THE MEANING OF WORSHIP

On the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6), we remember the Magi, the wise men from Persia, who followed a star to Jerusalem, where they sought directions from King Herod and his religious advisors. They were pointed to Bethlehem. When they saw the baby Jesus, they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. (Matthew 2:1-12) What an extraordinary sight that must have been! Such distinguished visitors with such valuable gifts, bowing down and worshipping the baby Jesus. Here was the wisdom of the earth acknowledging God incarnate, God in the flesh, with appropriate obeisance.

What does it mean to bow down and worship Jesus? To worship is to give the highest place. The first commandment states that “You shall have no other gods before me.” The second states about idols that: “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God.” (Exodus 20:3,5) Worship is pure adoration, the lifting up of the redeemed spirit toward God in contemplation of his holy perfection. It is to express the worth of the One worshipped. It is to honor and reverence God by your obedience. It is to surrender your life in God’s service. It is to acknowledge the authority and sovereignty of the One worshipped in your life. It is to recognize the claims of the One worshipped over your time. This is what the Wise Men were doing in bowing down and worshipping Jesus: God incarnate.

In contrast King Herod and his advisors did not even bother to accompany the visitors to Bethlehem. Later, when he heard of unusual events in Bethlehem, and learned that the Magi had avoided reporting to him, he ordered the slaughter of all boys of tender age. He did not want anyone threatening his exclusive claim to be bowed down to and worshipped.

These two groups of people represent the two different ways of living, two different ways of seeking truth, two different ways of seeking God: reverence or rejection. King Herod could not find it in himself to worship anyone other than himself. He had his power to protect. He was prepared to eliminate anyone who stood in his way. The Magi were prepared to travel miles to find the true authority – the true king – the ruler of the universe – and bow down and worship him, giving him tokens of their fealty. They surrendered to the object of their quest. Herod surrendered to his ego.

Jack Clemo, distinguished British poet, wrote about his journey to seek God.

From the Christian standpoint, every attempt to find absolute truth without submission to authority is an elaborate dodge, a laborious feat of self-protection. The New Testament reveals that human nature is devoid of spiritual life and must be yielded to God for spiritual regeneration. No faculty of mind or emotion can apprehend truth except on the basis of forgiveness for its natural alienation from truth. All Scriptural commands to ‘seek God’ are addressed to the soul, not the analytical brain or the intuitive sense; and the soul is to seek only in the light of surrender. The painstaking sifting of evidence, the constant play of the inquiring mind, and the flights of mystical fancy, are therefore carried on in disregard of the divine revelations, and unless the unsurrendered seeker is struck down on some Damascus Road, he never reaches conversion at all. He goes through life selecting the religious ideas which suit his taste and rejecting or perverting the absolute truth which would judge and correct it. He touches only a temporal validity, a mere shadow of the eternal validity which belongs to the revelation of grace… surrender, …is the foundation of all Christian belief. An unsurrendered soul cannot accept Christianity, since every human personality is in its natural state anti-Christian.” (The Invading Gospel, p.18,19)

Let me unpack that statement in the context of these two ways of seeking the truth of God as seen in the Wise Men and King Herod.

“Every attempt to find absolute truth without submission to authority is an elaborate dodge, a laborious feat of self-protection.” At a certain point in my life I had to decide whether or not I was going to accept the authority of Christ in the Scriptures. Not to do so would have been dodging the issue of discipleship, of following Christ. Not to submit to that authority would have been to protect my own claims to self-reliance, my own pretensions to wisdom, when I was painfully aware of my own ignorance and failings.

“Human nature is devoid of spiritual life and must be yielded to God for spiritual regeneration.” Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be “born again” if he was to enter the kingdom of heaven. Just as God created human life by breathing his Spirit upon man, he has to create new life by breathing his Holy Spirit into us. Only by seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit can I hope to produce the fruit of the kingdom: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Only by receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit can I inherit eternal life.

“The soul is to seek only in the light of surrender…unless the unsurrendered seeker is struck down on some Damascus Road, he never reaches conversion at all.” The brilliant and fanatical anti-Christian persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, had to be confronted by the light of God, and blinded before he would surrender to Christ. We sometimes have to face a crisis in our lives over which we have no control before we are willing to bow down and worship our Savior. I had to make a decision about Jesus. Was I going to bow down and worship him, and follow him the rest of my days, or not? Everyone has to make that decision for himself at some point in his life. You cannot sit on the fence. You either surrender or you don’t. You either go his way or your own.

It is arrogance that seeks to go through life “selecting the religious ideas which suit our taste and rejecting or perverting the absolute truth which would judge and correct us….An unsurrendered soul cannot accept Christianity, since every human personality is in its natural state anti-Christian.” King Herod would not submit to the claims of Jesus to be his authority, his way, his truth, his life. Instead he indulged his own temperament and tastes in religion. We can create our own form of religion that avoids having to surrender to the claims of Christ.

Rick Warren has developed eight recovery principles based on the Beatitudes. They exemplify the meaning of surrender in practical terms.

Principle 1: Realize that I’m not God; I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable. “Blessed are those who know they are spiritually poor.”

Principle 2: Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to him, and that he has the power to help me recover. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Principle 3: Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control. “Blessed are the meek.”

Principle 4: Openly examine and confess my faults to God, to myself, and to someone I trust. “Blessed are the pure in heart.”

Principle 5: Voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask him to remove my character defects. “Blessed are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires.”

Principle 6: Evaluate all my relationships. Offer forgiveness to those who have hurt me and make amends for harm I’ve done to others except when to do so would harm them or others. “Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Principle 7: Reserve a daily time with God for self-examination, Bible reading and prayer in order to know God and his will for my life and to gain the power to follow his will.

Principle 8: Yield myself to God to be used to bring this Good News to others, both by my example and by my words. “Blessed are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires.”

This is what is implied in what the Wise Men did in bringing gifts to Jesus, and in bowing down and worshipping him. This is the true meaning of surrender, of following Christ. Will you commit yourself to doing the same today and this coming year?