'With twain he did fly.' That is the emblem of joyous, buoyant,
unhindered motion. It is strongly, sadly contrary to the toilsome
limitations of us heavy creatures who have no wings, but can at best
run on His service, and often find it hard to 'walk with patience in
the way that is set before us.' But--service with wings, or service
with lame feet, it matters not. Whosoever, beholding God, has found
need to hide his face from that Light even whilst he comes into the
Light, and to veil his feet from the all-seeing Eye, will also feel
impulses to go forth in His service. For the perfection of worship is
neither the consciousness of my own insufficiency, nor the humble
recognition of His glory, nor the great voice of praise that thrilled
from those immortal lips, but it is the doing of His will in daily
life. Some people say the service of man is the service of God. Yes,
when it is service of man, done for God's sake, it is so, and only
then. The old motto, 'Work is worship,' may preach a great truth or a
most dangerous error. But there is no possibility of error or danger in
maintaining this: that the climax and crown of all worship, whether for
us footsore servants upon earth, or for these winged attendants on the
throne of the King in the heavens, is activity in obedience. And that
is what is set before us here.
Now, dear brethren, we, as Christians, have a far higher motive for
service than the seraphs had. We have been redeemed, and the spirit of
the old Psalm should animate all our obedience: 'O Lord, truly I am Thy
servant.' Why? The next clause tells us: 'Thou hast loosed my bonds.'
The seraphs could not say that, and therefore our obedience, our
activity in doing the will of the Father in heaven, should be more
buoyant, more joyful, more swift, more unrestricted than even theirs.
The seraphim were winged for service even while they stood above the
throne and pealed forth their thunderous praise which shook the Temple.
May we not discern in that a hint of the blessed blending of two modes
of worship which will be perfectly united in heaven, and which we
should aim at harmonising even on earth? 'His servants serve Him and
see His face.' There is possible, even on earth, some foretaste of the
perfection of that heavenly state in which no worship in service shall
interfere with the worship in contemplation. Mary, sitting at Christ's
feet, and Martha, busy in providing for His comfort, may be, to a large
extent, united in us even here, and will be perfectly so hereafter,
when the practical and the contemplative, the worship of noble
aspiration, of heart-filling gazing, and that of active service shall
be indissolubly blended.
The seraphs sang 'Holy! Holy! Holy!' but they, and all the hosts of
heaven, learn a new song from the experience of earth, and redeemed men
are the chorus-leaders of the perfected and eternal worship of the
heavens. For we read that it is the four-and-twenty elders who begin
the song and sing to the Lamb that redeemed them by His blood, and that
the living creatures and all the hosts of the angels to that song can
but say 'Amen!'