Why is This Taking So Long?

And the people waited for Zacharias,

and marveled that he lingered so long in the temple.

But when he came out,

he could not speak to them;

and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple,

for he beckoned to them and remained speechless.

Luke 1:21-22

I'm guessing that on normal days at the temple, the priest went in, burned incense, and came right back out again. Church over, worshipers go home. But on this day, Zacharias lingered. Remember, while the priest was burning incense, the people were prostrate in the temple courts and the choir was singing and the band was playing. This was their daily ritual, morning and evening. I can't help be wonder if it had been done so many times before that it had become commonplace and almost meaningless to them. After all, if you do the same thing in the same way every day for umpteen years, do you really concentrate on the significance of the act every time you do it?

It reminds me of the modern church. Recently I heard from an old friend who was being baptized. She told me that her pastor now did the water baptisms at the start of the Sunday morning service, because if he waited until the end, people would quickly exit the building before the ceremony. I think those are people who have forgotten the importance of baptism, the public profession of faith for the Christian, the open testimony that one has been forgiven of their sins and they are now making a lifetime commitment to serve the Lord. It's a time for lingering in witness, not leaving in haste. But it seems some have forgotten that.

Or consider the serving of communion. I hate to admit this, but a long time ago, communion was so unimportant to me that I would occasionally forget to serve it, even with the element trays sitting on the table in front of me. We served the Lord's supper on the first Sunday of every month, like clockwork, tacked on as an addendum at the end of the service. But sometimes I would get so caught up in what I was doing as the pastor--leading worship, preaching, calling people to the altar, praying, you know, important stuff--that it would simply slip my mind. That was only one of many contributing reasons that I started serving communion weekly. I made it the central part of every Sunday morning worship service, with different ones preparing and offering devotions over the bread and the juice. Before I preached, we would meditate on the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, preparing our hearts to receive the elements in a worthy manner. But in some churches, communion is just a ritual you perform every service, or only occasionally, and in some churches, hardly at all.

Singing in church is supposed to be about worshiping the Lord, but if that's so, why do so many act bored when we do it? Why do they complain about the songs--too loud, too soft, too long, too short, too fast, too slow, too old, too new?

Preaching is supposed to be a time of instruction and encouragement, that feeds both the mind and the heart, but it sometimes seems as if fifteen minutes of Biblical instruction and encouragement is all people can take. We can sit in front of the TV for hours on end and recount everything little thing we saw, but let the preacher preach longer than 15 minutes and "our minds can only absorb what the seat can endure."

Let the Spirit begin to move and disrupt the normal order of things, and those who aren't interested in being moved get restless real fast. Can't we just do our normal thing, follow the order of service to the tee, and get out before noon? Why all this praying and shouting and spontaneous worship? Why this extended invitation and prayer time for people down front? Why can't things run like clockwork around here?

It's too bad those worshipers were constrained to stay in the outer temple courts that day, for if they had seen what Zacharias had seen, experienced the angelic appearance and heard the wonderful message from God, they might not have been so shocked that he lingered so long. But when he came out and could not talk, they knew something had happened. My prayer is that we not be so caught up in simply doing our thing that we miss out on God doing His thing!