Come let us adore

For reflection before reading the article

As you begin to read this article you might like to pause for a moment and ask yourself the question: What is adoration?

Now try and find a hymn that is nothing but adoration? Not a hymn of thanksgiving or of praise but a hymn of adoration.

How easy did you find that exercise?

Wrestling with Adoration

Having been involved in the leading of worship and preaching for nearly 40 years I’ve particularly wrestled with that one aspect – the paucity of material that focuses solely on adoration. Many prayers and hymns that purport to be adoration soon spill over into praise, thanksgiving, confession or intercession. So when I had a sabbatical three years ago I set myself the task of writing “a month of prayers of adoration”. Mistakenly I thought this an easy task!

It was with some surprise that I found it much harder than I expected and this led me to reflect upon why adoration and focusing on adoration alone is so difficult? Is it the inadequacy of my ability to use words? Is it the inadequacy of words themselves? Is it the inadequacy of my imagination? All are surely part of the answer, but not the whole answer. There is something more.

Adoration so easily spills into other things. To what extent is this inevitable?

To contemplate God for who God is inevitably leads to a realisation of what God does. This should not surprise us since in the encounter between God and Moses when Moses asks for the name of God, i.e. that which expresses the nature and character of God, the answer given is “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3). The ‘name’, the nature and being of God is revealed in what God does, and what God does leads to thanksgiving for what God has done and to intercession for what God is doing or can do.

The contemplation of who God is also creates an awareness of who we are. As we see ourselves in the light of who God is we are naturally led into either confession or running away from such exposure. It would therefore seem that a natural consequence of focusing our attention upon the nature and being of God is to be led into some form of response.

Adoration as the springboard for all praying

If our thanksgiving, confession and intercession are to be truly God inspired then the contemplation of who God is must be a vital prerequisite. If this is true then the contemplation of God must be the only true source of all our praying and acts of worship. So we return to the importance of adoration and the scarcity of prayers and hymns whose focus is solely upon the nature and being of God.

In Isaiah 6 we gain a momentary glimpse into the worship of heaven. Isaiah has a vision of the heavenly worship:

'In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory."
The pivots on the thresholds shook
at the voices of those who called,
and the house filled with smoke.'
(Isa. 6:1-4)

It is significant to note that the response of Isaiah to this experience of adoration is the acute awareness of his own sinfulness and the sinfulness of the people. A glimpse of God reigning in glory and the worship of the heavenly beings induces confession in Isaiah, confession both for personal sin and for corporate sin: “I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips” (v.5).

The other place in scripture where we gain an insight into the worship of heaven is the book of Revelation. Chapter 4 gives John’s description of the scene. The worship is expressed in the words of the four heavenly creatures:

“Holy, holy, holy,
the Lord God the Almighty,
who was and is and is to come” (4:8)

The response is for the twenty-four elders (the representatives of the people of God in the old and the new covenant) to

“fall before the one who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, they cast their crowns before the throne, singing,

‘You are worthy, our Lord and God, to
receive glory and honour and power,
for you created all things, and by your
will they existed and were created.’”
(4:10)

What God has done and continues to do is here tied up with the adoration of God. This is picked up more explicitly in Chapter 5 where the worship is linked to the worthiness of ‘the Lamb’ who bears the marks of sacrifice who alone is worthy to undo the sealed scroll.

The ancient prayer, the Trisagion, possibly dating back to the 5th century and still used in the liturgies of the Church, demonstrates the way in which adoration naturally leads into other forms of praying. In its simplest form the Trisagion is

Holy God,
Holy and mighty,
Holy and immortal

all focus on the nature of God, and so the worshipper uttering these words of adoration is focusing upon the nature and being of God. However, it is fascinating to note that this simple act of adoration concludes with a petition that stems from repentance:

Holy God,
Holy and mighty,
Holy and immortal
have mercy on us.

Meaningless repetition or a way into Adoration?

Today in acts of worship we may use short chants, songs and choruses of adoration drawn from different traditions within the Christian Church. Some of the Gregorian, Iona and Taizé chants focus on adoration, often setting short scriptural texts, such as those already quoted from Isaiah and Revelation, to simple settings.

Gloria, Gloria, Gloria, in excelsis Deo
(a traditional acclamation of adoration)

Deus de Deo, Lumen de Lumine.

A number of twentieth century choruses do the same.

Adoramus te, Domine.
(Taizé We adore you, O Lord)

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And all that is within me
Bless His holy name.

The repetition of these short acclamations of adoration, while disparaged by some, provide one of the few opportunities for unadulterated adoration within worship. Many of our ‘hymns of adoration’ are strictly speaking hymns of praise and thanksgiving for what God has done focusing upon God’s creative and saving actions and this is to be expected if we take seriously God’s self-disclosure to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM”.

It is interesting to reflect how the singing of such ‘simple’ phrases of adoration can be quite divisive within the Church community as a whole. For some the constant repetition of the simple phrase, whether in Latin, French or their native tongue, is an expression of the inexpressible and there is a real sense in which they become caught up in a profound experience of worship – or in the words of the hymn ‘lost in wonder, love and praise’. For others it is vain repetition and pointless. While for others to sing the words as a kind of mantra in Latin or French is acceptable, whereas to sing them in English is regarded as banal, and vice versa.

The use of a simple chant as a refrain and focus of adoration within a spoken prayer, or a combination of spoken words and images, provides a helpful way of owning and sharing in that which has been offered on their behalf by the leader of worship. For others the experience of singing in tongues is a liberating way to give expression to a deep sense of adoration and a means of focusing on the otherness of God. And for yet others a profound silence and stillness of mind and body is to be ‘lost in wonder’.

Intimacy and Relationship

As I shared my sabbatical reflections with a friend they suggested that the nearest thing we have to adoration from non-religious sources is love poetry and love songs. These tend to be deeply personal and intimate. Particularly love songs, when read ‘cold’ outside the intimacy of either desire or relationship, can seem banal and even ridiculous. However, add the chemistry of desire and/or intimacy and they are powerfully evocative. For me this raises some searching questions. Does this perhaps throw some light on why adoration within worship can prove problematic? Is the intimacy of relationship always there? Is the desire for relationship present? In corporate worship do/can all worshippers have the same or sufficiently similar feelings towards God that a corporate prayer or hymn of adoration is able to bring them together in an act of adoration?

Conclusions

So what are my conclusions? Firstly to stress the importance of adoration both within personal and corporate worship life. Secondly to recognise that adoration is the natural springboard for all other facets of prayer and worship. Thirdly to try to provide within the acts of worship I am responsible for leading, greater time and space for adoration, and because of the inadequacy of language and imagery, to build into a time of adoration silence in which we can be lost in a sense of awe and wonder. Finally to give myself more to cultivating a spirit of adoration.

At the beginning of this article I suggested a couple of things for you to do, so at the end I invite you to prepare an opening act of worship lasting seven to ten minutes in which the dominant note is adoration.

I offer you some prayers of my own that did emerge from my sabbatical and a prayer from this year’s Diaconal Daily Prayer:

Beyond time, before time
Yet writ deep in the genes of life itself
Beyond history, in history
Your story surfaces teasing our imaginations
Drawing our creativity
Arousing our curiosity
Evoking our sense of mystery
Calling forth our worship and adoration.
Uncontained by our structures and our words.
Yet compelled to give expression to that sense of otherness
We build our structures and our buildings
We write our liturgies and hymns
We compose our music and our poetry
We form our sculptures and create our art
In the vain attempt to do justice to your grandeur
Yet in your grace you accept our offering
And even speak through it to us.

© Peter Barber From the Diaconal Daily Prayer for 2010/11

Eternal God,
you are the source of all life,
the fount of all wisdom, the wellspring of all grace.
Your days are without end,
your loving mercies without number.
I depend on you and remember your goodness to me,
and to those who have gone before.
Your story has been told in every generation:
the Lord Jesus Christ lived among us,
full of grace and truth,
revealing your tender mercy,
he healed the sick, comforted the broken and lost.
In humility he washed the feet of his disciples,
called us to follow his examples as one who serves.
You are my God,
ahead of me, leading me,
guiding me and calling me;
you are the Lord God,
the all-wise, the all-compassionate.
And I lift my heart in worship
today and for ever.
Amen.

© Methodist Diaconal Order

God of the heavens and earth,
God of the sea and the sky,
Your glory is beyond our imagining
Yet we glimpse something of it
in the heavens and the earth,
in the sea and the sky.
As constant as the rhythm of day and night,
As invariable as the tide’s ebb and flow;
A love that is more immense than the sky
and utterly dependable whether the skies are clear
or the storm clouds threaten.
Undeterred by surface storms
Your compassion runs deep
Dependable, inexhaustible,
Seeking to draw all into your infinite love.

© Peter Barber

As the light slowly dispels the darkness of night
And the new day begins to emerge
You are there
You were always there
Even when we could not see because all was dark.
You were there. You are there.
Waiting, longing to be made visible
To be experienced
To break out of the darkness in which we stumble and grope.
In this place, in each and every place, you are.
Throughout time. Before time. In time.
You are.
For you are creator and sustainer
You are ever-present.
For ever leaving fingerprints and footprints
Hints of your presence
Glimpses of your glory
Traces of your splendour.
Dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds
That we may worship you
That we may notice your prints
That we may glimpse your glory
And sense the trails of your splendour
And be lost in wonder love and praise.

© Peter Barber

Revd Peter Barber is the Chair of District for Chester & Stoke-on-Trent