Ecstasy Deficit

In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore. – Psalm 16:11 (NRSV) 

Last year, at a small college in Wilmore, Kentucky, some students stayed after the compulsory midweek worship, in order to … keep worshipping. The impetus, it was reported, was one student who made a personal testimony. 

Whatever sparked the gathering, it found plenty of kindling. Word got out. Other students came back, and stayed. Worship lasted all night and into the next day, hundreds of students singing, praying, weeping in the presence of God. Someone put it on social media, and the 2023 Asbury Revival was born. By the time it ended two weeks later, 15,000 visitors had come each day for a total of 60,000 unique visitors.  

The revival had plenty of cheerleaders and just as many critics. Some were overjoyed that Gen Z had found God. Others slammed it: what really would have demonstrated faith in Jesus was 60,000 young people doing their part to end homelessness! Still others said: let them have this moment of being filled with the Holy Spirit, and let’s be patient to see how it might redirect their lives after they go home.  

The worst of the armchair pundits suggested that this was false religion simply because they were feeling acute joy in God’s presence. Emotion can’t be trusted! It’s not church unless it’s boring, sitting grim-lipped in the eighth pew trying to think our way to God!  

A friend of mine suggested that the mainline church suffers from an “ecstasy deficit.” “Or maybe it’s an ecstasy phobia?” she wondered. We don’t trust ecstasy. Or we’re embarrassed by it—the way it leaves us vulnerable, how silly it might make us look to others, or what it might promise and later retract. Better to stay sober and thoughtful, in control of all our faculties.  

Except that the way Jesus arrived—the splendid Christmas moment we are waiting for with unbearable childlike longing—is all about high feeling. Singing at the top of our lungs. Falling down in adoration like the shepherds and wise ones. Belief, for a golden moment, crowding out our doubts.  

Prayer
O O O God, let a sacred ecstasy find me and take me over, if only for a moment. And then, let it change me forever.

About the Author
Rev. Molly Baskette is the lead pastor of First Church Berkeley UCC and the author of books about church renewal, parenting, spiritual growth and more. Sign up for her author newsletter or get information about her newest book at mollybaskette.com.