Peering into the Darkness Together

“It is one of the most peculiar things…to come together week after week with no intention of being useful or productive, but only to declare things we cannot prove about a God we cannot see. Our word for it is worship…This is how we learn where we fit. This is how we locate ourselves between the past and the future, between our hopes and our fears, between the earth and the stars. This is how we learn who we are and what we are supposed to be doing: by coming together to sing and to pray, to be silent and to be still, by peering into the darkness together and telling each other what we see when we do.” 
(Barbara Brown Taylor, in Gospel Medicine)

This quotation comes from a devotional book I have been reading during Lent. And it got me thinking about why and how we gather for worship each week. 

Much of the time during the past two years worship has meant making myself a cup of tea, settling on the couch, and tuning in to the service. I was grateful for this option but when we are not physically together there is something missing—that mysterious and holy something that happens when we gather with a group of faithful people, sitting together listening for the stirrings of God’s voice. 

When we gather for worship each week we are saying: This is important. This is where I can celebrate the joys in my life, where I can grieve losses and be sustained, where I can be inspired to work for justice, where I can peer into the darkness of the world and know that others will help me find the light. We are reminded that we are not alone, and that the love that is at the centre of the universe is in our midst.

As we look ahead to Holy Week there will be a number of opportunities for us to gather together in worship: to experience the tension of Jesus’ last days, to peer into the darkness of Good Friday, to sit in holy silence on Saturday, and to wonder and celebrate on Easter Sunday. This is how we learn who we are.