Something Smells to High Heaven

When I first heard this quaint little idiom, I think my mom was referring to 1) the room I shared with three other brothers, 2) my sock drawer, or 3) a carry out order I had forgotten about in the trunk of my dad’s Pontiac sedan.  Regardless, I sensed immediately it was not a compliment!   That’s the thing about odors and fragrances…they don’t keep a secret very well.  They tend to make whatever causes them to go public very quickly.

Throughout God’s word, fragrance is used to signify an offering or outpouring of worship to God, either through a sacrificial act of obedience or an expression of deep devotion.  King David knew this when he wrote,

“Let my prayer be set before You as incense, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

(Psalm 141:2).

Here the image of prayer as a fragrance is used metaphorically to describe something sweet that rises to God from our hearts when we draw near to Him.

A more literal example of the aroma of worship is found in the New Testament in the gospel of John. It is the familiar story of Mary anointing Jesus as a PDA, one which elicited responses of praise and disgust from those in attendance. 

Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus— the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor.

Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him.

Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard,

 and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair.

The house was filled with the fragrance.

But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said,

“That perfume was worth a year’s wages. 

 It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.”

Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief,

 and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself.

Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial.

You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”  

(John 12:1-8 NLT)

To the object of her affection, Mary’s gift was a sweet smelling aroma which filled the room and publically announced that this Man’s life and love were worthy of costly adoration.  To the hypocritical onlookers, it was a stench which reeked of wastefulness and self-indulgence.  Surely there were more worthy beneficiaries (the poor, perhaps their own coffers) than this commoner from Nazareth.  Isn’t it interesting how quickly we move to judgment of others’ expressions of devotion when they seem to surpass or even call into question our own? 

Then there are the application passages which speak of our very lives being a fragrance to God, much like the life of Jesus himself, whose obedience was received by His father as a kind of incense.  Paul writes to the Ephesian Christians: 

“Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.

He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God. 

 (Ephesians 5:2 NLT)

And like most fragrances, we can expect different reactions from different recipients.  To the church at Corinth, Paul wrote:                      

                                                                                    

“But thank God! 

He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along

 in Christ’s triumphal procession.

Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume.

Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. 

But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom.

But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume.”

(2 Corinthians 2:14-16 NLT)

The next time you are tempted to criticize someone else’s act of worship or life of devotion to Christ, remember that God has designed our love toward Him to leave an impression on others. Hopefully, what comes from that will smell to high heaven.  Sweet!                                                                                                                                           tad

Loving God…unforced intimacy

From time to time, we hear the phrase “forced intimacy” to describe efforts in connecting people which go beyond the comfort ability level of both parties.  It could happen in a small group, on a blind date, or any interaction in which one person feels compelled to share more about themselves than they wish. The very nature of an intimate relationship with another demands that mutual trust, respect and affection exist at a fairly equal level.

One of the core values that shape our worship arts ministry is that we intentionally focus on staying intimate with God. As worship leaders, it is important that we not just be familiar with his character and history, but that we genuinely pursue knowing and loving Him in a personal way. While I respect the character and contributions of historic figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, for instance, I would never admit to loving them.  I didn’t really ever know them personally.  If we loosely define being intimate as being relationally close to another, it becomes apparent that intimacy with God has less to do with what we know to be true about Him and more about a living, loving relationship with Him…talking and listening to Him, expressing devotion to Him in words and actions.

Imagine, for a moment, the difference between sitting around your table on your birthday and having your closest friends and/or family members enthusiastically (sometimes humorously) singing happy birthday to you. You are aware that beyond their singing skills and familiar words are the numerous shared experiences which, over time, have yielded a closeness and intimacy with them that transcend this simple tradition.

Now imagine dining out at your favorite restaurant on your birthday and having total strangers surround you—your waiters and waitresses who have been conscripted by their boss to acknowledge your special day with some local version of Happy Birthday. First, if you’re like me, you are feeling awkward or, worse, dying inside of embarrassment, and secondly, you are aware that these well-wishers had little choice in the matter…it’s part of their job.

Sometimes we, as followers of Christ in general and worship leaders in particular, can fall into patterns of “doing our job”…going through the motions, even saying and singing the right things, but feeling empty inside or at least a bit disingenuous. I have even heard teammates confess that they feel hypocritical when they sing worship songs because their personal lives or walk with Christ have hit a rough patch or even flat-lined.

It is at times like these that we can do a quick inventory, asking a simple question: “If God seems far away from me right now, who moved?” It is even in the dark and desperate times that God reminds us “Draw near to Me, and I will draw near to you.” (James 4:8) For His part, He never stops calling, never stops wooing, never stops pursuing us. Just move toward Him.

Another example is found in Revelation 3:20:

“Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door,

I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.

Notice the freedom in that?  His is an invited relationship, never a forced or coerced one. There is also an immediacy to God’s invitation to stay close to Him when He warns:

“Seek the Lord while He may be found, call on Him while He is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)

Yes, He promises to never leave us or forsake us, but there is something about delaying or postponing getting close to God for a more convenient season that becomes less likely the more time passes, and we grow comfortable with the distance.

My encouragement to each of you is to have at least one other person in your life who routinely asks you how you are doing in this area. Close, personal brothers and sisters in the faith can help us fan the flames of our passion for God before we find ourselves running on spiritual fumes. Fumes are more like the remnants or even memories of former days when we really walked hand in hand with our God. Let’s make a covenant in the worship ministry to lovingly encourage and challenge each other to keep the main thing the main thing. As a worship leader, it is the sweetest gift we can give to the Body…and to the Lover of our souls.  Nothing forced about it.

tad

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself…and things that go ‘bump’ in the night.

What did FDR know about it anyway?  “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  Yeah, right.  Try telling that to a little boy growing up in South Dakota, far away from the wilds of Africa, but who still thought it necessary to pull his covers up around him (on the top bunk no less) so that tigers and lions couldn’t grab them and crawl up in his bed to eat him.  Thinking back, I learned at least two things about fear pretty early on.  First, it preys on our imagination, not of what is but what could be.  And secondly, it must be managed or it can control us.

As a young lad, I had a vivid imagination.  My mom used to say I’d have an ulcer by 15, because I was a worrier.  Two of my biggest fears were (don’t laugh) people with handicaps and wild animals.  As a toddler, I was traumatized by a young deaf man who would come to our house and could only communicate with guttural sounds and gestures.  I found him frightening.  Later in my early elementary school years, I found a man with no legs tipped over in his wheelchair near my home.  I ran in the house to get help, but couldn’t keep from wondering if he could hurt me if I got close to him.  Still another memory involved an usher in our church who (I kid you not) had a hook in place of an amputated hand, and when I went to put in my offering, he clamped the plate with this frightening appendage. 

My second fear—that of jungle animals—came from our visiting an exhibit at the St Louis zoo.  I remember locking eyes with a famous gorilla named Bushman who had died and been stuffed for all the world to see (and fear!).  These two destabilizing fears—handicapped people and jungle animals—finally teamed up in my most vivid nightmare as a child.  In the dream, I was on my backyard swing being pushed by my grandmother when what should appear out of the bushes behind me but a one-legged gorilla with a peg leg?!  I froze in terror, and even though my grandmother repeatedly yelled for me to run, I couldn’t move.  Only waking from the dream saved me from some horrific conclusion.

I’m sure many of you are shaking your heads and saying, “well this explains a lot.”  But as absurd as it all seems to me (and you) now, I still recall how real all these fears were to me then and how firm was their grip on me throughout my childhood.  Because left unchallenged, that’s how fear works.  Whether it’s the threat of Ebola, ISIS, a fluctuating stock market, or the barrage of bad news coming at us from every angle, you and I are tempted throughout our life to be anxious about things…many things.  The fact is, most of these things will never happen to us or to our loved ones.  They dwell in the realm of what could be or perhaps what has happened to others, but will, in fact, never touch us.  When tempted to camp out in these “mind” fields, we would do better to meditate on God’s word and engage in some rational Christian thinking.  The psalmist describes the mental gymnastics like this:

The LORD is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid?

The LORD is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?

 Though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will not be afraid. 

Even if I am attacked, I will remain confident.

What I did as a child in moments of fear was to magnify the object of dread and minimize the One who could deliver me (Psalm 34:4).  It was only after growing in my confidence in the Lord that I could see fear for what it really is…unfaith. Paul writes “God has not given us a spirit of fear” and “be anxious for nothing.” Christians are to acknowledge fear and then confess it:

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

It’s a bit like temptation.  A thought in the mind is not in and of itself sin.  It’s where we let that thought take us…to an obsession, an action, a habit, eventually to an addiction.  But even Jesus was tempted, perhaps even to be afraid at times.  In asking God to examine our anxious thoughts, we are praying that our thought life would not offend God.  Even our anxious thoughts.  The remedy?  Worship.  And better yet, corporate worship, where others can encourage us and buoy us with their faith.  Psalm 34 invites us:                                                                                                                                                          

Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together. 

 I sought the Lord and He answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. 

Those who look to Him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

Speaking as your worship pastor and choir director, my face will be covered with a lot less shame if you keep these admissions about my childhood on the “down low.”  Besides, I totally don’t need to sleep on the top bunk anymore.                                      

tad