A call to a Sacred Assembly

Joel 2:15-17

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, and call a sacred assembly.  Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast.  Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar.  Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord.  Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations.  Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

A holy fast, and a call to a sacred assembly, I’m not sure the Church has any real understanding of a call to a sacred assembly.  Not being sure myself, I went to Exodus 12:16, and then to Leviticus 23:3, “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the LORD in all your dwelling places.”

As you explore the book of Leviticus or Numbers, one thing is consistent a sacred assembly was a day without work, a day of worship and prayer.  Now that’s very different from what most of the churches in America do.  Most have it all scheduled out; the time allotted for the music, the announcement, the message, and the taking of the offering.  I sometimes wonder if we leave time for the Holy Spirit to be part of much that takes place in our Churches?

Now God is very serious and precise: the elders are to gather the children, even the ones still nursing at the breast, in that time they may have been two or even three years old.  It is clear that this call is even to those like the bride and bridegroom; the nursing mothers were exempt from such gatherings.

And who has been told to lead this, the priest, in the expression of the nations lament and petition?  Many believe it was one of the northern armies coming down on them for invasion, not locust invasion.

But this is the question one must ask, in that it is clear God has not changed, why do we, in the mess we find our world in, not have someone calling us to a sacred assembly?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice