A Lutheran Revelation

A few years back, while at the Higher Things conference in St. Louis, I met a person who shared the following with me.

They said that they had been concerned with the changes their pastor had brought to their congregation with regards to worship practice; lots of bowing, kneeling, chanting, vestments and processions. Although they were not prepared to leave the congregation, they thought the pastor was over the top and that what he was doing was not Lutheran and was not done within the LC-MS. Yet, when the first note of the first hymn of the opening service at the St. Louis Cathedral sounded, 1200 junior high and high school kids along with the many adults, turned toward the center aisle, bowed deeply and remained so until not only the Crucifix had passed, but all of the clergy including the celebrant who was the icon of Christ in that place and then they all turned and faced the altar. All of this was done while they sang “A Mighty Fortress”. This person said they observed many, many of those who worshiped there that week to kneel or bow when they entered the church when they had walked as far forward as their seats and before they entered the pews, acknowledging God upon His throne before them. Again many made the sign of the cross, bowed at the Holy Name, and gladly knelt for prayers and confession.

This person concluded this revelation by saying that if 1200 kids did this without prompting, there must be an awful lot of pastors and congregations who have very reverent worship not for shows sake but out of a profound and deep understanding of who is in their midst and the great privilege it is to be allowed to come before Him. Finally they said that although they might not be ready to incorporate those acts of piety into their life and worship, they respected and understood and even appreciated their validity and the pastors efforts to bring all to a more profound reverence of and before God.

I have always treasured these revelatory words as I too, have endeavored first by study and then by example and practice to bring a more reverent practice to our worship life. This is not to say that past practice was irreverent, yet there is in all things, good, better and best practices. None of what I do is to be prescriptive but rather instructive and descriptive. We can never be too reverent, never too humble as we present our sinful selves before our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, presuming His mercy and grace, desiring His forgiveness and righteousness.

I, like most of you and like the Vicar, grew up in congregations where many of the best practices of the Holy, Christian and Apostolic Church had been lost or set aside in favor of what was less formal, more common or profane, and less reverent. These changes came about slowly but mostly for the same reasons. We are a stiff-necked and stubborn people. We are no different than our fellow Christians of old of whom the Old Testament speaks so clearly. We should not expect any greater mercy from God for our secularized worship and practice. Now there will be those who presume that my statements are condemnations of their former pastors, they are not. Each pastor has had issues to deal with, for in every time and place, the children of God have rebelled against God and His servants and gone astray. The under-shepherds of the flock have had to work through the problems at hand and could not always deal with everything. Certainly the pressures of the world and their influence on the sheep have led to tensions that have led to change. In almost every case these changes have gone from the greater to the lesser, the best to less good, from reverent and faithful, to less reverent and less faithful, from the sacred to the more secular.

There is no mirror upon the altar by which I observe you and your reverence before God. There is only God upon His throne, high and lifted up who sees all that you do, knows the thoughts of your heart and your mind. Luther says that the only reason we only bow or kneel during the creed, is that the pews are in the way of our falling on our faces before God. Certainly he has many Biblical texts that substantiate his observation. Yet, I believe if we all thought about who it is that we come before, God; who we truly are, wretched sinners; and what we need and desire, forgiveness, mercy, grace and salvation; we might then learn to humble ourselves, to become less fearful of what we think about humbling ourselves, and to be less concerned about the opinions of others and then truly recognize that God is present and that we are coming before Him.

Read your Bibles, study the liturgy, read the history and practice of the Church, long before Rome, preserved by Luther and practiced in the Lutheran church throughout it’s history. May the Lord lead you to a more humble, reverent and pious worship life in the presence of our Almighty and Merciful Lord. Amen.