Yesterday’s call to worship came from Hebrews 12:
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:18-24 ESV)
You could, if you were not a Protestant or were flirting with trying to find the old Roman mojo, try to capture this gathering by doing what television does, that is, you could actually try to depict it in statues, paintings, priestly garments, high end liturgy. That is, you could try to show this visibly. And you would give a lot of work to artists. Let’s hope you paid them well.
But if you took the radio approach and let your imagination do the work without the aid of images, you might simply read the passages and not try to prescribe for the gathered who still live on planet earth how this assembly of the living and dead, of angels and God himself should picture such a meeting. It would be like listening to Phil Hendrie or Jean Shepherd (no relation to Norm) and letting your imagination supply the images.
Of course, radio isn’t as refined as high art. But if high liturgy winds up doing to the imagination what television’s images do, how great is that if you are merely a plumber?
Old Life 