Thursday, 24 May 2012

QUIETNESS AT COMMUNION


One of the truly lovely things about the Lord’s Supper is that Christians can meet in the quietness of God’s house with His people to remember what He has done to take away the sin of the world, (Jn.1:29).  To sit quietly and pray as we take the elements of bread and wine is what makes it very special.  To recall what the Saviour did for us individually communicates grace to our hearts.  “How sweet the Name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear!”  How sweet indeed.  

What spoils it for me is when the musician starts up and plays music, thus disrupting the quietness of those moments.  It distracts when meditating on the Cross, because it forces us to think in terms of the words that are associated with the tunes.  We cannot think our own thoughts at such a time.  That spoils it for me, I must say.

And this practice is becoming prevalent in many evangelical churches today.  There seems to be an intolerance of silence, quietness.  Perhaps Christians today are unaccustomed to being in the quiet place with God.  They cannot cope with stillness.  They have used themselves to having music on in the home, the office and the car.  Go to the supermarket mall, and piped music is a common feature.  When out for a walk or a jog, we must not have quietness, stillness.

So when we come into God’s awesomely holy presence, we do not want to think the thoughts He plants in our hearts by His Spirit, for they may be much too disturbing.  What do we do?  We drown out God’s thoughts with music.

And if we don’t want God in all our thoughts, that makes us very like the ungodly man who is described in the Psalms.  Even that is not a comfortable thought, is it?  If we don’t want God, might He just be saying the same about us?

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