Friends,
I hope your New Year is off to a great start. On last Sunday we began a look at some of the Songs of Ascent. These are Psalms 120 – 134. There are fifteen of them and they were sung going up to Jerusalem to worship. If you were here Sunday you remember that the theme for these weeks is this, Come and Worship.
As a pastor I have heard many reasons people give for not worshiping. Some have been thoughtful and valid, some have been doozies. And I have endured most of these – even the doozies – with a straight face.
We could each probably come up with a dozen reasons not to worship but I can think of one big reason to Come and Worship and that is to meet God. It can be plain and simple.(Inspired by the thoughts of Eugene Peterson.)
This year I have been reading portions of Mark Twain’s autobiography. The portions I am reading were compiled from monthly magazine articles roughly a hundred years ago.
Twain tells of a pastor friend of his, Rev. Joseph Harris, quite an interesting guy (this story is from 1880). In Twain’s words:
Harris has had many adventures. He has more adventures in a year than anybody else has in five. One Saturday night he noticed a bottle on his uncle's dressing-bureau. He thought the label said "Hair Restorer," and he took it in his room and gave his head a good drenching and sousing with it and carried it back and thought no more about it. Next morning when he got up his head was a bright green! …As the days went on and Sunday followed Sunday, the interest in Harris's hair grew and grew; because it didn't stay merely and monotonously green, it took on deeper and deeper shades of green; and then it would change and become reddish, and would go from that to some other color—purplish, yellowish, bluish, and so on—but it was never a solid color. It was always mottled. And each Sunday it was a little more interesting than it was the Sunday before—and Harris's head became famous, and people came from New York, and Boston, and South Carolina, and Japan, and so on, to look. There wasn't seating-capacity for all the people that came while his head was undergoing these various and fascinating mottlings. And it was a good thing in several ways, because the business had been languishing a little, and now a lot of people joined the church so that they could have the show, and it was the beginning of a prosperity for that church which has never diminished in all these years.
I could say, Come and Worship Sunday to see what color the preacher’s hair is…But, I’ll stick with this, Come and Worship you might just meet God. Have a great day.
Blessings,
Ande
