Psalm 84 was probably a pilgrimage song, sung by pilgrims on their way to the temple in Jerusalem It is a psalm of joyful anticipation, looking forward to celebrating God's presence in the temple on Mt. Zion. The details of worship are blurred, but the sense of exuberance over being in God's house, of being in God's presence, of delighting in praising God, saturates the psalm. "For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand elsewhere."... "How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts."

You might say that my Dad and the psalmist were "high" on worship, high on going to church" Frankly, I don't know too many people like that. I know' a lot of people who are "low" on worship, who only go to church out of a sense of duty or obligation rather than, joyful anticipation. I suspect that there are a lot of folks who instead of singing, "How lovely is they dwelling place, O Lord of' Hosts," would be more apt to sing, "How boring is thy dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts."

The trouble may be that too many people are operating with the wrong image of what worship is all about. It is time we reclaim the word "celebration" for worship. In worship we celebrate with joy the reality of God's presence in our lives and in our world. In worship we celebrate what God has done, is doing, and promises yet to do. In worship we celebrate the hope that is ours in Jesus Christ.

Worship as celebration knows the the "nevertheless" of God, of promises made and kept, especially the most important "nevertheless" of all, God's victory over death and sin and evil in the resurrection. In a sense every Sunday is a little Easter Sunday. The early Christians chose to worship on Sunday rather than Saturday, the Sabbath, as a way of remembering and celebrating the resurrection. It would be appropriate to sing "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" every Sunday.

You see the worship of God is a public victory celebration of what God is doing for us, right out where people can see and hear it. It is the acting out of what we most deeply believe to be true: that in Jesus Christ God entered our human life to save us from destroying ourselves, to show how life is meant to be lived, to break open new paths through the tangled underbrush of our human predicaments, to help us come alive. Unless God's gracious acts are celebrated regularly with excitement, and with the full participation of all who believe in them, we tend to focus on ourselves and either self-righteously congratulate ourselves on how nicely we are doing, or sink into the depths of despair if things are going badly.

As we celebrate with joy the reality of Gods presence in our lives and in our world, we remember again who we are. When I was in high school my dad had a phrase which he would often say to me when I took out the family car, went out on a date, or participated in some event away from home: "Remember who you are." He never said, "Don't do this" or "Don't do that." He never gave me any kind of instructions or admonitions. But simply and always he entrusted me with the words - "Remember who you are,"

That is precisely what happens in worship. We get our identity straight. We remember who we are and whose we are. Whether we are conscious of it or not, the most significant thing happening in worship in our churches, Sunday after Sunday, is the fact that by word, by song, by story, by prayer, by hymns, by thought, we are remembering who we are, and from whom redemption comes.

Extravagant claims bombard our senses daily. "You are what you eat," they say. "You are what you wear." "You are what you drive." "You are what you feel." All of these overstate to make a point. But it is a claim of an altogether different order to say that we are what we remember. The church is the only institution on the face of the earth that is charged with the responsibility to keep alive the story of God's saving deed for us in Jesus Christ.

The single most important thing this church or any church does in a given week is to gather for the public worship of God. In one sense it is the only important thing we do. For from our worship everything else flows. The church keeps reminding us of the eternal dimensions of our lives. Without that we would he in danger of living trivial, superficial lives. We have business with ultimate things, but were it not for celebrating God in worship we might soon forget it.

You may remember the legend of the lost Atlantis, a whole continent that slipped beneath the waves of the sea - farms, businesses, churches - and how on still nights sailors report hearing the sounds of it, hearing, for instance the sound of church bells from depths far below them. This is exactly what the worship of God does, it brings us face to face with whole continents of our lives that we have lost and almost forgotten. Above the noise of the world worship helps us encounter the reality of what God has done, is doing, and promises yet to do. That is worth celebrating with .joy. "How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts."

Joy, hope, those are the words. Faith isn't meant to be a burden, but a source of joy and hope. If you don't get any "kick'' out of your faith, it just isn't worth having. The world doesn't need any more dull and apathetic Christians. But what the world can use are Christians who are contagiously alive, have a lilt in their step, and joy in their heart. How else does the Good News make sense unless it is evident in people who enjoy God and embrace life.

Joy is the basic quality of life that comes to the person who lives in the knowledge of what God has done in Jesus Christ. Joy, as a style of life, is the result of the Good News of the Gospel. Joy is a gift from God to the person whose ultimate confidence rests in the grace of God who takes a cross and turns it into an empty tomb.

To take the Christian Faith seriously does not suggest that life is a stern, sober, solemn business - long on duty and short on joy. Quite the opposite. After all: "Humanity's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy God forever." Sunday is not only the first day of the week, it is the best day of the week.

I love to sing hymns. The majority of hymns are affirmations of faith. I dearly love descants to hymns when the soprano choir voices soar above the rest of ours and the church is filled with jubilance and brilliance that seems befitting a celebration. Music, more than mere words, gives expression to the joy of faith.

My mother died at the age of 90. My wife and I were in Ohio to visit mother just a month before she died. She didn't seem to know us. She didn't speak a word. Just looked at us if she were trying to remember who we were. One evening we took Mother in her wheel chair down to the lounge of the Nursing Home and I started playing hymns on the piano. Slowly a dozen or so residents gathered around us and we had an impromptu hymn-sing. After 30 minutes or so it was getting time to stop. We were singing the hymn which we sang earlier in the service this morning, "Rejoice, You Pure in Heart." All at once when we got to the refrain Mother started singing in her clear soprano voice: "Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice give thanks and sing." Those were the last words I heard my mother say.

The psalmist says it for us all: "My soul longs, yea, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts."