Sunday
School Lessons
Commentary by Walter Albritton
June 8
Genuine Worship is Always Exciting and Never Boring!
Ezra 3, 4
Key Verse: All the people shouted
with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the
house of the Lord was laid.
--Ezra 3:11
This week we could
talk about the foundation and speculate about its size. We could talk about the
offerings, how the people gave money to pay the stonemasons and carpenters.
We could discuss how
much it must have meant to the Jews to have the opportunity once again to
worship in their own temple, in their own holy city, after 50 years of forced
captivity in another land.
We could talk about
how the people came together in unity. The scripture makes us think of a crowd
in a football stadium, with the people standing as one. Unity is indeed a
beautiful gift of God, always to be admired.
We could speak of the
praise band the Jews developed, with trumpets and cymbals, and perhaps other
instruments. (It may help us to realize that a praise band for worship is not a
modern idea!)
However, I have a
better suggestion. Let us focus on true worship, what it means to worship
genuinely the living God. Let us examine three powerful verses: Ezra 3:11-13.
Reading this passage makes me want to take off my shoes, get on my
knees, and praise God for showing us what true worship is all about.
Look at it carefully.
Observe what happened after the foundation of the temple had been laid.
The people sang. And
did they sing! Their songs were not mournful ditties, but stirring songs of
praise to God. It is obvious they did not drag through old songs no one was
excited about singing. They sang with intensity, for they were thanking God for
his mercy.
Their singing turned
into shouting. The picture in my mind is of people so excited that they went
from singing to shouting and clapping, much like the crowd at one of our modern
concerts. Since it was “a great shout,” it may have lasted for several minutes
as the people applauded the goodness of God.
Imagine for a moment
what it must have felt like to stand among those glad worshipers that day!
But there is more.
Some in that crowd had been present when the original foundation of the temple
was laid. They had endured the heartbreak of its destruction. Their shattered
hope had been reborn. God had spared them to see a new temple being built.
These seniors wept
unashamedly. They “wept with a loud voice,” many of them shouting for joy. They
were not embarrassed to raise their voices – and probably even their hands! Their
souls were stirred to the depths and they worshiped with joyous enthusiasm. So
loudly did they cry out that their voices could be heard a great distance away.
Those who heard the
Jews worshiping could not distinguish shouts of weeping from shouts of joy. We
have read about “Shouting Methodists;” these were “Shouting Jews”!
Indeed some Methodists
would have horrified by the worship of those Jews. Too many of us have
succumbed to the notion that worship should be restrained, calm, and proper.
Nothing must happen that is not already printed in the bulletin! We work hard
to “control” our order of worship, often denying the Spirit the freedom to move
us out of our comfort zones.
Across
I have come to believe
this: any church with a future will find a way to offer contemporary worship to
people. If your church is not dealing with this issue, that may be a sign that
it is a stable and dying church.
Since I retired a year
ago, I have been in some rather lifeless worship services. Once or twice, I
found a church so cold that I wished I had brought some ice skates so I could
skate down the aisles.
If we intend to reach
people for Christ, and make disciples, in this culture, we must find ways to
offer worship that is alive with enthusiasm and joy. It is a crime for worship
to be dull and boring!
God, I believe, was
pleased by the weeping and the shouting of those Jews in Ezra’s day. He will be
pleased today to hear the sounds of joy and the sounds of weeping in our
worship hours.
Perhaps it is time for
us to stop arguing about styles of worship, and unite our hearts in new, and
old, forms of worship that will bring us to tears and to shouts of joy as
praise God for his goodness to us. + + + +