4. Learning in the School of Ezra through Physical Worship
- Learning in the school of Ezra through Physical Worship.
“When they saw Ezra open the Book, the people all stood up, immediately rising to their feet. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people chanted, ‘Amen! Amen!’ or ‘Truly! Truly!’ as they lifted their hands. Then they bowed their heads low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.” (Nehemiah 8:5-6).
Being Physical with Worship. The spiritual and the physical belong together, and are in fact inseparable. We were created as whole beings with a mysterious fusion of body and spirit and soul and body and everything else that constitutes our personhood. Not only that, the Incarnation reveals how important the body is to Creator God. In a sense, the idea, the reality, of God taking on a physical body was actually a spiritual act. It is entirely Biblical that believers learn how to incarnate our worship. For, worship of our Creator needs to include the body if we want to worship with our whole selves. Physical acts of worship become meaningless if it is done thoughtlessly, without its intention of worshipping God. Spiritual worship is not limited to the nonphysical or merely mental. As Rev. Josef Ratzinger once wrote in his excellent article, The Theology of Kneeling, “The bodily gesture itself is the bearer of the spiritual meaning, which is worship. Without the heart of worship, the bodily gesture would be meaningless, while the spiritual act itself must of its very nature express itself in the bodily gestures.” So physical gestures are invaluable in the act of worship. They can point to spiritual truths, they can stimulate worshipful acts, and they can enable a fuller expression of awe, lament, adoration and worship. Using the body helps us to put the Gospel message into motion. The movement of one’s body can be a sign that communicates a message… Do we want to signal to God that we submit to Him, that we want to confess to Him, that we adore Him, that we intend to follow Him in trust? There are gestures and postures and movements that can express what is on our heart without any use of words. Body language is vital to spiritual life and expression, including prostration before God; sitting at the feet of a respected teacher of the Word; standing in respect and oneness; kneeling in submission; walking in order to follow; running the good race; jumping for joy; lifting up the heart and hands; offering the kiss of peace; and the act of crossing oneself with the sign of the Cross. Physical postures and actions during worship reflect the attitudes of the heart, but they can also help produce those attitudes of the heart. Physical gestures can point to spiritual truth as well as stimulate spiritual truth by exercising the muscle memory of a spiritual muscle. The posture and use of one’s body in prayer and worship can be a sign that communicates a message. There are physical gestures that can communicate profound attitudes of the heart that don’t need words. Down through Judeo-Christian history, body language is vital to spiritual life and expression. The body can speak clearly to God without words.
Rooted in Jewish prayer and worship, Christian prayer is a physical experience. Jews were not afraid to involve their bodies as they prayed to Yahweh. Prayer was not just an intellectual or spiritual experience. Prayer and worship involved the whole of one’s self. Prayer was physical because gestures helped the person praying to focus on what they were doing, and they were symbolic, communicating something about the heart of the person in prayer. Jews in prayer were known to stand, lift up hands, kneel, bow down, lie prostrate, march, or even dance.
I Stand Amazed | Celtic Worship ft. Steph Macleod – YouTube
“When they saw Ezra open the Book, the people all stood up, immediately rising to their feet.” Standing in place has been the traditional position of prayer and worship in the Judeo-Christian faith since ancient times. Jesus could assume in Mark 11:25 that one would be standing when in prayer, because that was just the way it was done… “When you stand praying…” Virtually all the ancient Jewish prayers required that a person stand. There were many reasons to stand… Gratitude for God’s goodness; proclamation of God’s Word; the awe of His power; the reverence for God’s Name; the honor due God’s presence; the recognition of His holiness; the respectful attention that was needed to be alert and focused. All of these heartfelt attitudes invited the believer to stand, and that body position was traditional in the Christian church until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century AD, when the focus in the protesting churches went from standing to worship to sitting to listen.
The Christian churches in the Orthodox tradition have continued to embrace standing throughout prayer and worship and the proclamation of the Scripture. Standing was favored in the early Church when in prayer or worship, and they have maintained that tradition. According to the Orthodox priest Patrick Reardon, standing was symbolic of “dignity, attentiveness, readiness, obedience and vigilance.” In the Temple everyone stood and worshiped, whether a priest or a common worshiper. To this day, one would have a difficult time finding a chair in an Easter Orthodox church when in prayer and during the worship service. Everyone remains standing. Comfortably sitting while worshiping would be unthinkable, considered a sign of disrespect, except for nursing mothers, pregnant mothers, the sick or the elderly.
Stand In Your Love – Josh Baldwin | Heaven Come 2018 – YouTube
Believe it or not, there are also practical reasons for standing while hearing the Word proclaimed, while praying and listening to prayers, while worshipping with the angels and witnesses in heaven. Who would have thought, whether decades ago or centuries past, that those who stand while in church are actually able to think deeper, listen more attentively, and remember more accurately than those who are sitting? The latest brain research has revealed facts about standing that God, of course, being the Designer of the human body, knew all along. In contrast to sitting:
(1.) Standing promotes better circulation, and thus the brain becomes more engaged;
(2.) Standing significantly improves the brain’s executive function and memory capabilities. Standing actually fights the deterioration of the part of the brain that houses memory;
(3.) Standing improves the overall speed of mental processing;
(4.) Standing strengthens the ability to focus, to pay attention.
(5.) Educational researchers have discovered that standing boosts learning and mental productivity. Those who stand can process information more quickly and are invariably more alert.
Down on my knees – By Freddie Spires – YouTube
“Then Ezra blessed the Lord Yahweh, the Great God…” So there was Ezra, in full view of thousands of Israelites, high on a huge wooden platform, being an example for everyone as he kneels in worship after opening the Torah, praising the Lord and blessing His name. The Hebrew word for bless is “barak,” which is literally translated as to kneel down, to bless and adore God on bended knees. One kneels when taking the lower place in the presence of a higher authority. Before the King of kings, we can add awe, reverence and worship. We kneel low to raise God high, to honor His glory and holiness. When we kneel, we are physically demonstrating that we desire to yield to the King of the universe. Bending the knee is no light matter, even though it is relatively easy to do, depending on one’s physical status. Kneeling is a vivid picture of honoring your Superior and submitting to your Sovereign. Kneeling is a symbol of humility, because if one is serious when doing it, it requires a swallowing of one’s pride. Hebrew tradition has long considered one’s knees to be a symbol of strength, so bending the knee to honor Someone means one has accepted one’s weakness, acknowledged one’s insufficiency. Bending the knee is submitting in faith to an almighty God who is all-sufficient and worthy of worship:
William McDowell – Falling on My Knees (OFFICIAL VIDEO) – YouTube
- “Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.” ( 95:6);
- “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth derives its name.” ( 3:14);
- “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other… Before me every knee will bow.” ( 45:22-23);
- “As surely as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.” ( 14:11);
- “Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the Name that is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”( 2:9-11).
“… And all the people chanted ‘Amen! Amen!’ ‘Truly! Truly!’ as they lifted their hands…” As Ezra was praising God and blessing Him, everyone present, tens of thousands of Israelites, lifted their hands. A common prayer gesture in ancient Israel was the lifting up of hands. The Hebrew Bible is full of references to the raising of hands in worship. An interesting picture of the importance of this gesture is in Exodus 17, when Moses was on the hill, overlooking the fierce battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites soon after starting their journey in the wilderness. As long as Moses could be seen by the troops with his arms and hands raised, they would take the advantage. If Moses’ arms started to lower in fatigue, the Israelites would begin to lose heart. Many believe that Moses was raising his arms in prayer and worship. As long as he was interceding for the Israelites and praising Yahweh, God was enabling the Hebrews to be victorious. Moses here is a clear picture of a prayer warrior, a leader engaging in intercessory prayer and adoration. This tradition of lifted hands during worship has carried right through to many contemporary churches. To raise one’s hands in prayer implies celebration, adoration, submission, and confessing an ardent praise of God on high. We are implored throughout Scripture to lift up holy hands, raise our hands to God Most High, stretch out our hands heavenward, extend the palms upward in adoration and worship. We lift our hands to celebrate, to praise and adore, to acknowledge His lordship, to intercede for loved ones, to entreat the Lord in humility, and even to confess our sins to God. A survey of some of the Scriptures reveal that lifting up our hands is an important gesture and speaks volumes.
- “In your Name I will lift up my hands.” ( 63:4);
- “May the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.” ( 141:2);
- “Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord.” ( 134:2)’
- “Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift my hands toward your Most Holy Place.” ( 28:2);
- “I spread my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.” ( 143:6);
- “Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children.” ( 2:19);
- “In every place of worship, I want you to pray with holy hands lifted up to God…” (1 Tim. 2:8);
- “Let us lift up our hearts and our hands to God in heaven, and say, ‘We have sinned and rebelled...” ( 3:41).
“Then they bowed their heads low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.” The Hebrew term most frequently used in the Hebrew Bible for “worship” is used here, “shachah.’ It means to bow the head or upper torso down low, usually followed by the rest of the body following along in the spirit of humility; to adore as an act of submission; to stoop down very low; to prostrate oneself; to fall down flat on the ground; to do reverence; to pay homage to a superior being, like the King; to make what is known as a “profound bow.” To worship is thus a heart that is willing to submit to God in adoration and humility. To worship is to do reverence to the Lord, to make oneself lower in order to raise the Lord higher in honor. It is significant that the entire multitude of Israelites fell with their faces to the ground in full prostration. It is a physical sign similar to when a defeated soldier is brought to a conquering king, and the captured foe lays his body out, face down, fully on the ground. That physical act acknowledges the fact that he is in subjection to the king, that he submits to his power and authority. To lie prostrate in worship is to acknowledge much the same thing, that the worshiper is humbly in full submission to God the King. To lie prostrate in prayerful worship is done out of reverence and a healthy fear of God’s might and authority over us. Prostration is a rather radical, visual way to signal one’s submission and respect to God. It would be interesting to try this posture in private prayer, no less in community worship.
Christ is Lower Still (featuring DOE and Matt Maher) – YouTube
At the end of this initial day of reading, the people responded with tears of grief at how far they had fallen from their heritage of faith and their knowledge of Yahweh their God. But the wisdom of the elders was on full display again as they told the mourning people to be still, to quiet down their mourning, and instead celebrate their renewed faith and knowledge, as well as God’s faithfulness to them through all of Israel’s ups and downs. So the people went their way rejoicing, ready to have a feast of celebration in their homes. The elders reminded them that they were to make sure to provide for any in their midst who were too poor to have a feast. The people went home rejoicing because “they understood the words that were declared to them.” (8:12).