Being good is not the same as being holy. . .

It has been too easy for mankind to presume that holiness is primarily goodness -- that is being good, good behavior.  That is the foible of original sin that we misunderstand not only who God is but what God desires from us.  This is not to minimize the value of good behavior (unless it is merely restrained behavior which prevents bad thoughts and words from turning into action).  Even then, good behavior that proceeds from good thoughts and is reflected in good words is not what we think it is.  It is not simply the repression of the bad for then our focus would be entirely consumed with the things we have thought and said and done wrong.  It is the flowering of the good -- of God in us.  It is this good that shapes the thoughts of our minds and what words pass over our lips and what actions we take or do not take.  Holiness is what begets goodness.

The curse of judgment day is not the revelation of past misdeeds or shameful thoughts or hateful words but the disclosure of the impiety, unholiness, and evil that has poisoned the heart, held captive the mind, and unloosed the tongue.  That is why we need the cover of Christ's righteousness and the blood that cleanses us from all sin.  We cannot abide this opening of the hidden and it will not only condemn us but curse us for eternity.  The blessing of judgment day is that our sins have already been judged on the cross, our feeble efforts at holiness completed in Christ, and our few and paltry good works given reward greater than their worth -- just as we have been given blessing greater than our worth in Christ!

Nowhere is this confusion made more obvious than in worship.  Our age has come to disdain the reverence that always accompanies holiness.  Instead we feign some sort of casual sentimental triviality that wants to call God Daddy and ply Him the way we do earthly fathers to get what we want.  The modern Christian wants to sing the music that sounds like what they listen to on their playlist, to tap to an upbeat song that reflects what is going on inside his or her feelings, and to engage in a happy fest of sentiment, aspiration, and assurance.  This is as foreign to the Old Testament as anything can be.  Even in their unfaithfulness, the Israelites did not presume to think of God as anything but holy.  In fact, it was precisely that holiness that drove them to try and escape His eye and do what they wanted.  Today we want God to watch us satisfy ourselves and then, when we have thoroughly debauched ourselves, we want His smile of approval to tell us everything is okay.

The great divide between the worship of the Old Testament and the New has become the exchange of happiness for holiness, casualness for reverence, and me for God.  We pick at passages to justify this excess.  The Abba Father God becomes Daddy, do for us what we want.  The decently and in good order of Corinthians becomes do what you want but not chaotically.  The sing a new song has become sing what is meaningful to you and what has never been sung before.  The prayer that once reverenced the Holy and mighty God has become Gee whiz, Daddy, we just love You so much that we know You will give us what we want.  Is it no wonder that the Christians who gravitate to this have no anchor for the storms of life or faith to hold them when all the pillars of this moment give way?  Is it no wonder that our churches are either passing around people in love with the newest and latest or empty of people?  Is it no wonder that the world has learned that you can bully these churches and pressure them to go along and get along without fear of any recrimination from their impotent God?

Such casual and shallow worship is filled with images that portray something that is not here rather than sacraments that give us what is present but hidden in earthly form.  Such music cannot stick to the ribs when age and affliction take their told like the sturdy hymns of old whose singing recounts the story of Christ and His manifold blessing to us.  Such pastors can offer us little more than hope we will get achieve our dreams and stave off death long enough to do everything we want to do but they cannot give us the God who forgives our sins, restores us to His presence, feeds and nourishes us with the foretaste of the feast to come, and calls us by name through the voice of His Word to follow Him to everlasting life.  The vast warehouses that somehow pass for the temples of God tell us that our leisure is worth everything but God is worth little to us and their lack of beauty tells us that God is not noble virtue but pale sentiment who dwells primarily in feelings that must be constantly re-energized. 

If you are going to offer people such a vapid experience of worship, then by all means abandon any semblance of the Divine Service, of the liturgy that has endured through the ages from the earliest years of the Church, lest you confuse them even more.  If you are going to preach one-liners and tell stories in place of Law and Gospel, then by all means remove your vestments and stay away from the pulpit lest you create even more uncertainty among the people.  Let there be a clear dividing line between those who seek and who offer a goodness that is little more than personal happiness and those who beckon the faithful onto the holy ground of God's presence.  Let there be a marked distinction between those who come to receive the assurance that they are okay and will soon see their dreams come true and those who enter on bended knee to receive there in earthly word and element the manifest heavenly gift (that, for now anyway, is prefigured, but will once be known face to face).

Don't be a fool.  There is a line between the worship of the Temple and synagogue and the chapel and the cathedral and the heavenly vision glimpsed in Revelation.  There is no radical disconnect but the ultimate hermeneutic of continuity.  What was left unfilled has been completed in Christ and we enter into this wondrous mystery on earth through the Divine Service until in heaven we meet this glorious reality with the veil lifted and God showing His full glory to us -- and then inviting us to enter into it!

1 Thessalonians 3:13, KJV: "To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints."

Maranatha.