A great multitude
Photo by Jahoo Clouseau: https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-grass-388415/
This summer it seems like all the big bands and singers are out on tour. Taylor Swift and Coldplay are competing for the most financially successful tour of all time, as they both travel the world entertaining millions of fans.
Meanwhile, in London’s Hyde Park the annual BST concert series featured ‘legends’ such as Robbie Williams, Shania Twain, Kylie and Stevie Nicks (from Fleetwood Mac).
Over in America, OAP rocker’s Def Leppard are also on tour, still filling stadiums with their crowd-pleasing anthems!
I love watching these different performers on YouTube, and the highlight is when the audience join together singing the big hits.
It’s very moving to watch and hear a large crowd come together in this way. Collective singing has the power to unify people. I have thought that these occasions are a form of worship.
In the last book of the Bible, Revelation, the author, John, had a vision of heaven and at the centre is a celestial throne…
“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’”
John saw something incredible! A vast, international crowd, impossible to count, united in what they wore, all focused on a throne and a Lamb (who is Jesus). The Bible does not state that they sang, but they raised their voices in a loud proclamation! This is worship on a grand scale.
It’s passages in the Bible like this, that have inspired composers and songwriters, for hundreds of years, to write beautiful music that seeks to honour God.
I have led sung worship in churches for over 30 years. I have witnessed the power of music and song uniting people, and it’s very powerful to be in it. There have been occasions when it feels like a door to heaven has been opened and we seem to join the ‘great multitude’ of worshippers!
There is something about people connecting together, through songs, that just seems to resonate with us. I have come to the conclusion that God designed us this way, it’s in our DNA.
Finally, I believe that God does actually not need this kind of ‘worship’, as He is fully self-sufficient and complete. However, a by-product is that it does something in us when we connect in this way.
In other words, as we come before God together in worship (putting Him first and foremost), it does us good, and we benefit too!
God bless you :)
Gary Bastin - Hope Community Church leader