Devon Island, Canada, is the only known polar island with a large crater.  This makes it ideal for training astronauts who will explore Mars in the future.  It is as close as we get to Mars on Earth.  NASA has already used the surface of Devon Island to test the rovers it sends to Mars.  NASA is good at finding ways to simulate on Earth the conditions astronauts will encounter in space. Astronauts simulate space-walks in under-water exercises, and experience weightlessness in jet airplanes that make steep dives and create a zero gravity environment for a few seconds at a time. 

            Congregational worship is like that – only more so.  It is as close as we get to Heaven on Earth.  What we know of heaven from passages like Isaiah 6, or Revelation 5 is that the presence of God is a place of worship.  The host of heaven – the living beings, the 24 elders, and the angels sing God’s praise.  Revelation 5 tells us that all creation joins in the song together.  Whenever we praise God we join a song that is already being sung.  When we sing together we experience something of heaven’s eternal corporate worship.  This is no simulation, but a momentary connection with what is happening in heaven – which is where we are headed, but not where we are.

…Which is why we should hold these moments sacred.  To sing with “the spirit and the understanding” (I Corinthians 14.15), I believe, is to fully respect the worship moment - to invest all we are, mind and soul, into it.  The Corinthians were turning the worship service into a rowdy church pot-luck with an open bar (see I Corinthians 11).  They were not respecting the moment of praise, nor the moment of communion around God’s table.  And thus they received Paul’s rebuke and warning.  There was clearly a mean-spiritedness to their excesses (1 Cor 11.17-21; hence the need for chapter 13).  But are mean-spirited excesses the only excesses that disrespect the moment of worship?

            Aren’t inattention, distractedness, rowdiness, and nonchalance ways of bringing God an offering that is clearly spotted and blemished?  Worship that is stern and cold is far worse (for it brings no glory to God, and is devoid of joy), don’t get me wrong, but sometimes when we come together, the mayhem before and after (and sometimes during) makes me feel like all we need to make the moment complete is for someone to start bouncing a beach-ball from pew to pew.  I wouldn’t be concerned if such exuberance were the product of joy in the presence of Lord.  I suspect, though, it is the joy of kids on the playground at recess.  It is a good thing (a great thing) that we take joy in being together.  But it is not enough.  That kind of joy focuses us on us, not on God.  We come together to worship God - to bring Him our best, not just to enjoy each other’s company.  Abel brought his best, and Cain just brought something (Genesis 4.3-4).  Just showing up and having a good time isn’t bringing God our best.  It is better than not showing up at all, or showing up and being miserable. But we have the opportunity, when we come together, to experience Heaven on Earth, and to bring our best to God.  Why squander that precious moment for anything else – even something good?

            The crater on Devon Island might be a great place to go four-wheeling.  But how many other places are there on Earth to go four-wheeling?  There is only one place to experience Mars on Earth, and to use it for another purpose would be a great waste.  Let us not waste the brief moments we have of Heaven on Earth.  Let us focus, focus, focus on God who is present as we are gathered together in His name.