Holy and Broken Hallelujah's

Today’s word of the day is hallelujah. Open a Bible to Revelation 19 and let’s check this out. Now we’re all probably pretty familiar with the word hallelujah, right? If you’ve ever been in a church you have probably heard it. Hallelujah it means “praise God” or “praise the Lord”.

Halle= Praise Jah= refers to Hebrew word for God which is Yahwey, but our Jewish brothers and sisters would not say this name so they used “the Lord” is used in place of it.

Now the word hallelujah isn’t in the Old Testament at all, but we do see “praise The Lord” in the Old Testament. In fact the last 5 Psalms all start out with the same words:

“Praise the Lord”, and this lyric of praise is used 23 times in the Old Testament, all found in Psalms 104-150

The word Hallelujah is found in only one place in the New Testament, in the very last book of the Bible…bet you figured out that’s why I asked you to turn to this chapter already.

Here is the Cliff’s Notes context of this chapter: this is a future time when God has said “enough”, and Jesus returns to usher in the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is a perfect time. For us as believers there will be no more death, no more tears, no more pain. This is what I would call a “holy hallelujah”, because everything is being made perfect. Of course we that have accepted Jesus as savior and Lord in our lives will be singing Hallelujah, because Jesus will be right here with us as God is creating a new heaven and a new earth.

So, I think there is the difference and the reality for us today. It’s easy to praise God when things are good, we will all be singing hallelujah when Jesus returns and we see all evil, all hurt, all poverty, all lies completely destroyed, it’s easy to say Hallelujah and bring our hallelujah as a pure and holy offering of praise to God in a peaceful and perfect time.

But what about the rest of the time? What about the broken times?

I talked to a woman this week, married, mother of 2, who was told by her husband that he didn’t love her anymore and had met someone new. Now this mother of 2 beautiful children has some broken hallelujahs in her life.

I talked to a guy this week who over a year ago was in a motorcycle wreck and the doctors said he probably lose his right leg. I met with him and his wife at the hospital, we prayed and asked God to heal him, and God did. He is walking now, and there was holy hallelujahs in that family. But 13 months after the accident he tried to stop taking the oxycodone that the Dr. had prescribed to him, and he couldn’t. He was addicted, and now he is fighting an addiction that has him feeling once again broken, he has a broken hallelujah.

When we were at Resurrection youth event in Gatlinburg last month we learned about a 12 year old girl, Emily, from Sweetwater, TN that was there with her youth group. I am sure that Friday night she had some holy hallelujah’s, as she was praising God through music from The City Harmonic and hearing God’s Word preached by Reggie Dabbs. Then Saturday her mom died. She was taken back home by one of her youth leaders. Her holy hallelujah had been turned into a broken hallelujah.

Saturday night at Resurrection there was an invitation to all the youth and hundreds of young people responded to God’s call, so many that all the senior pastors were asked to come up front and all the youth leaders went to the back of the auditorium so that we could pray with each and every youth there that night. That whole time seemed like a holy, holy, holy hallelujah as young people were giving their lives to Jesus. I prayed with a few of these youth, and there was one girl, I think she said her name was Sarah (it was pretty crowded and crazy) that I put my hand on her shoulder and she looked at me with mascara running down her face from crying out to Jesus, and she said “I was going to kill myself on Feb 14^th”.

It took a minute for her words to sink in, I wasn’t expecting that. She said something about showing “him what love was when he would lose it”, but then she looked me right in the eyes and said “but now I don’t have to do that, Jesus is the man that really loves me”. Somehow Sarah went from a very broken hallelujah to a perfect holy hallelujah in that auditorium.

The church where I serve as pastor has felt the blow of several deaths over the last few weeks. And that separation from loved ones, that feeling of loss, can break our hallelujahs and fill them with tears and pain.

And that’s OK.

When we bring our broken hallelujahs to Jesus, He will never turn us away, he restores our hallelujahs and He heals us.

Today, whether your hallelujah is holy or broken, I ask you to bring it to the Lord Jesus. Bring your praises, your joy, your pain and your tears as a holy and living sacrifice as we remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for each one of us.

Hallelujah!