May 6, 2007
Background Scripture: Revelation 19
Devotional Reading: Psalms 148:1-14
Recently, one of the trustees of a denominational seminary in our city was invited to preach in the seminary chapel, but he reportedly shocked the seminary congregation when, from the pulpit, he acknowledged that in his own devotional practice he sometimes uses glossolalia, or “speaking in tongues.”
The response was shock and outrage, because this particular denomination prohibits the use of glossolalia in its worship services. There were calls for his resignation, and the video of the service was banned from distribution.
Although I can handle a little Pennsylfawnish Deitsch and a Texas drawl, I do not speak in tongues, and I am aware of the conflicts glossolalia has caused in some congregations.
Nevertheless, I suspect the problem is not so much with the gift of the Spirit as it is with the recipient of that gift, as well as of those who have not experienced it.
Ecstasy
The problem is that the manifestation of spiritual gifts – healing, prophecy, glossolalia and the like – is essentially an ecstatic experience, and many of us have never come close to experiencing ecstasy in our religious lives. In fact, many of us structure our spiritual experience in order to guard against ecstasy.
From its Latin and Greek origins, ecstasy has meant to be out of one’s mind, to be beside oneself in the grip of extreme passion. And most of us do not want to be seen to be out of our minds even for a few moments.
Ecstasy does not have to mean we are crazy, but that we are experiencing an exultation that is beyond normal experience. The mystical experience is one of self-transcendence, in which we seem to be lifted out of and above our normal emotions and comprehensions.
It is strange that many of us tolerate a kind of ecstasy at athletic contests or political rallies that would seem “out of place” inside the walls of our churches. Ecstasy – rapture, bliss, exhilaration, rejoicing, transport, elation, jubilation and ebullience – has a place in our religious life just so long, as with every grace from God, it is held in balance.
Many of us have difficulty relating to John’s visions because we have not experienced this kind of ecstasy ourselves. The closest many come is in their dreams. In the vocabulary of the Bible there is little, if any, distinction between visions and dreams.
We see in John’s visions the same kinds of symbols and inconsistency of details that we see in our dreams, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss them as being incomprehensible and unimportant.
Forty-nine visions
Except for the first three chapters – the letters to the seven churches – John’s Revelation is composed of a series of seven sets of seven visions each (6:1-21:8). Chapter 19:1-10 contains the sixth and seventh visions of the sixth set, the Hymn of Praise to God (19:1-5) and the Marriage Hymn to the Lamb and his bride (19:6-10).
Verses 1-5 begins with the shout of “Hallelujah.” which in Hebrew means “Praise ye the Lord,” and the next vision, 19:6-10, also begins with “Hallelujah.”
John is lifted out of his normal mentality into a state of altered consciousness, an experience that is best compared to an impressionistic painting or a flight of poetry.
Many of us neither need nor want a steady diet of spiritual ecstasy, but to go all our lives without any experience that lifts us out of our normal selves is spiritual deprivation.
Maybe our worship is lacking the hallelujah factor and its capacity to lift us from time to time from the normal to the supernormal. This farm news was published in the May 2, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
