Revelation in Worship: Taking the Plunge
Sometimes worship leaders talk about the stages of a worship service as moving from Celebration to Adoration to Revelation. Our music is often structured around this idea. We use upbeat celebratory songs at the beginning, more worshipful songs toward the middle and we end with songs that are thematically focused on who the character and nature of God Himself. For example, last week we did in order, Take It All, You Deserve, Our God Saves, Maker of Heaven, The Stand and Your Name. You can see how the first three songs might be rightly thought of as "celebration", the next 2 as "adoration" and the last one (Your Name) as revelation. It doesn't always fit so neatly together, but this basic progression is often seen in our worship services.
In fact, a marker of powerful, annointed worship is that point where we cross from awareness of how God has cared for us to awareness (revelation) of who He is. That is the point where nothing else seems to matter except for Him. I think that true "revelation moments" should be one of the main goals of our worship. I also believe they are rarer than we think. We sometimes mistake an outpouring of emotion or celebration for revelation. I believe that at least one reason "revelation moments" are rare is that in our hearts we fear the consequences when God Himself descends to be with his people. God's presence is not comfortable. He's not like a pet or an old pair of shoes. He is a holy fire burning us, refining us, drawing us to repentance and changing us. When Isaiah had his vision of God in Isaiah 6 he was immediately aware of his own lack of holiness. He cried out "Woe to me!" His attitude was a visceral reaction to the holiness of God. When God revealed Himself with a display of thunder and lightning on the mountain, the children of Israel told Moses point blank, "You go talk with God … we'll stay here".
So the revelation of "who God is" is not a blithe ceremonial exercise. It is scary business. I think that sometimes when we worship we sense that "next level" where God will breakthrough, and we shy away. We settle for an exciting worship service that feeds us and uplifts us but does not transform us. Going further into his court means coming face to face with who He is - and by contrast recognizing who we are as well. Thinking of it reminded me of my youth. Young people are risk takers and I was no exception. If my mother only knew...
When I was in college I did quite a bit of spelunking (caving). In and around Springfield Missouri are numerous caves, many of them little known and well off the beaten path. One such cave was a favorite of mine. In the Fall of each year we would gather up a gaggle of Freshmen into three or four old cars and head out to Mullen's cave. Mullen's cave was a half mile into the back country of a rural Missouri farm. Our group of 15 or 20 college students would sneak through a cow pasture without rousing the cows (or the farmer that lived near by). Passing through a copse and around a steep incline the mouth of the cave would appear suddenly - a great maw, like God had punched the earth with an awl.
Caves don't always have stand up entrances. They are not tunnels so much as holes in the ground. Mullen's cave entrance was no exception. The mouth of the cave was an incline down and under an outcropping of jagged stone. Once inside the cave the night sky was quickly swallowed in the darkness. Lit by the pale glow of 15 or 20 flashlights, the floor was littered with boulders and slabs of rock as well as mounds of bat dung. The cave stretched back into the earth for about a mile. Such a journey with a large group of college students was a raucous hike filled with witty banter as we snaked single file through the cave's winding passage. It was a wet cave and sometimes the trek required wading knee deep through black pools of 40 degree water. The front of the cave was visually uninspiring with muddy floors and a pocked ceiling of stone. The only entertainment was the occasional bat that would raise shrieks from caving newbies.
About two thirds of the way back the cave would get interesting. Stalactites and stalagmites appeared like forests of rock the deeper we went. At the very back of the cave a cavern of about 180 feet wide by 50 feet high opened up. It featured beautiful rock formations and several rivulets of water running down the rock surface in a timeless cascade. It was a stunning, other-worldy site and well worth the effort. Newcomers were nearly always satisfied. This is what they had expected. A long hike with some obstacles to see a beautiful cavern deep beneath the surface of the earth.
If you turned around and left Mullen's cave right then you could go back to and be satisfied. You would return in mud stained clothes and your legs would probably hurt, but you would have a great story to tell about how you had braved Mullen's cave and lived to tell the tale. But going just that far into Mullen's cave doesn't make you a caver. We didn't bring our new found friends to this cavern to leave them unchallenged. Mullen's cave had a few secrets yet to reveal.
Near the back of that large cavern was a depression in the earth next to the rock wall. If you bent down low enough you could see that there was a gap under the wall about 18 to 24 inches tall. We would gather our little flock together and one by one squeeze under the rock wall into a small room on the other side. The room was about 4 1/2 feet tall, 4 or 5 feet wide and about 25 feet long. At the far end of the room was a pool of water about 5 or 6 foot wide.
What happened next would always separate the cavers from the pretenders. No matter how many times I did it I was still petrified each time. Usually only about a third of the newcomers would even try it. One by one we would enter the 40 degree water and wade toward the far end of the room. The water would become waste deep as you near the wall. Feet first you would feel for the opening in the wall that was less than a foot below the surface of the water. It was just big enough for a full grown man. Bending at the waste you woud slide the lower half of your body through the opening till just your head was still about the water. You would take a deep breath and grip your flashlight (bundled up in a baggie) and shoot under the wall, groping the ceiling for the air pocket you were told would be there. About 3 or 4 feet beyond the wall you would find that air pocket as the ceiling began to slop up again. It was just enough air to get your nose above the water. From there you had another 10 feet to go to get into the next room. Groping and thrashing you would move as quickly as you could till you lay in the mud of the room on the other side. No thrill ride or roller coaster I have ever been on compares to the sheer adrenaline rush and panic of that black journey under the wall.
One by one we would take the icy trip alone until all of us that were going on were in the next room. Several more obstacles remained including a climb through a 25 foot stair-step waterfall and a slide down a muddy incline, but none of them compared to that lonely, awful, panicked journey under the wall. The reward? The other side featured several caverns as big or bigger than the previous one. The return trip required a journey through the water again, but somehow the way home was always easier. Back at the college those who had made the journey through the water saw the experience of caving differently than the others. To them it was an initiation. It wasn't just that they were completely covered with mud or that they ached from head to toe. It was the fact that they had accomplished something, however trivial, that required overcoming their fear. No longer just college students who had been caving, they were cavers now.
So it is with us in worship. We put in enough effort to make it to the first cavern, but we are sometimes reluctant to go through to whatever is beyond. We have a satisfying journey and bask in the warmth and blessing of the love of God. We adore Him and we celebrate what He has done for us. We offer a sacrifice of praise and then we stand around enjoying his presence and clapping ourselves on the back for how open we are in worship. We go home and talk about the worship service - but are we really worshipers? Have we been transformed by the experience? Are we becoming more like Him? I think there is more God wants to do in us. There is more of Himself He wants to show us and give us. But to go further we have to swallow our fear of really seeing Him. We have to trust Him - his goodness and His faithfulness. We have to overcome our fear, take that deep breath and plunge beneath the surface - groping our way to the unknown riches He has for us on the other side.
Choir Director, singer, piano player, technologist and erstwhile blogger.