Sixth Sunday
after Pentecost, July 9th, Year of Our + Lord 2023
Our Savior’s
and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Served by
God
Divine
Service Teaching
We’re going to take a few minutes this
morning to talk about Divine Service, about worship, what it is, how it is structured,
and what’s really going on. I do need to
start with a warning though. I regularly
participated in Lutheran worship for 32 years before I ever really learned what
God was doing through it, what it meant, etc. I
was quite blown away by what I learned.
And, a few months later I found myself in seminary. So, if what we talk about this morning is new
information for you, be warned, you never know where God might take you with
this good news.
Seriously, I do pray that we are able to
deepen our understanding and appreciation for Divine Service, to enrich our
experience of worship, and to understand how great our God is.
We start in Genesis chapter 3, when the LORD
God was walking in the cool of the evening in the Garden, looking for the Man
and the Woman. Divine service,
Gottesdienst in German, God serving us, has always been precisely this: God seeking us out to fellowship with us, to
enjoy communion, closeness, with us, in order to bless us and enjoy our company.
Now, due to the fall into sin that had just
happened, God coming to the Man and the Woman was a problem. They were afraid, and hiding.
But the LORD God still came, He still sought
them out. Now, because of sin, He had to
confront them; He elicited a confession of their sin from them. And then God promised a solution, promising
the Serpent that the Seed of the Woman would come, and crush his head. The LORD went on to teach the Man the Woman,
and provide them with clothes, protect them from themselves by barring access
to the Tree of Life, and reconciling the couple to each other, despite their
sin and its consequences.
The same LORD God is still at it, seeking
sinners, in order to bless us.
The New Testament Divine Service is God
coming to us on the other side of the fulfillment of that Genesis 3 promise of a Savior. The Old Testament narrative and worship was always
looking forward to that fulfillment, looking forward to the Cross. New Testament narrative and worship flows
from the fulfillment of God’s promise by Jesus on the Cross. It is the same LORD God, still coming and
seeking sinners, still confronting our sin, to forgive and restore us. Still teaching, still protecting, even
feeding us and clothing us with Christ Himself, God coming to us to bless us
and have fellowship – communion, with us.
The essence of worship, that is, the essence
of Divine Service, is God through His Word and chosen means seeking us sinners
to bless us, wherever and whenever God chooses to do it. Divine Service happens every day, in many places. The Sunday main service, the Divine Service liturgy,
is a particular form of God’s Service to His people, a form which has grown in
the Church through 2,000 years, and continues to adapt to best serve God’s
people. Our Sunday main service is communal,
providing a form that we can easily do together. It is regular, and so also memorable. This memorability was very important, since
for most of those 2,000 years the Church lacked books, not to mention screens. And it is still super valuable to know the
service by heart, to carry it with you, to be able to draw on it in moments of
joy or need. A faithful Sunday Divine
Service serves as the hub of Christian faith and life.
The main Sunday Divine Service has two
fundamental parts: Word, and
Sacrament. E ach has Biblical roots, roots
in Israel’s history. The Service of the
Word draws its form and function from the service of the Jewish Synagogue. The Service of the Sacrament has its roots in
the services of the Temple in Jerusalem.
And note, Jesus during His visible earthly ministry regularly
participated in both the sabbath Synagogue services and the festivals of the
Temple. Biblically there are many New
Testament examples of this Word and Sacrament pattern. My favorite is in the Road to Emmaus account
in Luke 24, where the resurrected Jesus, hiding his identity, walks with two
distraught disciples on the evening of Easter, and teaches them from the
Scripture all about the Christ and His Cross, and then, at the house in Emmaus,
Jesus is revealed to them in the breaking of the bread at supper. Teaching, then Meal. Word and Sacrament.
The Service of the Word is essentially Bible
reading, and then preaching on that text, to explain and apply it to the
gathered hearers, today. From the Synagogue
service, the Service of the Word took an antiphonal, or back and forth
form. There are readings and responses, a
back and forth call and response between the pastor and the people. Our Service of the Word begins with the appointed
Introit, or entrance Psalm for the day, followed by the Collect, the common
prayer of the day, then Old Testament, Epistle and Gospel readings The responses, including the Gradual, and the
Alleluia and Verse, give the congregation voice to respond to God’s Word. Then there is Creed and Sermon, to teach the
faith and apply the Law and Gospel of Christ to the hearers, for their
forgiveness and to guide their living and witness.
The Service of the Sacrament connects to the
services of the Temple of ancient Israel.
In the Temple, and the Tabernacle that preceded it, animal sacrifices
were made for the good of the people, always pointing them forward to the
coming sacrifice of the Lamb of God. In
the Service of the Sacrament, we make no sacrifice for sin, because Jesus has
finished the once for all sacrifice of Himself on the Cross. We in the Sacrament receive the fruit of that
sacrifice, forgiveness, life and salvation given to us in the Body and Blood of
Christ, under the Bread and Wine. The
essential texts of the Sacrament are the Lord’s Prayer and Christ’s Words of
Institution of the Supper.
The Divine Service settings we have in our
hymnal all follow this Word and Sacrament pattern, with some additional common
elements developed and added through the centuries. This pattern of worship facilitates corporate
worship, allowing everyone to participate and grow in understanding. The Divine Service promotes unity in the
gathered Body of Christ. These settings
are faithful, tested by time and use in God’s Church, and they are Scriptural. Indeed, as we can see from the notes throughout
our liturgies, most of the service is Scripture, chosen to adorn and facilitate
God’s service to us.
The Wheels on the Bus. To understand and remember the form and
function of our Divine Service liturgy, we can think of the boxes of Word and
Sacrament as a bus. And to move along, a
bus needs wheels. These wheels are the
Entrance, the Preparation, and the Distribution and Dismissal.
The Entrance: We begin by invoking, or calling, on the Name
of God, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We identify the God who is coming to us, and
we rejoice, because we are reminded that
we do not need to hide in fear like Adam and Eve, because the God who comes to
us is the One who has claimed us as His children in Holy Baptism.
Next, a brief but necessary confrontation. God confronts us in our sins, which we
confess, in order to receive the Absolution, God’s forgiveness, making us ready
and worthy to enjoy His presence, His fellowship. We are ready to enter into the Service of the
Word.
After the Service of the Word, we need to
transition, both physically and spiritually, to the Service of the
Sacrament. This movement is called the
Preparation.
In the Preparation, responding to the Word
just heard, we come before God with our prayers, and with our offerings. In the ancient church this offering included
the elements for the Supper. The table
is prepared. One other note: in the first centuries of the Church, at this
point any worshipers who were learning the faith but not yet baptized were
dismissed now, before the Sacrament.
Finally, after the Service of the Sacrament,
the gifts are distributed. In the
Distribution, we receive the gifts of Christ’s Body and Blood, and give thanks with
song and prayer. Finally, we are
dismissed with the Benediction, a final blessing. As we started in the threefold Name of God, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, the final blessing is the Old Testament blessing of the
High Priest Aaron, which is also three-fold:
1. The Lord bless you and keep
you
2. The Lord make His face shine
on you and be gracious to you.
3. The Lord look upon you with
favor, and give you + peace.
We
depart then, forgiven, blessed, and strengthened for a week of living and
loving as God’s people in the world. The
wheels of God’s blessed bus, helping us to receive Him and all His gifts,
Divine Service, indeed.
Sermon:
Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God our
Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
As we have learned about the wheels of the bus
of the Divine Service before the Invocation, we will reflect briefly on today’s
readings, which, by God’s grace, fit very well with the theme.
From Zechariah we hear the promise of the
coming King, the Righteous Son of David, who would bring peace to Zion,
entering Jerusalem on a donkey, to end warfare, and set free the prisoners, for
the sake of the blood of His covenant.
This prophecy Jesus fulfilled, riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, in
order to set in motion the shedding of His own blood, the New Covenant, that made
peace between God and mankin, and so also sets sinners free. And so we joyfully repeat and remember and
celebrate these events every Sunday, as Jesus comes to us again, riding on His
Word and Sacrament, bringing peace and freedom to sinners.
And speaking of sinners, from Paul we are reminded
why we always need to return to the Divine Service, throughout the days of our
earthly life. The Christian wisely
returns, again and again, to the only One who can rescue wretched men and
women. For, like the Man and the Woman
hiding in the Garden, we too know we are sinners. Despite the miracle of salvation that we have
received, sin still clings to us in this earthly life. The Divine Service is for sinners. Indeed, Jesus only welcomes and dines with
those who admit their sin and seek His forgiving grace.
Finally, from Matthew 11 we hear Jesus
marvel at the way of the Father, who reveals Himself and His Salvation, not to people who think
themselves to be wise and understanding, but rather to children. God comes and reveals His gentle and loving
heart to His spiritual children, who set aside their own wisdom and gladly hear
and trust the mystery of God. As the
baptized, we rejoice to know the Son, and so also to know the Father. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we eagerly come to
Him with our burdens, giving our sins to Jesus, and receiving from Him rest and
refreshment, for today, this week, and forever and ever, Amen.
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