotion. We are reminded constantly of the pain of
waiting, of the heart break of longing. “If
God was truly a loving God, would He let you suffer so?” The revelation of God’s gracious heart dispels
these lies. When we know God as the
gracious one, our hearts spill over in thankfulness and gratitude for who He is
and all He’s done.
Lessons in Worship: Worship in The
End of Silence
Finally, a fourth lesson that comes out of
Zechariah’s story for me is a reminder that the silence has been forever ended. Yes, there are still places of silence in our
journey of faith. Yes, God still speaks
his poetry with an economy of words.
Yes, we still wait for His second coming. Yes, we live in the ‘not yet’ of the
kingdom. But with the first advent, with
Christ’s coming to earth, the silence has been, in reality, forever
broken. Those who have given their ‘yes’
to Jesus are now indwelt by the risen Christ.
We are the mystery of the ages, Christ in us, the hope of glory. We are part of the incarnation, the word made
flesh. We are the burning bushes that
blaze with fire but are not consumed. We
have His word written on hearts of flesh.
We are His messengers and at any moment God may use us to speak to
another through word or deed to bring His message of hope and light to
them. Part of our worship is to live in
breaking of the silence; to go to those who live in darkness and to bring His
light of love to them. It’s part of our
job to declare the ‘now’ of the kingdom.
To declare that the years of silence are broken, that God can be
trusted, that He is worthy of risking your life on, that He is a gracious
giver, that God hears our prayers.
Sometimes one of the ways to ‘hear from God’ in your own silence is to
bring comfort to another in their silence. It’s maddening, but you’ll suddenly
hear your voice speaking the words you wish you’d hear from God, though if you paid close attention, you’d
realize that was God speaking to you, too.
Our worship is not hidden in church on a Sunday or
even hidden in the secret places of our heart.
Our worship comes in declaration of who God is to those around us. We are His messengers; His love letter is written on our hearts for
all to see.
Conclusions
So to close, as we
enter this season of advent, take time to sit with the waiting and
longing. Make friends with the
silence. Hold those you love close and
don’t say a word. Enjoy the gifts of
love that can’t be spoken; the signs of love that are more than words can
say. Reflect on the heart of God who
waits for you in your silence, who hears your prayers and the heart cries you
can’t even give voice to. Know that He
is a gracious giver. That He has woven
and grafted you into His story and that He longs to bring resurrection and love
into your life. Let the reality of who
He is sink in and fuel a heart of humble adoration for Him.