Jesus was tremendously excited to be going to worship that Sunday morning. He had really been looking forward to it. He couldn’t wait to see the people and worship with them.
He arrived in time to go to Bible Class before worship that morning. He walked in the front door and a greeter shook His hand, but then it seemed the other folks were a little too busy to notice Him or stop to speak to Him. He made His way into the auditorium and took a seat, wondering if anyone would come over and meet Him, but that didn’t happen. He really enjoyed the Bible study with the few people who showed up, and He appreciated the effort that the teacher had put in to preparing a Bible-focused lesson for everyone, but He was disappointed more folks were not there for it.
Jesus sat quietly and alone after class was over, as more people arrived and started to fill in the seats around Him. He wondered where they had been during Bible Class. A couple folks said “hello” but kept moving to their spots. Most everyone seemed happy to see each other and they were talking to each other about all sorts of things. In fact, they were so busy talking that many of them kept right on with their conversations for a few minutes after the man at the front was trying to get worship started. Jesus couldn’t really hear what the man was saying because of the other folks around Him, but they eventually (mostly) settled down after a while.
Worship started and Jesus was in His element! He had been anticipating this for days! He heard babies crying and loved it! He saw children sitting with their parents and learning the joy of worshiping God, and He was overcome with emotion! He saw people of all ages and ethnicities joining together in song, and He wanted to shout for joy!
But then He started to get distracted from His worship. One person came in late and started looking for a seat. Then another person. And another. And another. He wondered if these people were always late to worshiping God and why it wasn’t a priority to them to be there on time. He supposed they were on time for other appointments.
Jesus heard a lot of commotion coming from the lobby area, and so He turned around and saw many folks just sitting out there on the benches (instead of in the auditorium worshiping) and many standing around talking. He even noticed parents had taken their children out of the worship to play in the lobby. His heart was saddened and now distracted.
He turned His attention back to the folks who were in the auditorium, and now many of them seemed preoccupied with looking down at their mobile devices. He was encouraged that a couple of them were faithfully using it as their Bible, but several folks were playing games, surfing the web, scrolling social media, reading Facebook, etc. They seemed more intent on that than on worshiping. He noticed others during the sermon were sitting idly by without a Bible or anything in front of them, and just seemed like they were waiting for it to pass.
After worship, Jesus had so many things running through His head. He didn’t even realize until after He had already left that only one person said anything to Him on His way out. He wasn’t sure if those folks were truly glad to see Him or not, and He wondered what motivated some of them to be there at all. He had a lot to think about.
The Bible says that Jesus is there in the assembly every week, where He is singing praise (Heb. 2:12) and observing the communion (Matt. 26:29) (and, no doubt, engaging in every other avenue of worship), “there in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). To speak of Jesus coming to worship with the church one Sunday is not a hypothetical illustration, for His presence is a promised reality in every assembly.
The question is, what does Jesus see in you when the church assembles? Are you there? Are you on time? Are in you in the assembly or just “in the building somewhere”? Are you eagerly engaged in the worship, or are you distracted and distracting? What message does your assembly behavior send to the visitors? To the members? To Jesus? Think about it.