Every day, every Israelite worshipped God - praying at fixed times, glorifying God by reciting Psalms from memory, appealing to God when a thunderstorm raged or a child was critically ill. Friends and family gathered on the Sabbath to sing songs, to retell the story of God's blessings, to pray - and to plan for the next journey...
Israel's worship was punctuated by a handful of high festivals throughout the year, when every believer was obliged to show up in Jerusalem, at the temple, and not empty handed! At Passover, the feast of Weeks (Pentecost), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), and Tabernacles (read the calendars in Deuteronomy 16 and Leviticus 23), Israel remembered God's great acts in history, and in nature, and you brought your best livestock, your first grains, for sacrifice, to express gratitude to God.
Great caravans would traverse rocky roads, the pilgrims singing "My soul longs, yea faints for the courts of the Lord" (Psalm 84). Arriving in the city, they were awestruck by its massive stone walls, gates and towers - symbols of God's strength (Psalm 48). The jewel at the city's heart was the temple. Solomon's sanctuary was splendid; for worshippers it was a paradise on earth, its decorative panels and gold sheeting mirroring the splendor of God, its precincts a swirl of activity. Imagine: a throng of pilgrims crowd around Mt. Zion, the shofar blares, smoke from campfires and the altar curls heavenward, the ark of the covenant is hoisted aloft at the head of a processional into the temple precincts, the people cry out in deafening unison: "The Lord the Most High is awesome, a great king over all the earth." Worship was vigorous, pulsating with motion, visuals and scents, with dancing, lyre, harp, pipes, trumpet, drums, cymbals. "Clap your hands, all peoples! God has gone up with a shout" (Psalm 47). As people offered up what was most precious to them, they told stories of the goodness of God since they were last together: "I offer burnt offerings: come and hear, and I will tell what the Lord has done for me" (Psalm 66).
Today, "worship wars" conflict Christianity. Should worship be formal? informal? traditional? contemporary? Israel's worship was strictly ordered, and yet entered into enthusiastically; temple worship was steeped in centuries old tradition, with powerful symbols and readings, designed to teach the history of the faith; and yet all that went on was current, participatory. You couldn't sit back as a spectator. We prize our freedom to worship the way we want. For Israel, freedom was only truly discovered when they learned to worship the way God established worship. Perhaps Christianity in the 21st century would be wise to ask not What do we find pleasing? or to say Gimme that old time religion! but to study the way Israel and then the early Christians worshipped, and discern what we might learn from God's first friends.
James
james@mpumc.org
Coming up:
eBibleQuestions21 - Why all the bloody sacrifices in the Old Testament?
eBibleQuestions22 - Who were the Prophets?
eBibleQuestions23 - Did Israel believe in life after death?
eBibleQuestions24 - What was going on between the Testaments?
The complete email series on Bible Questions can be found at
http://www.mpumc.org/mpumc/dr__howell_s_ebible_questions_series
