Tag: Worship

Songs of the Season: Luke 2:13-14

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“Suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to people he favors!'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

This is the final Friday of the season of Advent which means this is our final song of the season. I have been especially drawn this year back to the traditional Christmas carols when I have listened to Christmas music. There’s certainly an element of nostalgia there. Hearing and singing songs that remind me of good times in the past is heartwarming. I suspect you’re not so different from me in that regard. But the other reason I have been drawn back to those old songs in recent years is that I have become more and more aware of just how great are the truths those old songs proclaim. Many of those old carols make declarations and observations about Jesus that are deep and profound. By packaging such truths in wildly repeatedly forms, they have served as vehicles to help a culture that is awash in secularism to not lose sight entirely of what the season is really all about. Let’s talk for a few minutes this morning about Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.

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Songs of the Season: Colossians 1:15-16

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“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things have been created through him and for him.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

The idea of gods coming to Earth and posing as humans to be able to interact with their people is not one that was invented by Christians. Indeed, if the gods never interacted with their people at all, they would be far more difficult for us to worship. Many religions across human history, then, have included some sort of a story – and in the case of polytheistic religions, many stories – of gods putting on humanity like a disguise in order to be among their people for one reason or another. But Christianity did introduce to the world the idea of a god becoming fully human. Throughout the Advent season we are preparing to celebrate the fact that God became a man. The ruler and creator of the world took on human flesh as a newborn baby. Today’s song of the season celebrates the wonder of this reality in a powerful way. Here is Manger Throne from Phil Wickham.

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Advent Reflections: Psalm 150

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“Hallelujah! Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him in his mighty expanse. Praise him for his powerful acts; praise him for his abundant greatness. Praise him with the blast of a ram’s horn; praise him with harp and lyre. Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and flute. Praise him with resounding cymbals; praise him with clashing cymbals. Let everything that breathes praise the Lord. Hallelujah!” (CSB)

Over the course of the various birth and infancy narratives of Jesus in the Gospels, every time someone encounters the baby who was God in human flesh their response is uniformly one of worship. Worship is something we are called to again and again throughout the Scriptures. Yet it often feels like worship can only happen in a limited number of ways. If you don’t happen to fall into one of those categories, too bad for you. Is this really how things are? Not for a second. Let’s talk about worship and Advent and encountering Jesus in the ways God designed us.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 39:32-43

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“So all the work for the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, was finished. The Israelites did everything just as the Lord had commanded Moses. . . .The Israelites had done all the work according to everything the Lord had commanded Moses. Moses inspected all the work they had accomplished. They had done just as the Lord commanded. Then Moses blessed them.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There’s an old saying that goes like this: Practice makes perfect. It sounds good, but it’s not really true in that form. A more accurate rendering would be this: Practice makes permanent. If you do something enough times, you will always do it that way. But if you don’t do it quite correctly all of those times, you will always do it wrongly. In order for practice to make perfect, it has to be evaluated. Once the tabernacle construction was complete, it came time to evaluate what they had done. Let’s take a look at how this process unfolded.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 36:8-39:30-31

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“All the skilled artisans among those doing the work made the tabernacle with ten curtains. Bezalel made them of finely spun linen, as well as blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, with a design of cherubim worked into them. . . .They made a medallion, the holy diadem, out of pure gold and wrote on it an inscription like the engraving on a seal: Holy to the Lord. They attached a cord of blue yarn to it in order to mount it on the turban, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.” (CSB – Read chapter 36; chapter 37; chapter 38; chapter 39)

I’ve talked before recently about the fact that my church is in a building process. We’ve been here for a long time. In fact, they have been slowly walking down this path for twice as long as I’ve even been here. Just before Covid hit we at long last thought we were at the point we could start building. But then we couldn’t because of Covid. And for a while we were pretty discouraged. All that work on developing plans and we weren’t going to get to actually build it. And yet, by God’s grace, here we are again: ready to build. Developing plans to build without actually building is pointless. Israel had plans to build. It was finally time to bring it into reality. Let’s talk about how that process unfolded.

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