The Center

So, I recently attended a Worship Central conference at Holy Trinity Brompton in London. It is a ministry kind of headed up by Tim Hughes to equip worship leaders in the area. It was a wonderful day of Biblically saturated teaching with special application for worship leaders. I learned a lot and had some beautiful times of worship, but there was one thing that I want to focus on.

I had blogged earlier (Unveiling Ourselves, I think was the title) about my challenges in approaching God. He is this powerful God, infinitely above and beyond us, yet our intimate friend, closer than anyone else, in fact inside our hearts. It was a challenge to me that I hadn't reconciled. Though it wasn't the direct focus of the talk, I believe I found the answer. As simple and obvious as it is, the answer is Jesus. Now I could have told you that worship had to be Christ-centered, that he "made a way for us," but I hadn't realized just how central He is.

You see, the way God comes to have this paradoxical relationship with us is through the paradoxical nature of Jesus, the God-man. Jesus is constantly revealing both aspects of His nature, calming the storm and crying with friends. Shining in glory and crying out as He sweat blood. Jesus is the Divine and human in one Person. It is through this union that we come to worship God in the way we do. Were Jesus not human, we could not "approach Him with confidence." The intimacy would be impossible. He would always seem to us a thundering God atop a mountain. Were He not God, we would have nothing to worship. We could love Him and draw near, but He would not have the power over us in order to save us. You see, as much as it scares us, we need the Thundering God of the Old Testament to defeat sin and death. Jesus fulfills both needs.

Without Jesus, I see no way that we could reconcile them. We would find it difficult to grow in both relationships, as I in fact did when Christ was not my entry point of communication to God. To further illustrate that this is how we should still relate to Christ, let's look at Revelation 1. John, the beloved disciple who had rested his head on Christ's chest at dinner, now seems to not recognize his Savior. I'll let you read it, but John searches for words to describe Jesus. It does not seem as if he is seeing his old friend, and this use to bother me greatly. But, a speaker this weekend pointed out something cool. When in verse 16 John is describing Jesus, he writes, "In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance." Then he writes in 17, "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."

Did you catch it? In 16, Jesus is holding the stars in His right hand. In 17, He is laying His right on John's shoulder, saying, "Don't be afraid, it's me!" The same hand that holds the stars reaches out to assure and comfort us! This is the glory of the King calling us friends. In Jesus, we find it all. The all-powerful King, and the intimate Savior. This is why he must be the starting point! The focus of our worship. He is "the First and the Last. The Living One!" He is the One standing victorious over death and Hades, and He is our closest, deepest friend. He has made a way for us. Praise Jesus!