The meaning of worship, the meaning of life

Most Christians would agree that worship is right at the heart of a thriving life with God.  One old description of the Faith says it’s the very reason we were made: “To know God and Glorify Him forever.”

What Christians don’t tend to agree on, however, is what worship actually is.  If you were to ask a bunch of Christians to define worship, you’d probably get a range of answers.  Some would  talk about singing songs about how much they love Jesus.  Some would talk about taking part in the traditional ceremonies of the Church, like communion and baptism.  Some would describe the feelings of awe they get when they’re out in God’s creation.

So what actually is worship?

Maybe it would help if we looked at some key passages in the Bible where people actually are worshiping God, to see if we can’t detect a pattern in what’s happening.

One of the central stories in the Bible, for instance, is about how God rescued the People of Israel when they were slaves in Egypt.  Right at the start of the story, it says that God heard the people groaning in slavery, so he sends Moses to tell them that he’s going to help.  And in Exodus 4:31, it says that when the people heard that the Lord was going to help them, they bowed their heads and worshiped.

God acts, and the People respond.

In another place, after King Solomon built the Lord’s Temple and was consecrating it to the Lord, it says that the fire came down from heaven and the glory of the Lord filled the Temple, so that the priests couldn’t go in. And then it says this “When all the people saw the fire and the glory of the Lord on the temple, they bowed down and worshiped.”

Again: God acts, the people respond.

The same pattern is there in the New Testament.  In the Gospel of Luke it tells how Peter met Jesus for the first time.  Peter’s been fishing all night but caught nothing.  Along comes Jesus, who tells Peter to cast his net into the deep water, and when he does, the catch of fish is so huge that they need another boat to help them bring it in.  And then it says, when the Peter saw it, he fell on his knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord, I’m a sinful man.”

Or how about this one.  After Jesus’ resurrection, Doubting Thomas is ... well ... doubting.  And the Resurrected Jesus appears to him and tells him to put his fingers in his wounds.  And when Thomas sees the nail-holes of the cross, he says, with a voice of awed worship: “My Lord and My God.”

This pattern is consistent throughout the Bible.  It always starts with God showing himself in the life of his people.  And the people see God at work.  And then they respond accordingly.

Sometimes we call this the “Revelation-and-response” pattern in worship.  Worship does not begin with us; Worship is what happens when God reveals himself to us in some way, and evokes a response from us that is appropriate to the revelation.

This revelation can happen in all sorts of ways: hearing the Story of Jesus and realizing how much God loves us; reading something in the Bible that puts its finger smack dab on something we’re going through right now; working among the poor and the marginalized and discovering the presence of Jesus there; being reminded of the awesomeness of the Creator by experiencing the beauty of his creation.

God can and does reveal himself to us through all these things and more.  But the key is that worship happens when God shows himself in our lives, and then we respond in ways that his revelation evokes in us.

It may mean raising our hands and singing our hearts out.  It may sitting in overwhelmed silence.  It may mean weeping because we realize something’s not right between us and God.  It may even mean a drastic overhaul of our lives.

But however it happens, in that response to God, we’ll be discovering the meaning of life.