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Many of you
who can remember being taken to professional baseball games as
kids can recall the sense of awe at first glimpsing the green,
green field and the larger than life athletes, your heroes, in
white, white uniforms running out of the dugout and scattering
across the ball diamond. And can you recall the feeling of almost
being physically lifted up into the roar of the crowd as the real
thing happened - somebody hit a home run - and you watched the
ball sail through the air, over the fence, and into the stands?
Mental pictures like that and the feelings that go with them came
back to me as I listened by radio this week to the last game played
at Tiger Stadium and the closing ceremonies following the game.
Stretched out on my bed, eyes closed, hearing the familiar intonations of announcer Ernie Harwell against the unbroken curtain of sound generated by the 43,000 fans, brought my memories back to life. I could even almost smell the nostalgic odor of what seemed was the ever-present cigar smoker in the general vicinity of my seat, at almost any sports event I ever attended.
One sports writer who was present for that last game at Tiger Stadium used some words to describe the mood of the evening that startled me a bit. He said, "The place is certainly no church. But going there can be like a religious experience. We don't worship there so much as we affirm our faith."
Now I went from baseball to Ezekiel where I had recently read about the glory of God within His temple. At the risk of sacrilege here, maybe the glory and awe of human beings enraptured by temporal athletic tradition might provide an analogy, hopefully not a substitute, for appreciating the responsive energy generated by meeting up with the dynamics of entering God's holy presence. So it would seem from what Ezekiel and the psalmist quoted above have to say.
Thanks to our worship leaders and the faithful musicians we've been blessed with, we have been enjoying good worship times at Evangel. Our desire and prayer is that we can all see past the players on the field to the One who has drawn us together to become a worshiping assembly. May we be caught up in His glory to where the electricity of His presence moves and charges us to wholeheartedly honor him in return. For we as a Christ acknowledging church family are personally and corporately His dwelling place. So indeed, "May the glory of the LORD be praised in his dwelling place" and may we respond with feeling to the psalmist's call to cry "Glory!" in His presence. The more familiar we become with the God of the Bible, the more appropriate that seems.
-- Steve Wilson, Pastor