Shalom Worship
Before We Gather by Zach Hicks
| Scripture
Read Isaiah 66:12-14
| Devotional
Many Bible commentators explain that the Hebrew word shalom is loaded with meaning. Because it often gets translated “peace,” as it does here in this glorious prophecy from Isaiah, English speakers can be lulled by the false idea that shalom is simply something like inner calm or tranquility. But when you look at the word as it sweeps across Scripture, shalom means something far deeper: wholeness and integration, both of the personal kind and the cos- mie kind. For now, let’s talk about the relationship of shalom to us as individual worshipers.
As a worshiper, to be someone who experiences God’s shalom is to be a person marked by a consistency, or integration, between our various “parts.” Modern people speak of holistic health: addressing our wellness from all angles-mental, physical, spiri- tual, emotional, social, and so on. To worship in God’s shalom to be a mature worshiper-is to understand our worship life in a similar fashion to holistic health. It is to recognize that when I engage in a worship service with God’s people, maturity will be marked by an integrated participation of all my different faculties-my mind, my will, my affections, and my body. All of me will be rowing in the same direction as I worship.
It’s worthy of real lamentation that the twenty-first-century church is divided not only along doctrinal lines but also by how we express our worship. In a way, our various denominations and traditions express an incomplete portion of the universal church’s integrated whole. Some traditions are known for outward and visible emotional expressiveness but maybe lack intellectual engagement. Other traditions emphasize thoughtfulness but might have more subdued physical expression. Some traditions worship in social ways, emphasizing horizontal connectivity with others. Some are personal and individualized, emphasizing strong vertical engagement with God from the heart.
Shalom reverses the outward forces that fragment us. God’s promised kingdom of peace and wholeness calls to us from the future creating a gravitational pull, drawing us together around the throne of the Lamb. Worship is a chance to strain toward that future shalom by striving for an integration of self-body, mind, and soul, surrendered and poured out-and an integration of community-every kind of person joyfully aware of everyone else, eager to enact that intimate connectivity through love and shared rituals of song, prayer, posture, and heart.
Shalom beckons us to try uncomfortable things in worship, especially when we recognize those uncomfortable things as healthy for us or as a blessing to our neighbors. For those who feel reserved physically, shalom urges us to move our bodies, engage our arms, bend our knees, stretch out our hands. For those who feel disengaged intellectually, shalom urges thoughtfulness in pondering the depths of God’s character, attributes, and deeds as we worship, eagerly integrating the revelation of biblical truth with the act of praise. For those who feel emotionally detached, shalom urges us to feel deeply, pressing in to all the light and dark. hues of the affective spectrum.
Shalom calls us to more, not less; to integrity, not fragmentation; to intensification, not dulling. It calls creation together. It calls the Christian community together. It calls our divided selves together.
It’s telling that when the angelic praise of heaven broke onto the ears of the shepherds before the first Christmas, they sang that his arrival would bring shalom on earth: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). This declaration that Jesus is shalom’s center is all over Scripture. Isaiah prophesied that Jesus” “chastisement… brought us peace” (Isa. 53:5). Paul agreed that Jesus is “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20).
We have a glorious opportunity, a gracious invitation, to embody this shalom of the gospel in the way we worship. Perhaps that means that, for some of us, there might be some joyful dis- comfort to step into-some way we can make an effort toward that future wholeness now. And in any areas in which we feel we lack, the Spirit is eager to provide for the one who asks.
| Prayer
Aim your prayers in this direction:
- Pray boldly for God’s kingdom to come, specifically for foretastes, experiences, and expressions of the future shalom we will all share in Christ.
- Confess for yourself and on behalf of your worshiping community the lack of wholeness and completion in the way you worship now.
- Ask for a greater measure of strength and power from the Holy Spirit to engage in practices, expressions, and human faculties that are lacking or underserved in your life or in the life of your worshiping community.