Evangelicals like myself, rooted in the Reformation, came very late to the beauty of weekly communion. I was a sophomore in college before I realized that the vast stream of the Protestant tradition celebrated communion weekly. For most of my life, I assumed the table was reserved for special occasions like Easter or Christmas. In fact, I attended a Brethren congregation that did communion once a year.

However, as I broadened my theological interests, I understood the Supper’s function in the liturgy and in the theology of the church, and it became unbearable to contemplate its absence during a worship service.

Historically, our Reformed forefathers—including Luther and Calvin—desired communion to be weekly. In fact, in the early centuries of the Church and the majority of Protestant Churches in the 16th century practiced weekly communion. It was only in the 19th century, and in particular, during the Prohibitionist movement, that weekly communion became mostly obsolete.

Therefore, the infrequent practice of communion is relatively new in the church. This does not mean it’s wrong, but it should raise questions and challenge our assumptions about what the Bible says concerning the frequency of such practices.

The Didache, one of the earliest records of the church after the Bible, says the following:

“On the Lord’s own day gather together and break bread and give thanks, having first confessed your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure.”

The Church believed that we become a purer people by celebrating the sacraments weekly. This is not because there is something magical in the bread and wine but because God uses these means to communicate his presence and strength to us (WCF XXIX.1).

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The question of baptism and its recipients is truly a matter of grace and not of works. It was my Calvinism that led me to the font. I knew–though it took me a while to act on it–that grace was more than a mere soteriological category. Grace was everything and in every act of God for us. The question of an infant’s ability never crossed my mind as a barrier to accepting covenant baptism. The question of God’s grace was the key that unlocked the baptismal font.

Baptism is a heavenly Pentecost. The Spirit is poured, not we who pour ourselves. Everything is of grace; Gratia sunt omnia. God identifies us as His own from the beginning as He did with the creation, and then He christens us with His spirit. Baptism is the divine hovering. Baptism is gracious because, through it, God re-enacts the creation of the world. In baptism, we are a new creation.

God has copyrighted the world. He labels, gifts, and graces. Man does not have that capacity; man does not create in and of himself; therefore, man cannot change his own identity. We are imitators, but yet only capable of imitating because God graces us with His artistic gifts. We imitate God as we are graced into his imitative presence in the waters of baptism.

In the beginning, the world is first identified by the Triune God (Gen. 1), and then it is called to praise that God (Ps. 19). We are first identity-less (dark and void), and then God fills us with His Spirit (light and life). Baptism is all of grace. We were void and empty. God looked at us (Ezk. 16) and washed us, and clothed us with fine clothing (Ps. 45). We are Trinitarianly clothed.

Baptism is one fulfillment of the third commandment. Wherever the child goes, there he carries the Name of his God. And because God is his God, he should not take his name in vain. He takes his identity in his baptismal garments, which cover his whole body of actions, thoughts, and words.

Infant baptism is of grace because it is the re-enacting of creation. Creation begins in darkness– as in a womb– and is washed. It is like our God destroying nations with fire and creating new ones with a few drops of water. 

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Liturgy comes from two words: “Work” and “people.” Therefore, liturgy can be accurately defined as the “work of the people.”

Our Lord was so righteously angry by the easy business transactions (easy worship) of the Temple that he turned upside down the world when he overturned the tables of the money-changers (John 2:13-16). Such audacity should be imitated by God’s people but cautiously exercised in light of our sinfulness. So here is my attempt to cautiously turn a few tables upside down with the hope that some will decide to keep it that way rather than try to put it back up or mend the broken pieces.

Worship has become perfunctory in our day. The seeker-sensitive movement of the 90’s has morphed into a thousand strategic models for church growth, offering easy worship choices that would be best spread in a meal for pagan gods than the God who made the heavens and earth. Easy worship produces light Christians. Light Christians produce weak men, and weak men produce feeble societies. A worship that does not demand the body and soul is not worthy of its name.

I offer several reasons why worship is and should be hard. And by “hard,” I do not mean “mathematical,” demanding intellectual prowess and a high IQ, but simply that it is fitting for God’s people to bring their bodies as actionable beings into the throneroom of grace. In fact, the best worship is one which can be absorbed within a couple of weeks of practice. But one must be willing to invest in this effort to benefit from its glory.

So, why, then, must worship be hard?

First, worship must be hard work because God demands those who worship him to do so in “spirit and truth (John 4:24).” I take “Spirit” to mean in, “Spirit-led” form. Worship requires a Spirit-shaped liturgy. It must be guided by the inspired words of the Spirit and the indwelling presence of the Spirit. Jesus demands that we take up the cross and follow him, which is hard work lived out by the power of the Spirit.

Worshiping in truth also demands much from the worshiper. John the Baptist had borne witness to the truth (John 5:33), and that witness cost him his life. Thus, worshiping in truth is a challenging task. Our gathered assembly must be prepared to fight hard to/in worship. If worship demands little or nothing from us, it fails the John 4:24 test.

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Merry Seventh Day of Christmas!

Have you noticed the optimistic nature of Christmas hymns? They are abundant in virtually every story-telling of carols. They are absorbed into the very fabric of carols. In fact, to sing Christmas is to sing an eschatology of victory.

A few examples will suffice:

The famous Isaac Watts’s “Joy to the World” says:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow,
Far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove,
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love.

R.J. Rushdoony commented on this hymn when he wrote:

“The Christian religion is a faith of ultimate victory, where the very gates of hell cannot prevail against Christ and His chosen people (Matt. 16:18).”

What makes the postmillennial hope so distinct is that it views the gospelization of the world in history as a central feature of its eschatology. It does not believe in an utterly spiritualized Church whose voice only speaks to internalized religion.

Watts argues that nations are tested by the wonders of his love. Where the Gospel of Christ goes, people are tested in their loyalty. As C.S. Lewis so aptly describes: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.”

Another great optimistic hymn is: “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” which says:

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep,
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep.
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With Peace On Earth, Good Will To Man.

Again, the language of a prevailing peace on all the earth is crucial for a postmillennial eschatology. These hymns do not merely predict a post-parousia peace at the end of history but a first-parousia peace that brings about peace on earth in time and history.

Or, the language of Isaiah 11 is made clear in that famous hymn: “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” where the final verse boldly rejoices:

For lo, the days are hast’ning on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of Gold,
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendor fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Before the language of “postmillennial” came as a systematic category, the phrase “age of Gold” was used as a descriptor of a victorious eschatology in history. The carols spoke of a time in this world when the glory of the Lord would cover the seas.

Similarly, “Hark! the Harold Angels Sing” also joins in with the testimony of carols to the Kingship of Christ:

Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies,
With angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.

The tidings of great joy are not good feelings during the Christmas Season; the tidings of great joy are comfort and joy to the world. This is what animated these hymn writers as they echoed the biblical message.

The Incarnation did not bring a spiritualized peace–though it is included–but rather a physical and cosmic peace far as the curse is found, a peace that is revealed as the world receives the incarnate Christ.

And this is what exhorts us to sing loudly and confidently the words of the incarnation.

“Give ye heed to what we say: Jesus Christ is born today…calls you one and calls you all to gain His everlasting hall.” 

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