SEEING GOD

(“See”, from the Greek word eido, means to perceive, experience, know…)

Some behold God where countless others look and don't see God at all. David was that kind of man. Where his presumptuous priest and his scornful wife could only see a gilded box and frenzied crowd, he could see God. This has to be deepest reality, to see God, glimpsing what remains after all else is shaken out and burned. We tend to respond to the breaking in of “deepest reality” in many ways, resorting to bureaucracy, policing, aloofness, scorn, pride, false humility, ridicule, or... some of us may just dance!

I know a lady who dances in church. No matter what style of music, no matter what song, no matter how much those around her disapprove, no matter how hard or easy her life has been -- scorned or loved, entertaining or envied -- she worships with all her might, her face upturned and radiant, her arms spread angelic... cruciform, an instinctive gesture of relinquishment and acceptance, her body alive with God hunger. She dances because she sees God. Right there in the midst of a multitude of people preoccupied with Self-life, anxious to get through the service so they can go home feeling good about themselves, this lady finds the table God has prepared for her in His presence, and surrounded by the enemy, she dances...

Uzzah was presumptuous: Our role in worship is not to keep the Almighty from mishap or embarrassment. He takes care of Himself. Any kind of God-handling is risky at best and deadly at worst. Michal was scornful: Our role in worship is not to keep ourselves from embarrassment, to protect our death-grip on prideful propriety, prescribing etiquette that maintains our dignity at the cost of honoring God. Worship is for God... not us, and without passion leads to barrenness. Between these extremes... between death and barrenness, in a steep narrow place, David found God’s table and David danced, a little bit of Shimmy, a little bit of Twist and a whole lot of Locomotion, David leaped and twirled in wild‑limbed abandonment. There’s something about seeing God during worship that can drive even a king to “get down.” Undignified? Well... yes. Repulsive? To some... to the ones who only see God on walls under glass, framed and hung. But isn’t this the point?

Worship is all about Seeing God... His Presence... His Face, perceiving and experiencing God... beholding God. Christ rent the veil of separation on the cross, creating a doorway of opportunity into God’s holiest place, His presence. Sometimes we never find the veil, other times we find the rend and peek through. But there are times when we pry the rend apart stepping through the veil into Him, and we dance or pogo or go prostrate or wave or vibrate or sob or run or shout…The exuberance within will demonstrate when we truly See God, producing energetic and prolific manifestations flowing out of bodies not yet fully equipped for divine engagement...

Worship still resides in that steep narrow place between the presumptuous -- those who want to protect God from mishap or embarrassment, and the scornful -- those who want to protect the dignity, sanctity and propriety of worship with watchwords like modesty and moderation, who in reality are protecting themselves. Both want to legislate worship, but worship is a dicey thing, always wanting to push beyond man’s opinions and is, by its very nature, well… freestyle. As long as scriptural propriety is maintained, whether one backstrokes, breaststrokes, dog-paddles or just floats is between them and God. The living water of God’s corporate worship-pool should provide the freedom to splash around without legislating how to swim; even a half-naked king should feel welcome. And somehow, in the unfathomable mysteries of God, our flailing about in His worship-pool ascribes and declares His worth – the true meaning of the old English “weorthscipe” from which we derive the English word “worship” -- and brings delight to the Father’s heart. Go figure that one out!

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART

FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD