This morning we went to Easter services with our daughter and her family at their church in North Carolina. It’s a large suburban church, not quite mega- by today’s Osteenian standard, but still larger than what I prefer. When I’m in such a church it becomes very easy for me to surreptitiously slip my critic’s hat out of my jacket pocket and slide it down over my eyes. I’m a seminary student: don’t try critiquing like me at home, this critique was performed on a closed track, and plenty were harmed while making this critique. Large churches do things in large ways, and thereby provide outsized targets for critical arrows.

But another thing about large churches is their ability to carry off things no smaller church could attempt. This morning the platform at the front of the worship center was filled with an orchestra. Not a professional orchestra, but still pretty well supplied, since this church is very close to a major university with an excellent music program.

Early in the service the worship leader announced that at a certain point the orchestra and church choir would be performing the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s The Messiah. He invited anyone from the congregation who so desired to come up and join the choir. As soon as he said it, I knew I needed to go. Not just because I hadn’t sung this piece in years and missed it dearly, but for my own soul. I knew somehow that it was how God wanted to pierce my hard heart with the reality of resurrection.

When the time came, I moved forward with many others to grab at the stacks of printed music and find my way to the tenor section. I was saved from the awkwardness of getting up in front of complete strangers by the anonymity that a large congregation provides. No one looking up at the choir could be sure whether I “belonged” there or not. In a moment the orchestra launched into the brief introduction and this unrehearsed choir rang out (almost) as one: “Hallelujah!” Like getting back on a bicycle after many years, I found the familiar tenor line coming back to me and soon hardly needed to look at the music.

More wonderful still, within a few lines I felt that I had really joined with those around me. As we belted out these notes written centuries before by one who fell to his knees as he wrote them, I believe we had a sense that something bigger than any of us was happening.

For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth
The kingdom of this world
is become the Kingdom of our Lord,
and of His Christ,
and He shall reign for ever and ever.

Church type, worship style, sermon excellence–as I walked back to my seat these were gone from my mind. I had stood before the Lord with my brothers and sisters to each side of me and only the Throne before us. And before I reached my seat, I had quietly tucked a certain cap back into my pocket.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 8th, 2007 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Christian Community, Evangelicaldom, It`s All About Me, Music, Tell Me a Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.