Worship’s human touch

There is a little story about the musical pipe that Moses played when he was a shepherd in the wilderness before his calling by God.

When the children of Israel finally settled in the Promised Land they discovered Moses’ little pipe.

They determined that they must preserve it, but they also felt that it was very ordinary and dull. So they decorated it with silver and gold.

But when they had finished the little pipe could no longer play any music.

They had decorated it so elaborately it had lost its power to sing.

Have we done the same thing with our Christian faith and worship? Have we made them so predictable that they have lost their sparkling attraction?

Have we lost the sense of excitement at being a Christian? Let’s put the excitement and happiness back into Christianity. Let’s restore the human touch to our Christian faith in general and to our worship in particular.

Let us be happy to belong to Jesus.

Let us be strong in conduct and convinced in mind because of our faith. Let us be confident that our Christian faith is firmly based on the promises of God found in the Word of God.

Let us be proud to be Christians. Look what happened when the leper met with Jesus. “Jesus, if you want you can heal me.” “Yes, I can because I want to,” Jesus replied. The leper now healed went dancing down the street singing for joy (Mark 1.40-45).

When we are with Jesus we want to dance down the street.

But if we include the human touch in our faith and worship then we also include the touch of frailty.

Because of our human nature ours can often be a fragile touch. Our worshipping is but a poor expression of our faith, our stammering prayers express so little of our innermost thoughts.

Our grasp of the truth of the Word of God is like trembling fingers holding a precious jewel. Our vision of the glory of God can be so limited that we catch only a glimpse of God’s splendour shining within our days.

Often we trip and fall causing our faith to be dented. Often we are hurt and sing and pray to God in the valley of deepest darkness (Psalm 23.4).

For far too long this secular society has hemmed in the Christian faith.

This age has confined Christianity to a cultural ghetto in which Christians have adopted a siege mentality.

We are always on the defensive. Remember what happened when Nicodemus met Jesus by night on the Mount of Olives.

Nicodemus could not understand Jesus’new teaching: “Look, Nicodemus. The new life I bring to you from God is free and unlimited, strong and mature. In the wind the clouds were scudding across the sky and the trees bending in every direction. Listen Nicodemus to the wind, it blows where it wants, you don’t know where it comes from nor where it goes. So is everyone born of the Spirit, born into my new life”(John 3.1-8).

In Jesus’new life you are as free as the wind of heaven, because God so loved the world that God gave you Jesus (John 3.16).

This is the excitement of being a Christian.

Free as the wind of heaven you are liberated from lesser fears and worries.

Yours is Jesus’strength of character through the Spirit to make you strong in the face of moral danger.

You can ask Jesus:“Lead me not into temptation but deliver me from evil.” You can pray for God’s strength and guidance. “Thy kingdom come, God, your way of life come on earth as in heaven.”

And when God’s way of life does come you will find it in your personal life and daily experience.

Last Thursday was Ascension Day when we remember how Jesus returned to God. But Jesus left behind men and women whose hearts and souls throbbed with the dynamic power of God’s new life. Let us join their ranks, and be excited for Jesus.

“Jesus led them to Bethany. He raised his hands and blessed them.

“Then he departed from them. They returned to Jerusalem with great joy.

“They were continually in the temple blessing God.”(Luke 24. 50-51).