OUR LUTHERAN LITURGY Newcomers to the Lutheran church often ask why we do what we do in worship. And even those of us who have been in the church all our lives may not always know exactly what we are doing and why. In this, the third in a series of excerpts from the March, 2012 edition of The Lutheran, we continue to explore how our liturgy relates to the Bible. The Apostles’ Creed: The Reader’s Digest Bible If you took the Bible and did to it what Southern chefs do to green beans (cook them for 24 hours), you would find the Apostles’ Creed at the bottom of the pot when you lifted the lid. One of the oldest continuously recited statements of faith, the Apostles’ Creed originated in the third century (or perhaps earlier) as what was recited at baptisms in the churches of Rome. It slowly spread to all Latin-speaking congregations and later was translated into the man native languages of Europe and beyond. Unlike the Eastern (Greek, Slavic and Near Eastern) churches, where the Nicene Creed is used exclusively, the Western church has retained two creeds (the Apostles’ and the Nicene), using the former especially at baptisms and the latter in worship (especially for the festival seasons of Christmas and Easter). Both recapitulate the faith of the church and are (even without boiling a Bible) grand summaries of the heart of Scripture. Prayers for all People In 1 Timothy, Paul encourages people to pray for all people, even kings (who often encouraged Christian persecution). His reason is simple: God wants everyone to be saved. Or, to use the words of a contemporary hymn, “All are welcome in this place.” How can Christians be sure of this? Paul goes on to remind us that there is one God and on mediator between God and humanity, the human being Jesus Christ (who is also God). Thus, in the very middle of our worship, we pause to pray not only for ourselves and our loved ones and their needs, but for everyone: the whole church, the world and its leaders, and the local community. This kind of all-inclusive prayer is at the heart of Christian worship precisely because Jesus Christ died and rose again, not just for a few but for all people. Offertory As we prepare to receive the Lord’s Supper, we sing a song. Sometimes it will be a portion of the Scripture itself, such as Psalm 51 (“Create in me a clean heart, O God:). Other times it will be the hymn of an ancient or contem- porary Christian. In fact, when Martin Luther considered Paul’s words (that Christians should offer “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” from Colossians 3:16 and Ephe- sians 5:19), he thought it meant that we should sing the Psalms of the Hebrew Scriptures, the hymns of the New Testament (such as the angels’ song in Luke 2), and the spiritual songs composed by later Christians. So every hymn, especially the offertory, reflects Christian praise down through the centuries and fulfills Paul’s encouragement to Christians of Colossae and Ephesus. Reprint information was granted by The Lutheran magazine for this article as it first appeared in the March 2012 issue of The Lutheran.
Posted on: Wed, 07 Aug 2013 17:00:00 +0000
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