Our Bible reading
from the Acts of the Apostles spoke of Paul's last visit to Troas. Come with me and picture the scene on that day.
It's late. We're in an upstairs room, gathered to hear the words of a great
man, a great preacher. We're all crammed together, like sardines, because he's
going away tomorrow and we'll never have a chance to hear him again. As he speaks
we are hanging on every word.
Sitting on the window ledge is John Smith’s son Jimmy. The preacher’s
been talking for a while. It's late. Jimmy is starting to nod off. In fact he
literally "falls asleep", falls out of the upstairs window onto the ground.
"Oh no!" shouts one of the young moms. "Jimmy just fell out of the window!"
There is a great commotion as we all push and shove down a narrow flight of stairs out into the street of the town. At this late hour, lights start going on in the surrounding homes as people are awakened
by our commotion.
Mrs. Smith runs over to where Jimmy lies, picks up his head…he's not breathing...there's no pulse. It can't be.
He's dead? A silence descends on us all as a couple of the guys try and offer
help. We stand around like dummies in a shop window.
Then the preacher makes his way through the crowd. He hadn't rushed down
stairs like the rest of us. He beckons the guys trying to revive Jimmy out of
the way and throws himself down on the ground next to Jimmy's corpse and hugs him. You
don't know what to do. It's embarrassing.
Visiting preachers don't usually embrace corpses.
"Don't worry," he smiles as he gets to his feet. "He's still alive."
The lad opens his eyes, sits up, looks around, and gives the kind of look that says, "What am I doing down here…why
are you all staring at me… and am I grounded for this?"
We run back up stairs, some dumfounded, some exclaming things like “He can’t really have been dead!”...and…”He
was y’know, I felt for a pulse.”
We share together in broken bread and then settle down to listen to what the speaker has to say. This time nobody drops off to sleep, but everybody is encouraged and comforted. When we do finally leave
it is with a great sense of peace, joy, and wonderment.
Such is a similar scenario to what took place when the apostle Paul visited
Troas. It's one of the few pictures in Scripture of what happened when Christians
in the early church met for worship. Apart from warning about the dangers of
falling asleep during the sermon, it has a whole lot to teach us about what Christian worship could be like.
One of the most illuminating verses in the passage comes at Acts 20, verse 8;
"Many lamps were burning in the upstairs room."
I'm sure it was literally true, they would need lamps because it was dark. But
you can also interpret this verse in a spiritual sense. In Troas many people’s
hearts were burning with the desire to serve and follow Jesus Christ, catching fire under the influence of the Holy Spirit. It is in that spiritual sense I'd like to think on those words today, "Many lamps
were burning", many hearts were hungry for God to speak.
The result of those burning lamps was worship that had a dynamic intensity. Theologian, Karl Barth, a man of great depth and intellect, penned these challenging words. "Christian
worship is the most momentous, the most urgent, the most glorious action that can take place in human life." I'm not the only one who has been in services where the most momentous thing that has happened has been
if the pastor tripped on the steps or someone dropped a hymnbook!
Christian worship is meant to be dynamic. Whether or not it is depends on
how brightly the light of Christ burns in our hearts. Many lamps were burning
in the upstairs room. But what set those people alight? One thing:
Their worship was focused on the great
drama of crucifixion and resurrection.
At the center of any Christian worship service must be a profound appreciation of the death of Jesus Christ and his subsequent
resurrection to life. It is that experience of death being overcome by life that lies at the heart of the gospel message.
It is towards that experience that the celebration of communion directs us.
It was a message that was vividly demonstrated by Paul's revival of Eutychus, the young man who fell out of the window. It is a message reinforced time and time again in the New Testament. Think, for example, of the Father’s words over the prodigal son who returned home. "He was dead but now he's alive, lost but now he's found."
Every year until he died I received a Christmas Card from Rev Eric Evans, a retired Welsh Presbyterian minister and ex-Moderator
of the Presbyterian Church in Wales, who attended the church I was nurtured in, that of Moreton Presbyterian in Merseyside,
England.
As a young person in that church, we always loved it when Eric preached. He
was a fiery preacher. He'd shout when he was excited. He'd bang his hands on
the Bible and wake up the little old ladies who had fallen asleep on the back rows.
He had a few phrases that always let you know when a good story was coming, usually something along the lines of, "I
remember a time when I was driving my car to Cardiff."
When I received a call to the ministry, Eric, who was then ministering at a neighboring church in the town of Hoylake,
was delighted. He occasionally used to write me encouraging letters at seminary. In one of them, after I'd preached at Hoylake, he wrote something along the lines
of…
"Adrian, if I had one word of advice for you it would be this. Preach often on
the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There are many things you can talk
about, all sorts of interesting subjects you can preach about, but only the message of the crucifixion and the resurrection
can bring a person from death to life and out of darkness into the light. Your calling is not to entertain people with fine words but to set them on fire with
the Holy Spirit."
One thing that can set our worship alive is to have that individual appreciation of what Jesus Christ has done for us. He died for us and was raised for us, and because of God's grace we are saved. By
God's grace we are born again. By God's grace we are glory bound.
I find it fascinating to observe some of those services on the television or attend conferences where people get really
excited about their salvation in Christ. Because, after all, remember I am British.
And we're bred not to be excited about anything except for soccer matches and cricket games. The ‘stiff upper lip’
and the ‘keep your feelings to yourself’ are a few things the British could beat the world at if only they'd make
it an Olympic Sport.
But, unless you have a bit of the Lord's fire in your life, it is nigh on impossible to really worship Him. What are you
going to sing about if all those hymns about salvation are outside you're experience. How can you be excited about prayer
if you've decided you are not the praying type? How can you draw near to God
if you have intellectually distanced yourself from the personal, Father God of Scripture who reveals Himself to us in Jesus
Christ?
There were many lamps burning in the upstairs room. Many hearts excited about their faith and coming to worship in expectancy.
What is burning your heart this day?
What are the burning concerns that you have brought to this time of worship?
What burns in us?
Could be fear. "What is the world coming to. How can I cope with this?"
Could be complacency. "I'm all right. I don't need a Savior."
Could be unbelief. "Don't care what any preacher says. I'm going to do my
own thing."
Could be desire. "I want this, I want that, and unless I get it I will never be satisfied."
What burns within us? What are our real desires? We have an idea what we
should be thinking about in worship. We know, maybe, why we should come to worship.
But what really burns in us? What do we really want? The answer we give will
determine how dynamic and momentous our worship is!
Eutychus, in our Bible reading, wasn't burning with much desire, except to go to sleep.
He couldn't stay awake. He fell out of the window. He was dead when they got downstairs.
I know people fall asleep sometimes in church. I can see people from the
pulpit. So, listen, if you’re feeling sleepy, get out of the pew and sit in the window ledge. Then think about what happened to Eutychus and I guarantee you won't find it so easy to snooze.
Ephesians 5:15 has these words, which maybe Paul spoke to Eutychus. "Awake sleeper, and rise from death, and Christ
will shine on you."
Eutychus woke up. Eutychus rose from death. Eutychus knew that Christ's light shone on him, and that night many lamps
were burning in the upstairs room.
Jesus said, "You are like light for the whole world. Your light must shine before people so that they will see the
good things you do and Praise your Father in heaven."
There is a way to be light in a dark world. God says so. The light is rekindled through worshipping Him. This is a
call of God. As the Westminster Catechism puts it, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever.”
There were many lamps burning in the upstairs room, because there had been many lamps burning throughout the past week. At times maybe they flickered. Some may
have gone out altogether. Some were still waiting to be lit. But when the people
of God come together with their minds set on worshipping Him, hearts are set on fire to serve the Lord.
Praise God He has granted us today another opportunity to rekindle our faith. May
our burning desire be to enter into communion with Jesus Christ, that His Spirit may renew our lives and that His Presence
be our guide throughout the days that lie ahead.
"There were many lamps burning in the upstairs room."
Rev. Adrian J. Pratt
