I am convinced that words cannot capture the beauty of the experience of worship, but I just want to try. Fortunately, he doesn’t much care how eloquent I am, only that he is the one who holds my heart.
It is this pleasant sort of tightness you feel in your chest. You begin to understand how small you are and how big he is. You start to see how all your glory and all your grand accomplishments are worthless compared to his eminence. Then you feel this terrible pain. As the song repeats over and over the things he suffered at your hand when he was so great and you were so little, and as the understanding of what that really means begins to dawn in your heart you experience this heavy and penetrating sadness. It is like nothing you have ever felt before. Your body can no longer contain the anguish and you begin to cry. The first teardrops drip down your face unnoticed as you are completely enraptured by the deep mourning. The pressure builds until it explodes into this breathtaking feeling of utter brokenness. You start to weep as if the pounding of the nails through his hands had just rung through the air, as if his blood had just dripped to the ground at your feet. It was your fault, the song seems to accuse. You killed the Lord of life.
But then, just as the pain of all the guilt you carry becomes unbearable, something wonderful dawns in your heart. It is like he is there next to you, picking it up and bearing it for you. All of a sudden the entire world changes. The song then repeats this infinitely sweet exultation of his resurrection, of his victory, of his miraculous rescue, and it’s like all of the hopes you never dared to hope have come true.
Your entire body is overtaken by the most exquisite feeling of joy. It is like he sweeps you up into his arms and twirls you around after you have been separated for so long. In that moment you feel, I mean really feel, the most intimate moment you have ever experienced. You know that you are completely known and completely loved. You are valued and cherished far beyond any other possible thing. Then as you crest over the wave of that joy, it is followed by this cool, sweet peace. You are wholly at rest. You are wholly safe. You are precisely and exactly where you belong. The warm glow of his passion still burns steady in your heart. And everything, everything is all right.
