Eza 3:13 so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people 's weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away. (ESV)
This verse is in the context of worship. The people of Israel had just laid the foundation of the second temple. They planned a worship service in celebration of this event and in anticipation of the day when their new temple would be built and active worship would be taking place there. Their worship on that day included trumpets, the kind that might be used on the battle field to sound an alarm. I would have expected them to use a ram's horn like Moses had used in the wilderness, but this was a metal trumpet they were using. Their worship also included cymbals, percussion instruments designed to make a lot of noise. This worship celebration was designed to be noisy. These were the loudest instruments they could produce in their day.
Not only were the instruments noisy, but they planned singing by the entire group. There would have been thousands of people gathered for this event and they joined in singing about the faithfulness of their God. Out of joy in celebration of worship, and perhaps a sadness in the memories of former times, the older people wept "loudly" while the younger people shouted loudly. The weeping would have not just been shedding tears, but wailing at the top of their lungs. The shouting was like the shouting of a war cry.
That's not how I worship. I worship in silence. I worship in a whisper. I've been in large groups of men worshiping where some were shouting. I wondered if that could truly be worship, or was it a bit disrespectful or even a bit contrived. But here we have people unafraid to express their grief and their joy. Maybe someday I need to bang together a pair of cymbals and shout at the top of my lungs as an act of worship.
That idea makes me smile because I'm too self-conscious to ever actually do that. But then, maybe that's the problem. These people allowed themselves to fully feel and fully express the emotion of the moment without worrying about what somebody might think. Maybe that is when worship truly occurs, when we stop thinking about us and allow ourselves instead to be caught up in the glory of who God is. I don't believe that can be contrived. It can be imitated. It can be pretended. The outward expression can be manufactured. But when we are overwhelmed with the greatness, glory and grace of our God it touches us at a deep level. It moves us not just intellectually, but emotionally. Perhaps in those times we do ourselves and our God a disservice by failing to shout. Perhaps we short-circuit our worship at that point because we become too self aware instead of being God aware.
I'm not advocating that we turn our worship services on Sunday mornings into shouting contests. I'm simply thinking out loud, wondering whether what we call worship is too much about us and too little about the God we claim to worship. I wonder if we worry too much about propriety in those times and so fail to allow ourselves to be caught up in the glory of God. Just wondering....
Father, I do acknowledge that I am too often concerned with how I look and what people think. Forgive me. Today may I be more concerned with you then with me. Teach me to worship from the heart.
By His grace,
Rick Weinert
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