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On March 28, 2024 By In Theology, Worship

How God Became King: Ritualized Love

Jesus commanded his disciples on this night to “love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus gave this command in the context, not only of washing the disciples’ feet, but also in the establishment of the Lord’s Supper (something that John only alludes to).

The Lord’s Supper, anticipating the cross and resurrection, is ritualized love. To say that it is “ritual” doesn’t mean that it is empty, a mere rote repetition of what Jesus commands us to do. God’s rituals, formed by his word, are creative; God’s rituals form us into people he wants us to be through the words and actions that he prescribes. Responding in faith means submitting to the ritual in totality. This includes meditating on what you are doing and seeking to conform your life to the meaning.

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On March 21, 2024 By In Theology, Worship

Palm Sunday: The King. The Healer.

“Would that there were kings in Gondor, as there were once upon a time, they say! For it is said in old lore: The hands of the king are the hands of a healer. And so the rightful king could ever be known” (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Book 5, Chapter 8, emphasis original). After the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, Faramir, the new steward of Gondor, lay at the point of death and was being grieved by an old wife, Ioreth, the eldest woman in the houses of healing. She longed for a king because kings had the ability to heal. To her surprise, the king arrived. He didn’t have the appearance of a king, but his kingship was revealed in his healing powers.

Some believe Tolkien references Medieval lore that English and French kings had healing powers. Others posit that he is making an apparent reference to the kingship of Jesus. Even if Jesus’ kingship wasn’t at the forefront of Tolkien’s mind, Aragorn’s healing powers as king are an echo of the Great King.

When the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, cries out for healing, he calls out to the Son of David, the king of Israel, to heal him (Mk 10:47). Why would he call for the king of Israel to heal him? Because he knew that the hands of the king were the hands of a healer. Isaiah prophesies that the servant of Yahweh, the king, will heal the land, open the eyes of the blind, and unstop the ears of the deaf (Isa 35:1, 4, 5; see also 42:7). The king is revealed by his healing powers.

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On February 29, 2024 By In Church, Discipleship, Theology, Worship

The Cosmic Church

What is the church? Is it really all that important? If you ask evangelical Christians in America, you will get a variety of responses. In one survey, when evangelicals were asked whether or not every Christian has an obligation to join a local church, thirty-six percent of the respondents said, “Yes,” and fifty-six percent said, “No.” In another survey, a similar fifty-six percent agreed that worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid substitute for regularly attending the worship of the church. Many professing Christians see the church as a good but non-essential part of the Christian life. The church is an aid to my personal relationship with Jesus, but my participation in the church has little to no bearing on my relationship with God and eternal destiny.

Paul disagrees.

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On February 15, 2024 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom, Worship

The Powerlessness of Fasting

Fasting is on the minds of many Christians around the world at this time because we have entered the season of Lent, a time in the Church Year that, among other things, focuses on Jesus’ forty-day fast in the wilderness. Fasting is encouraged as the church disciples her members to take up their crosses and follow Christ.

Fasting has a long and sometimes muddled history. God has always approved of fasting if it is done within the boundaries and for particular purposes. It can be argued that a form of fasting existed before the fall as God forbade the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil for a time. This pre-fall fast was a practice in patience, praying and waiting for the time God would allow them to eat and move into another stage of glory.

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On January 4, 2024 By In Christmas, Theology, Worship

Star Wars

In C. S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, that crabby little modernist, Eustace, seeks to inform Ramandu, a retired star, of what a star is in his world. “In our world,” says Eustace, “a star is a huge ball of flaming gas.” Ramandu replies, “Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of.”

So it is in the story of Scripture. Stars aren’t merely balls of flaming gas that dot the black sky. Stars are rulers and authorities. This is their function from the fourth day of creation. God says that the greater light–the sun–will rule the day and lesser light–the moon and stars–will rule the night (Gen 1:14-18). These lights will judge for the earth, determining festival times and seasons. From this point forward, the lights in the heavens not only ruled these particular times, but they were also symbols of all rulers and authorities in the earth.

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On November 21, 2023 By In Discipleship, Family and Children, Theology, Worship

The Demands of Paedocommunion

One danger of any ritual is thinking it works for blessing standing alone. The water of baptism magically grants eternal salvation apart from faith. The bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper convey blessings no matter how you live outside of the church or if you participate in the worship service. The “sinner’s prayer” saves apart from participation in the body of Christ and without perseverance. No matter the ritual, there are always dangers of isolating them from a full life of faith, treating them as if they are magic spells.

Those of us who have the privilege of practicing full covenant communion (that is, welcoming our baptized children to the Table) are not immune from the danger. Just as some treat baptism as something of a finish line, so some parents and churches treat paedocommunion (child communion) as if eating the bread and drinking the wine of communion are all that matters for the children. They don’t have to participate in the rest of the service. They can be in a nursery or some other room in the building, cutting themselves off entirely from the rest of the congregation, but when it comes time for communion, they expect to be a part.

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On November 16, 2023 By In Discipleship, Family and Children, Theology, Worship

Communion: It’s For Our Children Too

Once upon a time, God created a man and a woman and put them in a garden. In the middle of this garden were two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. From the latter, they were forbidden to eat. From the former, God welcomed them to eat. The man and woman would meet God at the trees, and God would give them the fruit of the Tree of Life and, through it, share his life with them.

God blessed the man and the woman at their creation and told them to be fruitful and multiply. In their original state of righteousness, the children born would be sinless, just like their parents. They would come to the sanctuary-garden with their parents, meet with God, and receive the fruit of the Tree of Life with them when they were able to eat solid food. As man multiplied in this state, he would be truly fruitful; his children would be faithful worshipers and have access to God’s sanctuary-garden and food.

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On November 9, 2023 By In Church, Theology, Worship

Meaningless Ritual?

We have all witnessed or even participated in what we call “meaningless worship;” people going through rote recitations in a mindless, heartless, and thankless way. They go to worship out of mere habit, trying to keep their parents off their backs, or with some superstitious view that they are keeping God at bay by giving him a little time each week. These people–maybe even we at times–approach worship in general and the Table of the Lord each week without reflection. Wherever we see this we tend to think that their worship is meaningless. But is it?

I understand what we mean when we speak about meaningless worship: worship is meaningless to the worshiper. But whether or not the worshiper reflects upon and responds to the call of God in worship does not invest or divest the worship of its meaning. The meaning of worship rests upon the word of God that establishes the worship. So, when Jesus, instituting the Lord’s Supper, says, “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” every person who eats and drinks at his Table participates in the body and blood of Christ. That is the reality of worship that can’t be changed by the disposition of the worshiper. Ours is to recognize what God has created by his word and conform our lives to it in faith. We attribute to the worshiper too much power if we think that his attitudes and response invest worship with meaning. The ritual meal was created by the word of God. That word is reality. Just as in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth by the word of his power establishing what is, so in the Supper the Word of God establishes the reality that the bread and wine are his body and blood. He did not say that they become his body and blood depending upon how the person responds. They are his body and blood, and each person who eats and drinks participates in that body and blood.

Participating in the body and blood of Christ in the Supper is a call to respond in faith because, though each and every person who eats and drinks at the Table of the Lord participates in the body and blood of Christ, they do not all participate to the same effect. This is where the response of the worshiper has meaning. Those who come to worship and give homage to God with their lips but with their hearts far from him, they eat and drink to their punishment. As in the church in Corinth whom Paul addressed concerning this issue, Christians cannot murder Christ by dividing up his body through selfishness and hostility, come to his Table, and believe that there will be no negative consequences. That is not eating and drinking in faith. On the other hand, those who love the brethren, who seek to serve others, who confess and repent of their sins, making their relationships right when they have gone wrong, they are coming to the Table in faith and may eat and drink with confident joy. The effect to those who eat without faith is death. The effect to those who eat in faith is life. It is the same Supper for all, but not all receive it to the same end.

So then, whether we engage in mindless and heartless worship or we pour ourselves out in worship, worship has meaning. Jesus has given it meaning by his creative word. Ours is to recognize this reality and conform our lives to it in joyful faith.

Image by Deborah Hudson from Pixabay

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On October 26, 2023 By In Church, Theology, Worship

Ruminations on the Lord’s Supper: The Altar

Altars dot the biblical landscape. We find them early on in Scripture when Noah disembarks and builds an altar. Abraham moves through the land of promise, establishing altars throughout the land. When the people of God are delivered from Egypt, God makes Mt Sinai one big altar, complete with fire and smoke. As Mt Sinai becomes the sanctuary of God, the Tabernacle (Ps 68:17), it also looks like an altar with the glory cloud above it and in it (cf. Ex 40:34-38). In one sense, the entire Tabernacle is an altar as the fire and smoke of God’s presence fill it. So it was also with the Temple (2Chr 7:1-3). There were specific altars in both the Tabernacle and Temple that provided an exposition of the meaning of these structures from different perspectives. There was an altar of ascension offerings in the courtyard and an altar of incense just outside the veil or the doors that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies.

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On October 19, 2023 By In Church, Theology, Worship

The Ritual of the Lord’s Supper: The Command

The Lord’s Supper is a gift of God in Christ given to the church. In it Jesus memorializes his death for the sake of people. We touch, taste, and imbibe Christ himself in body and blood broken and poured out for our sins. In the meal the benefits of the once-for-all death of Christ are applied to us as often as we share this meal. At times the reality of the grace of Christ overwhelms us. We consider what great sinners we are and we wonder how he could love us that way that he does. A deep sense of unworthiness begins to overtake us.

As we feel that sense of unworthiness, the words of Paul to the Corinthians resonate in our minds: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord” (1Cor 11:27). Our feelings of unworthiness must mean that we are not ready to share in this Table. We’re sure that there are hidden, unresolved sins somewhere. We may be unconscious of them, but they must be there. Then there was that dispute with my wife this week. There was that tension with my children. The anger that I displayed at the office wasn’t right. We have some real problems. Surely we’re not worthy to come to this Table. If we participate in this condition, then the fate of the Corinthians might be our own: sickness or even death.

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