Not because the faith is old but because it is new. . .

I was listening to a new person to the Christian faith speak with embarrassing exuberance (embarrassing to those of us "old" Christians for whom excitement has waned) about their new found faith.  It was exciting to me to see the faith bloom and flower in this person.  What I was not prepared for, however, was the nuance of the faith that this catechumen fount most attractive.  It was not the antiquity of Christian faith but its newness that was most profound to this person.

We spend a great deal of time arguing from antiquity.  This person was not uninterested but neither was this individual swayed by claims of antiquity.  If oldness were the primary quality this person looked for in a faith, Christianity is (from the outside, anyway) younger than Judaism and even Buddhism   Now, before you argue with me, I am merely repeating what this person said.  To this person the big deal about Christianity was its newness.  It was timelessly new.  It was not the carefully preserved relic of a past but the Christian faith was the ever new and ever fresh Gospel that was, is, and is to come.  It is the Word that endures forever and so this Word is not merely ancient but it is new!

We believe in a Gospel not simply because it is old, older than others, or even oldest -- but because it still is new, ever new, always new. It is the Gospel that is ageless, the truth that does not change, adapt, or update because it is always new.  The worship that drew this person in was worship that reflected that timelessness.  It was not the worship that glorified the present nor took a snapshot in time and attempted to recreate it all but the worship that is in a sense counter-cultural, the interjection of a radical culture in but not of the world.

One of the things missing in the worship wars is this exact sense of timelessness, of the old that is forever new.  Some of those who are most intent on updating what happens on Sunday morning are in love with the moment more than they are the Gospel, with results measured in statistics instead of faithfulness, and in the culture that was their incubator (music, technology, values, etc...).  Some of those who are most intent upon the past being the arbiter of what is right and wrong in worship are in love with the past more than anything else.  Whether those who wish to repristinate some early church ideal (like some of the Vatican II crowd) or those who wish for a later snapshot of perfection (the Missourians who long for the Walther era), they have picked one moment or era and decided that the future lies there.

Perhaps this is why I am most impressed with Norman Nagel's wonderful introduction to worship in Lutheran Worship 1982  and how it preserves the connection between yesterday and today while looking to the future -- the timeless, ageless Gospel worshiped in the timeless and ageless context of the Divine Service/liturgy/Mass.

Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise. Music is drawn into this thankfulness and praise, enlarging and elevating the adoration of our gracious giver God.
 
Saying back to him what he has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure. Most ture and sure is his name, which he put on us with the water of our Baptism. We are his. This we acknowledge at the beginning of the Divine Service. Where his name is, there is he. Before him we acknowledge that we are sinners, and we plead for forgiveness. His forgiveness is given us, and we, freed and forgiven, acclaim him as our great and gracious God as we apply to ourselves the words he has used to make himself known to us.
 
The rhythm of our worship is from him to us, and then from us back to him. He gives his gifts, and together we receive and extol them. We build one another up as we speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Our Lord gives us his body to eat and his blood to drink. Finally his blessing moves us out into our calling, where his gifts have their fruition. How best to do this we may learn from his Word and from the way his Word has prompted his worship through the centuries. We are heirs of an astonishingly rich tradition. Each generation receives from those who went before and, in making that tradition of the Divine Service its own, adds what best may serve in its own day – the living heritage and something new. 

Those who are attracted to liturgical worship are not searching for an interesting antique any more than they are content with worship which entertains.  They are searching for the transcendent, for the truth that is old but ever new.  Only Christ can satisfy this quest and only the Gospel of the death that gives life and the suffering that pays for sin and the life that is larger than death.  This is what we need to proclaim -- not the choice of one worship over another or the Gospel of antiquity but the timeless truth that endures. 

Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word bestows what it says. Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness and praise. Music is drawn into this thankfulness and praise, enlarging and elevating the adoration of our gracious giver God.
Saying back to him what he has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure. Most ture and sure is his name, which he put on us with the water of our Baptism. We are his. This we acknowledge at the beginning of the Divine Service. Where his name is, there is he. Before him we acknowledge that we are sinners, and we plead for forgiveness. His forgiveness is given us, and we, freed and forgiven, acclaim him as our great and gracious God as we apply to ourselves the words he has used to make himself known to us.
The rhythm of our worship is from him to us, and then from us back to him. He gives his gifts, and together we receive and extol them. We build one another up as we speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Our Lord gives us his body to eat and his blood to drink. Finally his blessing moves us out into our calling, where his gifts have their fruition. How best to do this we may learn from his Word and from the way his Word has prompted his worship through the centuries. We are heirs of an astonishingly rich tradition. Each generation receives from those who went before and, in making that tradition of the Divine Service its own, adds what best may serve in its own day – the living heritage and something new. - See more at: http://www.messiahlacrescent.org/2012/06/dr-nagel-on-worship/#sthash.UdHqWFiS.dpuf