Monday, April 6, 2009

Vertical Music, singing TO God

As we have already seen, God can be glorified through anything and everything. However, in the same way that a wife appreciates her husband caring for her kids and helping in the house, she also wants him to take her out on a date and whisper romantic things to her ear. The church is the bride of Christ, and there is the aspect of Justice and obedience, but there is also the aspect of romance, of this God saying that He loves us and of us saying that we love him, that's why understanding our purpose in life makes much more sense when we think of being in relationship with God. It's much easier to worship a being that you are in relationship with than an aloof God that just orders you to worship him (which sounds strikingly similar to what the Roman empire would do to when they conquered a new village).

Now thinking about relationship in that way singing songs to God makes total sense, this God has not only created us, but he has rescued us, redeemed us and he cares for us everyday. This Jesus has died for us, and if we as individuals had been the only person on the planet he would have done no less. But it goes beyond that, one of the reasons we sing starts making sense as our relationship with God progresses. What I mean is that as we get to know God more, through the Scriptures as well as through our interactions with Him in prayer and also our interaction with all of creation, we start understanding bits and pieces of His character and nature. What happens is that we start seeing how beautiful God is, how great and mighty and powerful and kind an compassionate and loving. Eventually we sing to God just because, in the same way that you admire a piece of art just because, even if it's not doing anything for you, but just because it's beautiful; not that God does not do anything for us, because He does, every second, but we get less and less pragmatic about worship, we stand in awe of His majesty and it just compels us to worship and sing and dance of joy and wonder and amazement. But this only happens when we do get to know this God, when He starts revealing Himself to us. I guess it's an inverted process as the one of a human relationship. In human romances, usually the guy gets struck by a girl, by how beautiful she is, which causes him to become infatuated, if they pursue that relationship and get to the point of marriage, what will happen is that eventually the initial wonder will fade away, but now there is a relationship built, and He has shared things with this woman and they have children together and she has cared for him and loved him, so now all this things that have gone on their relationship sustain the love. With God I would say the opposite happens, even though God deserves to be worshipped just because, just because He exists and He is so wonderful and beautiful and Great. The truth is that we don't really know that, because we were dead in our sins and trespasses, our spiritual eyes have been closed for so long that it's really hard to see. So God starts romancing us, He shows us His love through Jesus, His power through creation, and these things are what initially move us to worship Him, what He has done, from creating the universe to saving us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, apart from that we don't know much about this God. But then we start walking with Him, we start dwelling in Scripture and learning about all these stories about the interactions of God with His people, about His mighty power and how He's saving and rescuing and judging and redeeming the world. So our understanding of the power of God and the love of God start growing, God starts becoming more real to us, He starts developing depth in a way, like a two-dimension image suddenly gaining depth and becoming a three-dimension image. This is what the apostle Paul refers to when he says that he would wish us to know how deep and wide and broad is the love of Christ. What he is basically saying is "you think you know God, but you know only a hint, only the tip of the iceberg, this God you worship is soooo much more than what you think He is." And gradually in our relationship with God we start really seeing how much more this God really is, and that eventually moves us to a non-pragmatic worship, when we don't even need a specific reason to worship, we worship just because, just because the greatness of His being moves us to do so. Like the boy that loves a girl just because.