Lutheran Liturgy (Brief)

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 When we discover an exciting life-changing story we want to hear it again and again. The liturgy of Lutheran worship is designed around the recounting of the greatest story ever told. 

The journey into worship begins in the Hebrew Bible—the Tanakh. The first time the Hebrew word Shachah (to bend the knee) occurs is when Abraham says to his servants “I and the boy will go over there and (shachah) worship” (Genesis 22:5). Bowing down is a sign of humility and reverence which are essential in our approach of God in worship. Since Christ is the focus of Christian worship one can’t help being humbled in the presence of the One who holds our eternal fate in his nail pierced hands. Worship is our response to God and God’s grace as we worship because we want to, not because we have to, as our God is worthy of our praise which establishes the primary mood of all worship as praise and thanksgiving directed only towards God. 

It is within the different expressions of worship in the Word and history where we find the building blocks of worship which we call liturgy. Liturgy describes how we worship. In the account described in Genesis 22 (above) we see how sacrifice was a liturgical component of worship which remained until the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Temple sacrifices could be likened to a liturgy which was done solely by a leader while spectators watched from a distance.

One of the most complete Old Testament liturgical worship services is described in Nehemiah 8:1-12. The people were called and gathered as Ezra stood on an elevated platform. As he opened the book all the people stood. Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen,’ lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and (Shachah) worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground while Ezra read from the book of the Law with interpretations.

The earliest Christian liturgy of worship takes its form from the events between Jesus and the disciples in the Upper Room.  Early Christians gathered for story, prayer, meal, and sending. The faithful came together as the body-of-Christ in order to receive him in Word and Sacrament, while responding with thanksgiving and praise, committing to be his apostles sent in mission to the world. 

Up until the Reformation (sixteenth century), worship liturgy was done by a single leader, presiding at the altar of the Church, speaking in a language which most people watching from a distance could not understand. Martin Luther’s teachings would change the course of the church. Luther had no intention of starting a new church. Luther’s passion with the real in person presence of Christ in God’s Church would be the point where Lutheran worship and belief veer away from all other Christian movements and focus firmly on Christ alone and the Word of God. Luther’s intention was to return worship to a point when everyone participated through the liturgy of worship. In this way liturgy is best defined as “the work of the people.”

As such, Luther began by making some minor alterations to the Catholic liturgy of worship. Luther began by including the people in worship by adding music and singing whose words are based in the Word of God and written in the language of the people. Next, Luther added spoken liturgical phrases. The leader opens with “the Lord be with you” as the people respond, “and also with you.” Finally, Luther highlighted how the liturgy of worship is the work of God which leads to and climaxes with the celebration of Last Supper. Luther’s Christology (person of Christ) would make Lutherans different from Catholic and Reformed as the Lutheran understanding of the Word of God would ultimately shape worship, liturgy and the life and faith of the Lutheran Church.

Luther’s starting point was the belief that the Word of God is the incarnate real in person presence of God who reveals the divine self and speaks through his Word. Next, Luther took Jesus’s own words at face value. For fifteen hundred years the western Christian movement had generally accepted the real presence of Christ in the Last Supper. Luther took the promise of presence by Jesus “This is my body” (Mark 14:22) literally. Luther accepted that the fullness of the humanity and divinity of Christ is truly and actually present in person in the meal. Luther argued that the man Jesus must be present if Christ’s complete work of salvation is to benefit humanity. For Luther, the complete ascended, exalted God-human Christ is present in Word, Sacrament and Community.

Luther’s starting point was always what does Christ say to us through his Word. When Luther changed worship such that liturgy became the “work of the people,” he began the process where everyone would become participant and spectator in the great drama of our salvation. Consequently, the Lutheran Church uses a common worship formula which tells the story of our brokenness, of God’s forgiving love, and of our thankfulness. Therefore, when Christ is the focus of worship, which includes Word, Sacrament and Community in Christ, we will begin to see how the meaning of liturgy is now shifted from being the work of the people to being the work of Christ. Christ is the one and only true liturgy because he undertook the work of salvation in the cross of Calvary.

The worship liturgy is the weekly retelling of the story of our salvation. At St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, we begin by acknowledging the name of the one true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

1, We are called and gathered by our God into Community in-Christ from the world. 

2, Confession and Absolution. We recognize our sinfulness and receive God’s forgiveness.

3, Gloria in Excelsis. We praise God with traditional hymns and Christian songs of praise. 

4, The Welcome and Prayer help us to pause and prepare our hearts to hear God’s Word.

5, Readings from the Word. We listen to Christ speaking to us from the Word of God.

6, Preached Word of God (Sermon).

7, We profess our faith using the ancient ecumenical creeds of the Church.

8, Praise and prayers of thanksgiving and intercession are offered up to our God.

9, The climax of worship is the celebration of the Lord’s Supper with the Lord’s Prayer.

10, Aaronic Blessing sends us back into the world from which we came.

We have been called and gathered as the body-of-Christ. It is his church—not ours. The worship liturgy begins by acknowledging our brokenness and sinfulness before our God and as we are cleansed and receive God’s absolution, we can joyfully praise God for his mercy and forgiveness. The Community in Christ prepares to hear Christ speaking to his saints through the Word of God and through the Preached Word. The creeds teach and remind us of our beliefs according to the Word of God as the whole liturgy of worship now crescendos to its climax as the faithful come forth to receive the meal of his presence – given and shed for the forgiveness of sin. Every aspect of the liturgy contained in Lutheran worship is foundational on the Word of God as the worship concludes when the Aaronic blessing (Numbers 6) as the faithful are sent back into the world with the promise of God’s blessing and Christ’s presence. The entire liturgy of Lutheran worship is nothing more, nothing less than the re-telling of the story of how Christ has saved us and given us new life. 

https://standrewslutheran.ca/marc-lapointe