Liturgically small. . .

How odd it is that some folks (even Lutheran ones) presume vestments, chanting, and liturgical ceremonies only emphasize the pastor!  If anything, the posture, vesture, and demeanor of the pastor in the fuller ceremonial of the Divine Service makes the pastor, well, liturgically small.  The things that would point to the pastor as a person and individual are diminished and the pastor becomes an instrument of the things that are to be emphasized -- the Christ who is still priest and victim, Word and voice, actor and audience all at the same time.  It is literally all about Jesus -- from the vestments that are worn to the liturgical that gives script to the voice to the ceremonies that symbolize what is really happening.

How odd it is that some folks (even Lutheran ones) presume that an empty chancel (except for the ever present drum set and screens) and a pastor in casual apparel alone on the stage is more befitting the God of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and evangelists?  What kind of strangeness is at work when we honor the rules of worship God Himself set down in the Old Testament and marvel at the heavenly worship previewed in Revelation and then sit down in our padded seats with cup holders for our Starbucks to be entertained by music, inspirational jargon, and some humor -- thinking this is what God desires!  In warehouses that offer none of the beauty and nobility of God's House but everything of the creature comforts we have come to expect, we worship God according to the dictates of money and personal preference.  Then we assure ourselves and everyone else that if it is good for us, it will be good for God, too.

How odd it is that we take the requirements of the temple worship of the Old Covenant literally and then take Revelation symbolically as if it were but imagery to describe an otherworldly version of a big box evangelical style worship space we have on earth.  Lutherans take note.  In Revelation we encounter not an abstract painting for the imagination but the practical stuff of worship.  There we learn which elements of Old Covenant worship should be retained in the New Covenant, since the heavenly liturgy we anticipate on earth both concludes and includes the old.  We learn from Revelation that the Church is not simply allowed but encouraged to buildings, ministers, candlesticks, chalices, incense, and vestments -- the worship of the Church is both derived from and directed to Jesus Christ.  Jesus was every bit the center, though hidden, in the worship of the Temple.  Indeed, He is the perfection of all that was -- whose symbols pointed to Him who would fulfill them.  In the worship of the New Covenant, they are no less symbols even though they now deliver what they sign.  What was symbol in the Old Covenant worship, has now become sacrament, not simply pointing to the salvation won on the cross but deliver its gift and grace.  The faithful enter into God's presence at His bidding, receive what He promises, and respond with praise and thanksgiving.  This is the heavenly glory, still imperfect and not yet complete as it will be but every bit the reality glimpsed and received as foretaste of all that is to come.

Trading the past for some casual interlude before entering into the formal liturgy of heaven is the strangest of all conclusions a Christian and a Lutheran might make.  Not only is the pastor liturgically small as a person and individual, but so are the faithful -- in the midst of and before the divine majesty of our Savior and Redeemer.  We are liturgically small so that Christ may be large, the all in all of Scripture already present but not yet in its fullness.  Far from being offended by this smallness, it is our greatest privilege to be the served by the God who serves us with His gifts, grace, and gracious welcome.  We learn, by the Spirit, to live contented within this framework of hope fulfilled and hope to come.