Cancelling life for fear of death (4): Worship, the purpose of life
This is the fourth and final post in a series on the crippling fear of death exposed by Covid-19, and how it has led to the cancelling of some key ways Christianity offers hope and life in the face of death. You can read the earlier posts here, here and here.
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the Spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. (Hebrews 12:22-24)
Lockdown has meant the cancelling of many of the good things in life: drinks with old friends, children playing games in the school playground, fans singing from the terraces. And it has meant the cancelling of many of the most important things in life: children cuddling their grandparents, weeping with others at the funerals of loved ones, celebrating weddings and birthdays and the arrival of children. And as I have written over the last two days, it has in Britain led (without justification) to the cancelling of the two great God-given moments of death-defying hope: weddings and baptisms.
Today I end this series by considering how it has led also to the cancelling of the very best thing that human life affords: Christian worship.
Christians assemble to worship God. The word ‘church’ means ‘assembly’; gathering in the name of Jesus is what defines us. Though Christians serve God all week, once a week we put aside all other things so as to focus our whole being on serving him; to gather together to meet with God, in his Son Jesus Christ, present with us by the work of the Holy Spirit.
And we do this because this is what life is for. We are made to be images of God, to reflect his glory back to him. We are made to declare the praises of God to him and to all creation. We are made to be in relationship with him. So the church is called by Jesus Christ to gather to worship God because this is him bringing us back to the purpose of our existence.
Jesus, as I wrote yesterday, has defeated death. He proclaims in baptism that he will raise those who trust him to eternal life in a remade universe. In the new heavens and the new earth the worship of God will be unending; living in the presence of God, hearing him speak to us, singing his praise, delighting in his beauty and perfection. We will be doing forever what we were always made to do.
And here is the amazing thing: Jesus allows us to experience this now. Not completely, indeed nowhere near so; just a taster, a glimpse of what lies ahead. In the church’s worship we encounter him in his beauty and glory, we hear his words of promise to forgive and restore, and we are equipped to live for him in this life and long for the next. And wonderfully, we get to eat at the table of the author of life, to receive in the sign of bread and wine something of the risen, eternal life of the beloved Son of God. It is the first course of what will be an eternal feast.
Of course a secular nation does not understand this. Church worship is, it seems, being treated on a par with leisure activities and entertainment, cinemas and pubs and restaurants. But Christians do not gather to relax or be entertained; we don’t even gather because it is good for us, even though undoubtedly it is. We gather because we have been called to meet and know the living God, the source of all life, the fount of all beauty, the origin and definition of all goodness. We gather because it is the very best thing that human life in this world affords, and is a taste of something even better to come.
And yet for fear of death, Christian worship, the very purpose of human life, has been cancelled.
Now in an epidemic like this we have needed to accept the direction of our government to cease meeting for a time; and churches, without any exception that I am aware of, have done so. We must be willing, furthermore, to accept very significant inconveniences and limitations to limit the possibilities of infection when we are permitted to meet again. But the resumption of church services should be our society’s, and the government’s, and the church’s, toppriority. The worship of God is more important than shopping in Ikea or drinking in pubs or children returning to school. Worship of the Triune God is the most important activity of all human life.
I have argued in this series that Her Majesty’s Government must permit weddings and baptisms again, as the two great points where God gives life which will outlive our death. Life should not be cancelled for fear of death. But most of all, the government must permit as soon as possible, with whatever precautions are necessary, the resumption of Christian public worship. There is no higher priority for this or any other nation. For it makes no sense to cancel, for fear of death, the only true taste there is in this world of the world to come; the place where the one with the power to defeat death is proclaimed and encountered; the thing which is the very purpose and goal of human life.
Reposted from Matthew Roberts’ blog: https://matthewpwroberts.wordpress.com/2020/06/11/cancelling-life-for-fear-of-death-4-worship-the-purpose-of-life/
Matthew Roberts is the Minister of Trinity Church York, part of the International Presbyterian Church. http://trinitychurchyork.org.uk. You can find his musings on Twitter at @MPWRoberts.
