Critical to the return to a theocentric order of worship is the centrality of the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper.  Since we are to return to our Baptism daily, this sacrament should also define how we enter into worship.  Individual confession and corporate confession followed by absolution remind each of us of our Baptism into the Lord.  These forms of confession and absolution should continue to held prior to our worship in order to clear our minds and hearts for attending to God’s Word.

Additionally, weekly receiving of the Lord’s Supper strengthens our faith after five or six days of being battered by the forces of evil.  In receiving the Holy Supper, we are gifted with the body and blood of our Savior and He then literally becomes us and we Him.  He has given us an earthly means to taste His Grace.  Nothing demonstrates our direct connection and need of Him more certainly than the gifts of His Supper.

SDG

Worship is where the Holy Ghost leads us to ask for the our sin to be forgiven.  The reformers wrote that: This worship is the highest worship of Christ. Nothing greater could be ascribe to Christ. To seek from Him the remission of sins was truly to acknowledge the Messiah. Now, thus to think of Christ, thus to worship Him, thus to embrace Him, is truly to believe.*   Luther made very few changes in the medieval Latin Mass which is confessed; we do not abolish the Mass, but religiously maintain and defend it. For among us masses are celebrated every Lord’s Day and on the other festivals, in which the Sacrament is offered to those who wish to use it, after they have been examined and absolved. And the usual public ceremonies are observed, the series of lessons, of prayers, vestments, and other like things.   He retained the use of the Latin language with which; … we mingle with it German hymns, in order that the people also may have something to learn, and by which faith and fear may be called forth. This custom has always existed in the churches. For although some more frequently, and others more rarely, introduced German hymns, nevertheless the people almost everywhere sang something in their own tongue. [Therefore, this is not such a new departure.]**

Unfortunately, most Sunday gatherings are more representative of overhaul of the Mass that was made by the radical progressives, Calvin, Zwingli and the enthusiasts.  These radicals ‘threw out all traditional services and substituted spiritualism for Word and Gospel.’***   This has lead to a cacophonous mixture that strains the definition of worship to its breaking point.  Completely lost is the basis for reforming the church.

Returning to the source of the reformation would be a start.  Again, not to necessarily reinstate Luther’s Mass directly, but to look to it as a guide for our current worship.  A return of order and discipline in worship would encourage the use of the what is good, beautiful and true.  This should include the use of elements of worship that have been developed in all times and in various places.  Here is a place for modern hymns and other forms that are theocentric and not simply rebellious.

SDG

* Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church: German-Latin-English.  (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921).  AP IV II 33.

** Triglot Concordia. AP XXIV 1

*** Triglot Concordia. AP XXIV 3-5

Marva J. Dawn in her book, Reaching Out without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for This Urgent Time, makes the point that there are several words in the New Testament that could signify worship.   Included are latreuo as paying homage to God and proskuneo as an attitude or gesture of allegiance to God.  She points out that these terms speak of esteem and proper behavior.  She goes on to say that other words indicate the bringing of offerings.  Offering no support for such a clam, Dawn’s analysis shifts immediately to the Old Testament usage of words indicating sacrifice.  However, it should be noted that Dawn originally is referencing the New Testament concerning the word worship, and again there is a difference of what can be understood as worship and the demeanor and activities of worshipers.*

Both Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible and Englishman’s Greek Concordance indicate that the term latreuo originally meant to ‘serve for hire.**   Both concordances demonstrate that latreuo as used in the New Testament means to render religious service or homage, so far so good.  As for proskuneo, both concordances indicate that the word describes a worshiper, a person who worships.  To put a fine point on both Dawn’s definitions and those of the concordances, they are all anthropocentric, that is they describe the actions and/or behaviors of the people involved in a religious service.  For those, like myself, who have been lead to the absolute sovereignty of God, we must look for a definition that attributes the actions to God alone.

The etymology of the word, worship, comes from the Anglo-Saxon weorðscipe and as a noun means …the condition of being worthy, dignity, glory, distinction, honor, renown…  Here, from the Germanic language, one finds the more correct definition of one who is worship.  As a noun, worship is used to describe a person, place or thing.  It recalls an old salutation of ‘Your Worship’ which was used when addressing one’s class superiors, particularly aristocrats and clerics.  It is not until A.D. 1300 that the verb sense of reverence paid to a supernatural or divine being is first recorded.***   Therefore, from this one can determine that God is the only one who possesses the condition of being worthy, dignity, glory, distinction, honor, renown, etc.  Accordingly, God is Worship.

This also harkens back to the words of the psalmist, who wrote: אֲ֭דֹנָי שְׂפָתַ֣י תִּפְתָּ֑ח וּ֝פִ֗י יַגִּ֥יד תְּהִלָּתֶֽךָ׃  Which we translate as; Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.   Here the psalmist confirms that God is the actor and we are the ones being acted upon.  Thus, worship in its true form is the creature suffering the workings of the sovereign God, which results in prayers, praises, hymns and thanksgiving returning from us to God.  This fulfills the scripture where God says; so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

SDG

* Marva J. Dawn.  Reaching Out without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for This Urgent Time.  (Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K., 1995).  p. 81. Dawn refers to the Old Testament as the ‘First Testament,’ in an effort to be sensitive to the modern mind.  Sadly, this is an intentional distortion which can only be destructive to the building up of the Church.

** NAS Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible with Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries.  (The Lockman Foundation, 1998).  accessed April 24, 2014. http://biblehub.com/

*** Douglas Harper. The Online Etymology Dictionary.  accessed April 24, 2014. http://etymonline.com/

I think it is important to state where I stand and to assert what baggage I bring to the subject. It is obvious that anyone holding forth on theological and sociological occurrences is motivated by a consistent philosophy. Given that I am a Lutheran, my philosophy is necessarily bound to the theology of the Cross – a bond which is best defined as ‘viewing all things through suffering and the Cross.’ Although my philosophy is predominately Confessional, I am also influenced by reactionary Augustinianism, and by discernments of Christian existential thought. All of which is, after years of the bitter fires of experience, driven by both a certain Schopenhauerian view of our existence and an understanding of the twentieth century informed by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

The reader should not be put off by the high sounding rhetoric of the previous paragraph. Be assured that, while I am confirmed in my philosophy, all of the descriptors above may, with a certain amount of finesse, be made to fit in some ramshackle way; but I do not care for them very much because that seem to indicate something arcane, academic and complicated – in other words something that needs a great deal of explanation. My view is too common and simple for such.

It is then a philosophy of ‘horse-sense’ and I have no patience for solipsism, progressivism (i.e. the denial of truth and reality) and the dismissal of the simple laws of logic. One is reminded that, while he was a well trained academic who could hold his own against the best the opposition could mount, Martin Luther was a parish priest who preached, spoke and wrote to and for his sturdy Saxons. He touched the lives and souls of this humble, illiterate and ignorant people because he brought God’s Law and Gospel down to earth.

SDG