Jumping into Heaven’s Praise on the Third Verse
Eating lunch with a friend, Ryan told me he might consider becoming "Anglican" if Anglicans looked and acted the part - a little bit more joyful. He went on to say that we say and sing the most beautiful things every week, but in his experience, we don't do it like we mean it - “it doesn’t seem to engage their hearts.” I too sometimes wonder how we can speak the glories of such a magnificant God, but do it like we are conditioned parrots, not as people moved deeply to respond to a God who crashed earth with heaven to reach us.
The blessing of Anglican worship is that we declare the gospel each time we meet, something a lot of emotion-driven, personality - centered churches never get to.
“When your church is gathering for worship, you can remind everyone that they’re about to step into a moving stream. Heavenly worship is happening now. It is unceasing and perpetual: ‘Day and night they never stop staying; Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and us, and is to come’ (Rev 4:8). When we begin to worship as a gathered community each week, we aren’t starting from scratch. We’re jumping into heaven’s praise on the third verse of the song.”
It’s true! But, in our parrot-like way, the danger is that we miss the heaven part. "The church at worship is not only present to God; far more significantly, the living God is present to the church" (Aidan Kavanagh). Peter Toon, in his biography of J. C. Ryle, says that Bishop Ryle was brought to faith "by the manner in which the Epistle was read that Sunday” - in other words, by someone who really believed it! Such is the power of someone who leads the liturgy, or reads the lesson, or preaches the sermon whose heart is alive and jumping with anticipation for what God is about to do.
Sixteen year old, Isaac Watts, complained about this to his father one day, and his dad challenged him to write hymns that touch people's hearts. In his lifetime Watts wrote over 750 hymns, including some of the best known in Christian history: "When I survey the wondrous cross," "O God our help in ages past," and "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun." The Father of English Hymnody died November 25, 1748.
Watts famously said:
“To see the dull indifferences, the neglect and thoughtless air that sits upon the faces of a whole assembly, while the psalm is upon their lips, might even tempt a charitable observer to suspect the fervency of their inward religion.”
Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent in which we anticipate the next coming of the Lord; the God who first came to save us, will come again to unite heaven to his creation - heaven and earth! And the mountains will sing and the trees on the hills will clap their hands!
Joy to the world, the Lord is come
Let earth receive her King
Let every heart prepare him room
And heaven and nature sing.