As we move farther forward into this new year, and new decade, perhaps it iswise to reflect on the secularized "cultural drift" in which, as Christians, we find ourselves drawn. One troubling symptom is the increasing diminishment and dilution of a true sense of "awe" toward the sovereign God of all creation whom we serve.  The very word "awe" itself seems to be old-fashioned, or out-of-fashion, in a PC world. One definition of  "awe" is that of an OVERWHELMING  feeling of profound reverence, admiration, wonder, astonishment, encompassing respect and affection mingled with fear and veneration, inspired by indescribable majesty, authority and power.   

   Two stark expressions of this "drift" come to mind.  In our daily lives we are awash in the amalgamation of the sacred and the profane; no more evident than in the constant, cavalier and obscene violation of God's command that His name not be used in vain and His admonition that if we do so, He will hold us accountable. This is not up for negotiation or compromise. This willful choice to treat the Third Commandment as though it were merely the 79th whining and muttering dictum of the day from a senile old man, seems a denial of reality - a form of spiritual illness, if not mental illness. Each and every time His name is used as a profanity is to show abject contempt for the Lord's majesty, for His power, for His holiness and sacredness.  It is, in fact, the absolute antipathy of a sense of "AWE."  I remember as a boy when my father returned from World War II,  I never recall him using profanity or the Lord's name in vain but his language had otherwise become quite salty from his time with the army in the jungles of New Guinea.  He felt this was not something to just let slide as a bad example to his children so he would give my brother and me a penny for every "cuss word" we caught him saying. My brother, Judd, recalls that "we got pretty good at it" (a penny was worth more then).   However it was not the coins that were important but rather storing away the lesson that as Christians we cannot excuse wrong behavior by appealing to the idea that it is a "habit" we cannot break,  but rather, that we have choices to make for which we are accountable. How dare we, who identify ourselves as Christians, allow ourselves to passively adopt the slang of the unbelieving world around us - "godd---ed" this or that, or "g--" or "oh g-" or "Oh My g--!" or "Oh My lor_" or the phrase of frustration "well, Jesus H. Chr---."  It is the absolute antipathy of a sense of "AWE." On each such occasion, this is, in fact, tantamount to spitting right into the face of the Almighty God, Sovereign Lord of all.

   The second example of this dumbing-down of "awe" within our Christian family is the treatment seemingly increasingly accorded to the sacrament of communion, at least in some of our churches.  Communion in certain fellowships has become a mere ritual that somehow must be included in the order of service every month or so, at least for the sake of form.  This is accompanied by a casualness within a void empty of reverence that verges on the vulgar.  This to a point, at the extreme, that communion begins to resemble more a cocktail party than a consecrated, sacred part of worship. There is no sense of "awe" at all, and certainly no sense of "AWE."

   The question is why any of us would want to brazenly, profoundly disrespect our Savior with the misuse of communion, insult and offend our Father by failing to heed "Hallowed be Thy name," and grieve and quench our Holy Spirit with blatant, or more subtle, unrepentant sin.