It Is High Time
Adult study
Turning Griping Into Gratitude
A Study In The Psalms
Object:
Shout with joy to God, all the earth! Sing glory to his name; make his praise glorious!
-- Psalm 66:1-2
* * *
There are two parts to the Christian faith -- the vertical and the horizontal. Here we focus on the vertical, our relationship with God through worship.
Psalm 66 is a psalm about worship. It is also a psalm of worship. Leslie Brandt, in Psalms Now, paraphrases Psalm 66:1-2 like this: "It is high time we start making happy noises about God...." That means high time and high time for worship and adoration.
High time is different than low time. High time means adoration of the Almighty. Most people today are caught in the web of low time, living as if this is a one-story universe, as if there is nothing on the second story. Many live today as if there is nothing but this earth -- no heaven, no God, no afterlife.
It Is High Time For Worship And Adoration
Worship is the ultimate resolution of the ultimate human problem -- loneliness -- and yet many neglect it, making religion only a matter of trying to be good.
A clergyman took his seat on a plane next to a rather sober-looking gentleman who, when he saw the collar on the minister said, "My friend, I see that you are a clergyman. I would like to make it clear from the outset that I do not wish to talk about theology. I am an astronomer, and my faith is summarized in these words, 'Do to others what you would have them do to you.' " The scientist was a humanist, seeing religion only in terms of how you treat others, with no adoration of the Almighty through corporate worship.
The clergyman replied, "I am glad that you have found a simple and satisfying religious concept. I happen to have found a simple and satisfying concept of astronomy: 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star.' " It was a long plane ride.
The Christian religion consists of two parts, one horizontal, one vertical. The horizontal part represents how we treat our neighbors. The vertical has to do with adoration of the Almighty in worship. One without the other is heresy. Together they form a cross, the central symbol of our faith. Adoration of the Almighty through worship is the biblical corrective for a distorted humanism.
Those of us who worship together regularly each Sunday are more apt to remember adoration of the Almighty -- high praise, as a central ingredient of our faith -- but we too need to be reminded about the importance of a focus on God.
Peter, once he saw Jesus walking on the water coming toward the boat where he sat, got up and started to go to the Lord, walking on water. Suddenly the wind came up and the waves started to roll. Peter took his eye off of the Lord and began to sink.
The Christian faith is centered in keeping your eye on God. That is what adoration is all about. Regular worship helps us to focus on God in the storms of life. Worship and support from the worshiping community keep us from sinking when the storms of life come.
It is high time! Time for worship of God, keeping our eyes focused on God.
Why have Christians gathered for worship each Sunday for the last 2,000 years? Because they know the secret of the second story of this universe. Jesus came from the "second story" to show us that there is more, much more, than just this earth, as we live out our days. "I came to give you life," he said, "life in abundance." The abundant life means learning to fall on one's knees and adore the Almighty. It is high time!
The psalmist wrote: "Praise God with shouts of joy, all people! Sing to the glory of his name; offer him glorious praise! Say to God, 'How wonderful are the things you do!' " (Psalm 66:1-2, TEV).
That is adoration. Without adoration, our prayer life and worship life are shallow. Adoration of the Almighty God is a missing ingredient for most people in modern times. They live as if there is nothing more than one dimension -- this world -- to living. When death comes, there is no resource to tap.
It is high time to worship God with adoration and praise. The psalmist reminds us, "Praise God with shouts of joy, all people!" That is a timely reminder for all of us.
About adoration Saint Augustine said, "Lord, you made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Adoration is resting in God.
Teilhard de Chardin said, "To adore means to lose oneself in the unfathomable, to plunge into the inexhaustible, to find peace in the incorruptible ... to offer oneself to the fire ... and to give one's deepest to that whose depth has no end."21 Adoration is losing oneself.
The Bible says, "You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." Adoration means loving God.
David Adam, a writer about Celtic spirituality and the vicar at the Lindesphar Christian community just off the coast of Scotland, says that adoration is simply reciprocal love.22 Adoration is resting in God, losing oneself in God, and loving God.
A peasant woman at the altar of her church was interrupted in her prayers by her pastor one day. "I'm sorry to interrupt your prayers," the pastor said, "but I have a question for you. I've noticed that you are at church each Sunday and at communion each time it is offered. I have also noticed that you often come to church and spend many hours on your knees praying. I am working on a sermon on adoration. I just wondered if you could define it for me."
"That's easy," she replied. "Adoration just means, 'God looks at me and I look back at him.' "
Sometimes it takes a crisis or some other shift from normal life for us to have a heightened awareness of the Presence of God, to realize as the peasant woman said, that God is looking at us and we are looking at him.
David Adam in his book, The Open Gate, puts it like this:
... New vistas often come before us at a point of crisis in our lives, when we are suddenly bereaved, or made redundant or when we are having what the world calls a breakdown. Often we become more aware because we have become dislocated, just as we are more aware of a limb that is dislocated. If we face the unfamiliar it may open all sorts of gates for us (especially the gate called glory).
On Monday, July 29, 1996, while in Durham, England, for a study of the Celtic Christian, a new awareness of God and adoration of the Almighty came upon me. I had been feeling very dislocated -- I knew no one. No one knew me. I had just arrived in Durham for my study of "Celtic Spirituality And Modern Mission." I went to a 7:30 a.m. communion service at the 903-year-old cathedral, which was built by Celtic monks 400 years before Columbus discovered America.
The morning was gray and misty. The cathedral was dark. As I looked up, I saw beams of light intersect the great beams of the old church. I touched one of the old giant pillars and remembered the dedication of the monks and builders who had constructed this immense cathedral to the glory of God. I smelled something. At first I thought that it was just the dampness, but there was something else. I followed the smell. It was the smell of altar candles at one of the side altars where an Anglican priest was preparing communion for us. I felt the Presence of God in this old place of worship. When I knelt on a pillow on the old stone floor I thought of Psalm 66:1-2: "Shout with joy to God, all the earth! Sing glory to his name; make his praise glorious!"
It was high time.
It Is High Time For Praise
Isn't it high time that we recognize that "God looks at me and I look at him"? Isn't it high time that we personally apply the words of the psalmist?
Praise God with shouts of joy, all people! Sing to the glory of his name; offer him glorious praise! Say to God, "How wonderful are the things you do!"
Isn't it high time that we learn about adoration from the peasant woman who said, "He looks at me and I look back at him"? Isn't it high time that we recognize what Saint Augustine meant when he said, "Restless are our hearts until they find rest in you"? That's adoration! Augustine had a Christian mother named Monica who prayed for him often, but he went astray. He got caught in the web of a false religion, one of his own making. He got a girl pregnant and had an illegitimate son. Then one day under the preaching and guidance of a pastor (Ambrose), he turned to Christ and gave him his life. He came to worship and adore the one, true God. That's why he could say, "Lord, you made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you!"
Isn't it high time that we rediscover the ultimate resolution of our ultimate problem of loneliness? Isn't it high time that we turn back to our Creator with praise and adoration? Isn't it high time that we recognize what God is doing for us? The psalmist urges a high time of return to worship as a central ingredient for a life with meaning and adoration.
Adoration. Some people who do not worship on a regular basis try to use God in emergencies. Not having worshiped God, they don't know him and his ways of using the Christian community for support in times of need. When bad things happen, people with a strong faith grounded in regular worship often just barely make it through. Those outside the worshiping community are beaten down further by troubles.
Adoration. Isn't it high time that we recognize what the Bible means when it says that we are to "love the Lord your God, with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind and with all of your strength"? Isn't it time, high time, that we get away from the false gods of this world and get back to adoration of the Almighty?
Adoration. Isn't it high time for reciprocal love? In Christ, God loved us first. Isn't it high time to return that love?
On my trip to Ireland, England, and Europe, to study the early forms of Christianity, I listened to many unchurched people tell me that their religion consisted of trying to be moral and good to other people. "What do you do for a living?" I asked a man named Peter from Australia. "I'm a government worker." We talked further. "What is your religion?" I asked after we had talked about other topics sipping wine in Florence, Italy. "My religion? Oh, I'm a Lutheran," he said, "but I don't go to church anymore. I believe that since I am a good man, God will send me to heaven when I die. By the way, what do you do for a living?" "I'm a Lutheran pastor," I said. Then I paused, wanting to say something helpful to help Peter think again about worship, the sacraments and the Word of God, all of which point us toward adoration.
"If we could go to heaven by being good," I said, "then why did Christ die on the cross for us?" That is the ultimate question we all need to answer. Isn't it high time to look at Christ on the cross so that we respond in the words of the Christmas carol, "O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord"?
Peter had no answer to that question. He was living as if we lived in a one-story universe. He changed the subject, but I hope he thought about the question later.
Adoration is the heart of our religion. Adoration of God is the fulfillment of our destiny. We look at Christ on the cross and he looks back at us.
Adoration means looking at God, resting in God, losing oneself in God, and loving God who first loved us. Isn't it high time to get back to adoration? Isn't it high time to look back at God who is looking at us? Isn't it high time we start "making happy noises about God ... and shout his praises"?
Questions For Meditation
Or Group Discussion
1. Have you ever had a "high time" of worship at a church camp, on a retreat, or at a Sunday worship service? Describe it.
2. Adoration means:
3. The Australian Peter said, "I don't need to go to church. I'm a good man." What's the problem with that philosophy?
__________
21. Teilhard de Chardin, Le Milese Divin (Collins Fontana, 1975), p. 127.
22. David Adam, The Open Gate (London: Triangle SPCK, 1994), p. 3.
-- Psalm 66:1-2
* * *
There are two parts to the Christian faith -- the vertical and the horizontal. Here we focus on the vertical, our relationship with God through worship.
Psalm 66 is a psalm about worship. It is also a psalm of worship. Leslie Brandt, in Psalms Now, paraphrases Psalm 66:1-2 like this: "It is high time we start making happy noises about God...." That means high time and high time for worship and adoration.
High time is different than low time. High time means adoration of the Almighty. Most people today are caught in the web of low time, living as if this is a one-story universe, as if there is nothing on the second story. Many live today as if there is nothing but this earth -- no heaven, no God, no afterlife.
It Is High Time For Worship And Adoration
Worship is the ultimate resolution of the ultimate human problem -- loneliness -- and yet many neglect it, making religion only a matter of trying to be good.
A clergyman took his seat on a plane next to a rather sober-looking gentleman who, when he saw the collar on the minister said, "My friend, I see that you are a clergyman. I would like to make it clear from the outset that I do not wish to talk about theology. I am an astronomer, and my faith is summarized in these words, 'Do to others what you would have them do to you.' " The scientist was a humanist, seeing religion only in terms of how you treat others, with no adoration of the Almighty through corporate worship.
The clergyman replied, "I am glad that you have found a simple and satisfying religious concept. I happen to have found a simple and satisfying concept of astronomy: 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star.' " It was a long plane ride.
The Christian religion consists of two parts, one horizontal, one vertical. The horizontal part represents how we treat our neighbors. The vertical has to do with adoration of the Almighty in worship. One without the other is heresy. Together they form a cross, the central symbol of our faith. Adoration of the Almighty through worship is the biblical corrective for a distorted humanism.
Those of us who worship together regularly each Sunday are more apt to remember adoration of the Almighty -- high praise, as a central ingredient of our faith -- but we too need to be reminded about the importance of a focus on God.
Peter, once he saw Jesus walking on the water coming toward the boat where he sat, got up and started to go to the Lord, walking on water. Suddenly the wind came up and the waves started to roll. Peter took his eye off of the Lord and began to sink.
The Christian faith is centered in keeping your eye on God. That is what adoration is all about. Regular worship helps us to focus on God in the storms of life. Worship and support from the worshiping community keep us from sinking when the storms of life come.
It is high time! Time for worship of God, keeping our eyes focused on God.
Why have Christians gathered for worship each Sunday for the last 2,000 years? Because they know the secret of the second story of this universe. Jesus came from the "second story" to show us that there is more, much more, than just this earth, as we live out our days. "I came to give you life," he said, "life in abundance." The abundant life means learning to fall on one's knees and adore the Almighty. It is high time!
The psalmist wrote: "Praise God with shouts of joy, all people! Sing to the glory of his name; offer him glorious praise! Say to God, 'How wonderful are the things you do!' " (Psalm 66:1-2, TEV).
That is adoration. Without adoration, our prayer life and worship life are shallow. Adoration of the Almighty God is a missing ingredient for most people in modern times. They live as if there is nothing more than one dimension -- this world -- to living. When death comes, there is no resource to tap.
It is high time to worship God with adoration and praise. The psalmist reminds us, "Praise God with shouts of joy, all people!" That is a timely reminder for all of us.
About adoration Saint Augustine said, "Lord, you made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Adoration is resting in God.
Teilhard de Chardin said, "To adore means to lose oneself in the unfathomable, to plunge into the inexhaustible, to find peace in the incorruptible ... to offer oneself to the fire ... and to give one's deepest to that whose depth has no end."21 Adoration is losing oneself.
The Bible says, "You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." Adoration means loving God.
David Adam, a writer about Celtic spirituality and the vicar at the Lindesphar Christian community just off the coast of Scotland, says that adoration is simply reciprocal love.22 Adoration is resting in God, losing oneself in God, and loving God.
A peasant woman at the altar of her church was interrupted in her prayers by her pastor one day. "I'm sorry to interrupt your prayers," the pastor said, "but I have a question for you. I've noticed that you are at church each Sunday and at communion each time it is offered. I have also noticed that you often come to church and spend many hours on your knees praying. I am working on a sermon on adoration. I just wondered if you could define it for me."
"That's easy," she replied. "Adoration just means, 'God looks at me and I look back at him.' "
Sometimes it takes a crisis or some other shift from normal life for us to have a heightened awareness of the Presence of God, to realize as the peasant woman said, that God is looking at us and we are looking at him.
David Adam in his book, The Open Gate, puts it like this:
... New vistas often come before us at a point of crisis in our lives, when we are suddenly bereaved, or made redundant or when we are having what the world calls a breakdown. Often we become more aware because we have become dislocated, just as we are more aware of a limb that is dislocated. If we face the unfamiliar it may open all sorts of gates for us (especially the gate called glory).
On Monday, July 29, 1996, while in Durham, England, for a study of the Celtic Christian, a new awareness of God and adoration of the Almighty came upon me. I had been feeling very dislocated -- I knew no one. No one knew me. I had just arrived in Durham for my study of "Celtic Spirituality And Modern Mission." I went to a 7:30 a.m. communion service at the 903-year-old cathedral, which was built by Celtic monks 400 years before Columbus discovered America.
The morning was gray and misty. The cathedral was dark. As I looked up, I saw beams of light intersect the great beams of the old church. I touched one of the old giant pillars and remembered the dedication of the monks and builders who had constructed this immense cathedral to the glory of God. I smelled something. At first I thought that it was just the dampness, but there was something else. I followed the smell. It was the smell of altar candles at one of the side altars where an Anglican priest was preparing communion for us. I felt the Presence of God in this old place of worship. When I knelt on a pillow on the old stone floor I thought of Psalm 66:1-2: "Shout with joy to God, all the earth! Sing glory to his name; make his praise glorious!"
It was high time.
It Is High Time For Praise
Isn't it high time that we recognize that "God looks at me and I look at him"? Isn't it high time that we personally apply the words of the psalmist?
Praise God with shouts of joy, all people! Sing to the glory of his name; offer him glorious praise! Say to God, "How wonderful are the things you do!"
Isn't it high time that we learn about adoration from the peasant woman who said, "He looks at me and I look back at him"? Isn't it high time that we recognize what Saint Augustine meant when he said, "Restless are our hearts until they find rest in you"? That's adoration! Augustine had a Christian mother named Monica who prayed for him often, but he went astray. He got caught in the web of a false religion, one of his own making. He got a girl pregnant and had an illegitimate son. Then one day under the preaching and guidance of a pastor (Ambrose), he turned to Christ and gave him his life. He came to worship and adore the one, true God. That's why he could say, "Lord, you made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you!"
Isn't it high time that we rediscover the ultimate resolution of our ultimate problem of loneliness? Isn't it high time that we turn back to our Creator with praise and adoration? Isn't it high time that we recognize what God is doing for us? The psalmist urges a high time of return to worship as a central ingredient for a life with meaning and adoration.
Adoration. Some people who do not worship on a regular basis try to use God in emergencies. Not having worshiped God, they don't know him and his ways of using the Christian community for support in times of need. When bad things happen, people with a strong faith grounded in regular worship often just barely make it through. Those outside the worshiping community are beaten down further by troubles.
Adoration. Isn't it high time that we recognize what the Bible means when it says that we are to "love the Lord your God, with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind and with all of your strength"? Isn't it time, high time, that we get away from the false gods of this world and get back to adoration of the Almighty?
Adoration. Isn't it high time for reciprocal love? In Christ, God loved us first. Isn't it high time to return that love?
On my trip to Ireland, England, and Europe, to study the early forms of Christianity, I listened to many unchurched people tell me that their religion consisted of trying to be moral and good to other people. "What do you do for a living?" I asked a man named Peter from Australia. "I'm a government worker." We talked further. "What is your religion?" I asked after we had talked about other topics sipping wine in Florence, Italy. "My religion? Oh, I'm a Lutheran," he said, "but I don't go to church anymore. I believe that since I am a good man, God will send me to heaven when I die. By the way, what do you do for a living?" "I'm a Lutheran pastor," I said. Then I paused, wanting to say something helpful to help Peter think again about worship, the sacraments and the Word of God, all of which point us toward adoration.
"If we could go to heaven by being good," I said, "then why did Christ die on the cross for us?" That is the ultimate question we all need to answer. Isn't it high time to look at Christ on the cross so that we respond in the words of the Christmas carol, "O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord"?
Peter had no answer to that question. He was living as if we lived in a one-story universe. He changed the subject, but I hope he thought about the question later.
Adoration is the heart of our religion. Adoration of God is the fulfillment of our destiny. We look at Christ on the cross and he looks back at us.
Adoration means looking at God, resting in God, losing oneself in God, and loving God who first loved us. Isn't it high time to get back to adoration? Isn't it high time to look back at God who is looking at us? Isn't it high time we start "making happy noises about God ... and shout his praises"?
Questions For Meditation
Or Group Discussion
1. Have you ever had a "high time" of worship at a church camp, on a retreat, or at a Sunday worship service? Describe it.
2. Adoration means:
3. The Australian Peter said, "I don't need to go to church. I'm a good man." What's the problem with that philosophy?
__________
21. Teilhard de Chardin, Le Milese Divin (Collins Fontana, 1975), p. 127.
22. David Adam, The Open Gate (London: Triangle SPCK, 1994), p. 3.
