Thursday and Friday We were on the road all day yesterday so I didn't get around to posting these. Here they are.

26. A Word about Worship and the Liturgy Thursday

Read: Hebrews 10:18-25
...let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
(Heb. 10:22)

Worship is determined by faith: in other words, what you believe will
determine how you worship. If a church teaches that we are saved by the works
that we do, then the worship service will focus upon those works. Likewise, if a
church teaches that we are certain we are Christians because of our feelings or
behaviors, then worship will be focused upon inspiring those feelings and
behaviors, so that we may be certain of salvation..

In some of the devotions in this booklet, beginning in devotion 7, certain
phrases appear in boldface. These are phrases that you hear and sing in the
historic liturgy of which the Lutheran Church has made use since its inception,
and which dates back into the early centuries of Christianity. We use the
liturgy, but why? The answer is often, “Because we've always done it that way.”
As mentioned before, that's not a good enough answer to keep doing something.
So why is the liturgy invaluable for worship?

Here's a clue: as a general rule, you'll find that the liturgy is used by those
churches which believe that Christ is present in His Sacraments (Lutheran,
Roman Catholic, Orthodox). The liturgy is rarely used in church bodies which
believe the Sacraments are only symbols, nothing more. Why? Because the
liturgy ceaselessly proclaims the truth that, in Word and Sacrament, the Lord
Jesus comes to visit His people. It declares that the Bridegroom comes to tend
His bride by His means of grace. It tells you, again and again, that you are not
alone, but that the Lord draws near to you.

This is why, when we speak of worship, we often speak of “Divine Service:”
Jesus, the divine Son of God, comes to serve us by forgiving our sins and
strengthening our faith. That is why, as Hebrews 10 declares the marvelous
work of salvation by Jesus, it then bids us not to forsake the gathering of
believers (10:25), because there the Lord comes to serve.

Worship flows in one of three directions. In a church that has forsaken the
Word, it will flow from people to people and speak of meeting physical needs
and justifying lifestyles. In a church that emphasizes feelings and behavior,
worship will be about man lifting his praises and showing his love to God in
heaven. In Lutheran worship, in Divine Service, the flow is mostly from God to
man. Jesus visits by His Word and Sacraments to forgive sins and strengthen
faith.

Lutheran worship is sometimes criticized as passive, that worshipers seem to
do little. I sometimes use the example of undergoing surgery: even if I am
unconscious on the operating table, I'm an important part of the procedure,
which is for my good. Likewise, while we respond with prayer and praise,
Divine Service is first and foremost about our Savior who comes and heals us
with His grace and mercy. In other words, the greatest joy of Divine Service is
this: there He is, with salvation for you.

27. Extraordinarily Ordinary Friday

Read: Mark 4:26-29
And He said, "The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the
ground,and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout
and grow, he himself does not know how. (Mk. 4:26-27)

Ordinary: synonyms include common, usual, unexceptional. It's the way
things normally go.

Daily life is usually ordinary, because it usually goes about the same, normal
way. Ordinarily, we gain energy by sleeping, nutrition by eating, wages by
working. The Lord could just zap us from on high to leave us rested, healthy
and prosperous; but He usually works through ordinary means to accomplish
these things.

Here's the danger: when things are ordinary, we dismiss them as being too
unexceptional for God to use. In other words, we look for God to be at work in
glorious, miraculous, extraordinary ways. For example, we look at manna
falling from heaven in Exodus, or Jesus feeding 5,000 with a few loaves and fish
and say, “There's God! You can tell by the miracle!” But when we make the
toast from the bread we purchased at the supermarket, made from the wheat in
the field, we tend to forget that this, too, is God at work. It is, however, and the
Lord chooses normally to work through means: instead of bread from heaven,
He provides seeds that produce grain. And although it's not as spectacular, it's
still miraculous; last I heard, no one had yet figured out why an inanimate seed
sprouts into grain when buried in the ground. It's still the hand of God at work.
Look. God created and ordered this world. Therefore, this world will work
in the way He ordered it; and as time goes on, His order seems very ordinary.
So it doesn't make sense to believe that God is only at work in extraordinary
things. It doesn't make sense that God would say, “Now that I've designed the
world to work in this way, I'll only be working in other ways instead.” Actually,
it makes an awful lot of sense to look for God at work in ordinary things—the
way He designed things to run normally.

This is a big temptation when it comes to religion: man tends to believe that
you will find God in supernatural, spectacular, miraculous things. Therefore,
God is only present where miraculous healings or recoveries are taking place, or
where people are speaking in odd tongues or exhibiting odd behaviors. Truly,
the Lord can work such things if He wants to; but doesn't it just makes sense that
the Lord would provide for our souls in ordinary ways, just as He provides for
our bodies? Isn't it consistent that He would use ordinary means like words and
water, bread and wine to give us forgiveness of sins? That He who used
something so scandalous as crucifixion to save us would forgive us and
strengthen our faith in unspectacular means?

After all, in Mark 4, the Lord compares His kingdom to an ordinary seed,
which grows and produces in spite of its normalcy and much to man's surprise.
Because the ordinary is God's order, we rejoice all the more in His promise that
in those “ordinary” means of grace, there He is.  ¶ 3/23/2007 06:30:00 AM 0 Comments