Tomorrow is the Lord’s Day, and we look forward to gathering to worship our great God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When the Church assembles on the Lord’s Day, there is a special sense in which heaven and earth come together. Two realms are joined as the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant lift their voices together in sung prayer to the Lord of Hosts, offering sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving in the Name of Jesus Christ with the help and strength of the Holy Spirit. Such worship is a reminder that this world and the present age are not all there is to creation. This is not the only plane of existence. The present world is not our home. We belong to the age of come. We are citizens of Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and we look forward to the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the transformation of the universe when the effects of sin and the curse will finally be no more.
Christians often think of worship only in terms of what is happening in their congregation on a particular day. “How was church?” By which we mean: how did the singing sound, did you manage to stay awake during the sermon, and was the experience enjoyable rather than tedious? That’s like attending a State Dinner at the White House with all the leaders of the free world and asking if the steak was tough and whether the silverware was really silver or only aluminum plate. Maybe your piece of steak was a little chewy, but the experience was truly awesome. --JME
