Because I am blind, I have spent a great deal of my worship time unable to participate fully. Unless I know the words by heart or have a braille copy of the lyrics, I am unable to sing along with the congregation. This has several implications for me and for the people around me. I will discuss these implications in the posts to come. Today, I want to focus on the foundational issue.
Does it matter what we sing in worship? Someone once suggested that I solve the problem of being unable to sing by simply singing the word “Jesus” to the tune of the melody. I couldn’t do it. At the time I could not explain why. I experienced a deep pain when she suggested this; and I thought, “I may as well sing, “watermelon” and call it worship.
Why would it matter? Because, for one thing, songs for worship are chosen deliberately to assist in bringing the people before God to praise, to give thanks, to pray, to testify, and to commit themselves to service. Without doing these things, I have not worshiped at all. Certainly I have not done it in community!
Second, the name of God, and in relation the name of Jesus, is holy. We should not invoke it in vain. Normally we think of this in terms of not using phrases like, “Oh my God.” But not invoking the name of the Lord in vain has to do with any kind of empty usage. If I had chosen to sing “Jesus” through the entire song set, with no reference to why I was using that name, it would have been an empty usage of the name of the Lord. It is a very serious offense that I should not commit.
It matters very much what we sing in worship. Because of this, it matters that those in worship have access to what we sing. More on how this works in future posts…
