Nehemiah chapter 8 tells us of an occasion that brought out all the people to gather, as the account says, “as one man” in the square of Jerusalem before the Water Gate. The people were there in order to study what is called the Book of the Law.

As Ezra the priest stood on a high platform and opened the book, all the people stood. Ezra then blessed “the Lord, the great God”, ‘and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands.

And they bowed their heads and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.’

Thinking of such a scene today, we might find it very eastern, indeed reminding us of the images of Muslim worship that are conveyed to us by the television and the newspapers. We may reflect therefore that what we see today as a Muslim form of worship has a root that is older than Islam and its prophet. Christians  as well as others have worshipped like that for centuries as well.

Locally, we do not regularly bow ourselves down with faces to the ground, and it might only be a show if we did, because that sort of expressiveness is no longer part of our culture, as perhaps it once was for our own far ancestors, and still is for others in the world.

I think it should at least remind us of something that we have largely lost, a deep full-blooded response to great things, a wholehearted worship that leads us to come out of ourselves and wholly concentrate on that wonderful and great reality which is being opened to us, the revelation of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord.

If the Jews of Nehemiah’s day could respond with such veneration to the presence of the Book of the Law of Moses, and could study it with such passion and steadfastness, what, we must ask, might our appropriate response be when the Word of the Lord is declared and expounded and the Body and the Blood of Christ Himself is presented and ministered to us?

We too might prostrate ourselves to the ground, and be inclined to weep and mourn as these Jews did and be utterly humbled in His Presence. Yet that would not be enough. It is not just what we do when we are together in church that is a sufficient response: we are called to take that responsiveness to God out of the gathering of the church and into our families and workplaces.

These places are where our worship, our response to God, can make an impact upon the lives of people in the world.

This is always our primary mission as worshipping Christians. And this too is reflected in the account of this remarkable occasion of worship in Nehemiah chapter 8. In verse 12 it is said, “And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.”

“Sending portions” to those for whom nothing was prepared was a direct response of obedience to what they had heard in the Book of the Law. They took their worship and rejoicing outside the place of gathering.

Luke chapter 4 verses 16 to 30 is an account of Jesus’ early ministry, in which He visited Nazareth, the place of His own upbringing, and exercised His ministry as a teacher in the synagogue there.

We read that He was given the book or scroll of the prophet Isaiah, and He read from Isaiah chapter 61 verse 1 and part of verse 2.  Then He goes on to declare the prophetic words as being fulfilled in His own presence. And their response became violently antagonistic.

What’s the lesson for us? Perhaps one lesson is that on occasion what we are supposed to be saying and promoting as worshippers of Christ in the world, as I have just advocated for us, will seem to people to be too off the wall and difficult to take in. Making an impact in the world as worshippers of God through Jesus Christ is not by any means going to be a picnic.

If we meet with rebuff that doesn’t necessarily mean we got it wrong. It may mean we have to go at the same thing again at different angles, as I think our Lord did in His parables. But if we abandon the truth for immediate appreciation, for the easy approval, that is when we get things really wrong.

1 Corinthians chapter 12 tells of the diversity of gifts and ministries in the Body of Christ, working out God’s purpose in a complementary fashion, and from this we should take heart.

In the church we have a ready-made resource for the presentation of the great riches of God in Jesus Christ from different angles. No single Christian can think of all the necessary parables, so God has so arranged things that the life of each one may be like a separate parable, expounding to his fellow-inhabitants of the world, from a particular angle that differs from any other Christian’s angle, the wonderful and great reality of the “New Law” of Christ.

There is a catch, of course. That is that for an efficient working out of the loving purpose of God for our fellows outside the Church, all churchmen, every one, should be involved.

If you or I don’t set about doing our part in conveying the Gospel to our fellows from the angle or angles that we are gifted with, it might take a long time to find someone else that will.

For commentary, information and devotional material see http://www.churchofengland/ cayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org