Pages

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Trinity 25



Exodus 32:1-20 & Luke17:20-30 - Trinity 25 - November 9, 2014
Christian Worship Is Divine Service
_____________________________________________________________
Last week, I spoke of two mountains.  There was the mountain of curse, and the mountain of blessing.  The mountain of curse was Mt. Sinai from where God spoke the 10 Commandments to Israel.  It is the mountain of curse because the law curses all who disobey.  The mountain of blessing is where Jesus fulfills the law for us and blesses us with the righteousness that he earned in our place.  For the sake of contrast, last week I spoke of this mountain as the place where Jesus preached the beatitudes — “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and so forth.  But the mountain of blessing is more than just where God speaks the blessing.  It is where God earns the blessing.  It is Mt. Calvary.   It is where the curse of the law was spoken against the Son of God in our place.  Jesus placed himself under the law for us, and suffered and died as our holy Substitute.  Without the cross, there is no blessing.  Without Mt. Calvary, there is no Mt. Zion. 

The law can teach us much.  But it cannot teach us how to worship God, because it cannot give us peace with God.  Only the gospel teaches us how to worship, because only the gospel creates faith.  Faith is the purest form of worship, because it lays hold of Christ who has atoned for all our sins.  The mountain where Christ speaks blessings depends on the mountain where Christ earns forgiveness.  Right here is Mt. Zion.  And this is how we worship.  This pulpit and this altar is the mountain of blessing to you – because here is where we preach Christ crucified – here is where we proclaim the death of Christ until he comes again — so here is where we offer our praise to him who regularly comes in the name of the Lord. 
Because we have God’s eternal favor through the blood of his appointed Lamb, he has set us apart to be his own special people – holy in his sight and free from the demands of the law.  We find our freedom and blessing by listening to his word.  We, though Gentiles, are the new Israel who worships the Father in spirit and truth.  The history of Israel, therefore, is our history, because it is the history of God teaching his people how to worship.  And so this morning I’d like to explain what happened in our Old Testament lesson from Exodus 32, and then tie that into what Jesus teaches us in our Gospel lesson as well. 
Our theme will be:
Christian Worship is Divine Service
The Israelites camped at the foot of the mountain.  God told them to wait for Moses.  Through Moses, God had freed them and led them, he had protected them and fed them; and now he told them to wait.  Moses had already given the Lord’s instructions concerning the law – there were laws governing every aspect of their lives.  But then he went back up the mountain.  He was up there for 40 days and 40 nights receiving instructions on how God’s people should worship him.  He was receiving directions on the Tabernacle, the altar, the priesthood, the sacrifices, and so forth.  In other words, Moses was learning how to teach God’s people the gospel.  But – and this is the point – God’s people could not wait for this.  They grew impatient.  More than they desired God to teach them the gospel, they were overcome by their own desire to offer praise.  More than learning about how God would forgive their sins, they were interested rather in feeling close to the Lord.  And so their idolatry began. 
Now, it’s not like they went to Aaron and asked for a different god.  Idolatry usually doesn’t begin with a blatant replacement of the one true God in favor of a statue or something.  That’s not how Christians today reject the true religion either.  They don’t usually opt for some totally made up religion.  They usually go on pretending that they still have the same God they’ve always had – even though they don’t.  They form religions with enough truth in it to seem right, but also with enough personal touch to make it really attractive.  So also, the Israelites didn’t want a new god.  They wanted to worship the true God – just in their own unique way.  That’s why Aaron sculpted the calf.  And it’s not like they actually thought that their little sculpture really was God.  They weren’t stupid.  They just wanted to feel the nearness and presence of the Lord in some tangible way.  But here is where idolatry is born.  It was a false comfort totally devoid of God’s command and promise.  Instead of waiting for Moses to return and give instructions on how God wanted to be worshiped, they decided to go ahead and worship God according to their own best ideas.  Instead of learning from the gospel, they worshiped God based on what they thought they knew about the law. 
And, you know, as it turned out their worship didn’t look half-bad.  They certainly gave generous offerings.  All the gold they took out of Egypt they donated to Aaron in order to promote their worship.  And they got certain features sort of right.  Aaron formed a young ox to symbolize the victim of sacrifice.  That’s kind of good.  And then they offered actual sacrifices just as God had always required.  By most standards, not bad.  Then Aaron called a feast day to the Lord who had so graciously rescued them from Egypt.  Pretty pious, huh?  So what was really so bad about all this? 
Well, look what happened.  By worshipping according to their knowledge of the law alone, they ended up transgressing the law.  They broke the 1st Commandment by forming a graven image; they broke the 2nd Commandment by placing the Lord’s name on it; and they broke the 3rd Commandment by not waiting, but by anxiously working to invent their own form of worship.  They presumed to worship God and give him thanks without first learning how to do so.  And so their worship taught nothing about Christ.  Because of this, instead of their worship pleasing God, it incited his wrath against them.  What they needed more that to express the gratitude of their own hearts was to hear God express the grace of his heart.  More than they needed to feel the presence of the Lord, they needed to know where God would continually dwell among them in mercy.  They needed the Tabernacle. 
And here is the horrible irony.  This is exactly why Moses was taking so long on the mountain.  He was being taught how to build the Tabernacle where God would take up residence with his people – forgiving their sins and teaching them how to worship in true faith – teaching them how to hope in Christ.  
God was going to destroy them all for their terrible rejection.  But Moses interceded for God’s people.  He reminded God of the promise he had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He reminded God of all that he had done to rescue these poor miserable sinners from slavery and death.  God would have been right to damn them all.  But he was also right to have mercy instead.  Because the promise to which Moses appealed was the promise of Christ, the Seed of Abraham.  It was the promise that God would take out all his damning wrath upon his own Son in the place of his idolatrous children.  The Lord would lay upon him the iniquity of us all.  It would please the Lord to make him an offering for our sin.  Because of this promise, God relented of his anger and chose instead to have mercy.  He continued with his plan to dwell with his people and serve them with the forgiveness of their sins. 
Now what does all of this have to do with Christian worship?  Well, Christian worship is divine service.  This means that we praise God not by coming up with new ways to please him or compliment him or anything like that.  Rather, we praise God and worship him by being served by him.  The gospel teaches us how to worship.  We wait on him by going where he promises to come to us.  
And this is where the Church is today.  We are like the children of Israel of old.  We wait for the glory that will be revealed.  But do we ever get impatient!  Just look at how Christian worship has morphed in many circles — including congregations of our own synod!  Instead of focusing on the mercy they need from God by singing the Kyrie – “Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy” – they compose all sorts of so-called praise songs that teach little to nothing about the faith that saves.  Instead of singing, “Christ alone is our salvation,” they sing songs that focus on the individual and his personal expression of praise.  This is exactly the error that the Israelites fell into while Moses was on the mountain.  They were more infatuated with their ability to worship than with what God wanted to reveal. 
Oh, but folks are persuaded that worship is more Spirit-filled when it is spontaneous and less structured.  Why?  Because their emotions are engaged.  They feel something – like the presence of the Lord, they might suppose.  But meanwhile, the clear teaching of the law and the gospel is relegated to the background or to some official position on a website.  But how seldom is it preached!  Christ’s saving work is largely absent from their praises.  The Israelites thought that their worship was pretty Spirit-filled too.  But they would not wait for Moses to come and preach.  They wouldn’t wait for the wonderful news that God himself would take up residence among them in the Tabernacle.  By focusing on their own praise, they abandoned the gospel itself. 
The Spirit does not come through our feelings.  He comes through the word of God.  We do not draw him to us. He comes graciously when the gospel is preached and the sacraments are administered. He delivers Christ and all his benefits.  When we gather in Jesus’ name, Jesus is there with us – not far off on a mountain, but with us – among us and within us.  Christian worship is divine service.  God serves us. 
“The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”  This was their worship.  And so it is also how many worship today.  They treat the Lord’s Supper as though it were their supper.  For most Protestants it is mere bread and wine, and so becomes a celebration of their own commitment to God rather than the means by which our greatest need is met.  When Lutherans practice what they call open communion – when they invite everyone to eat and drink the body and blood of Christ – regardless of what they may believe or what their spiritual state might be – they sin against God.  They show more concern for their worship than for Christ’s humble service to sinners.  But Christian worship is divine service.  God serves us.  The meal where Christ provides his very body and blood for the forgiveness of sins is an intimate meal where we not only receive, but express, our unity with Christ in all things.   It is not a game.  It is a sacred pledge of peace from God to us.  
The Israelites learned to build idols of gold by looking at their pagan neighbors to see what they did.  But it was wrong.  Likewise, many Christians today – including Lutherans who have forgotten their rich heritage – look to the culture around us to invent new forms of worship that are more entertaining and exciting and that seem at first sight to draw in the crowds.  But they are at the very best distracting, because they do not richly express what Christ has done to redeem us from sin, death, and hell.  This is very dangerous, as the example of Israel proves (1 Cor. 10:6).  We should consult with our culture on how to worship our God about as much as Noah learned from his culture and as much as Lot learned from those who lived in Sodom.  The world is perishing.  But we learn from God who dwells among us.  And so in Christ alone we find life and salvation.  Christian worship reflects this truth because Christian worship is divine service.  It is God’s inestimable service to us.   
Jesus told his disciples, “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, ‘Look here!’ or ‘Look there!’ Do not go after them or follow them.”  We also long to see just one day of glory.  We want to see unity and we want to make it happen.  We want to see the word bear fruit and accomplish what it should – like in the days when the Son of Man walked the earth.  We want to feel and know his presence even now.  But the Son of Man was rejected and crucified.  He is now risen and has entered his glory.  Today his Church does not praise him by raising itself up.  We do not praise him by watering down the word of God that teaches us, or by compromising the truth in order to make treaties with those who teach errors.  To do so is to run after a false christ.  But no, we praise our Lord by bearing the cross of scorn from the world.  We confess Christ by identifying where he is.  He is with us in word and sacrament.  He is with us where he promises to dwell – full of grace and truth.  Here alone, where God serves sinners, true unity is found despite all appearances. 
Moses destroyed the golden calf and ground it to dust and forced the people to drink it with water.  The next time they saw their gold they would be reminded of the true value of their self-invented worship.  But we need more.  We need what does not perish.  We need what does not simply pass through us.  We need God to come down to us and teach us how to worship.  And he does.  He comes with the truth that saves poor sinners.  He sees us in our physical needs, our emotional confusion, and our spiritual poverty.  He sees what our sins have earned.  And like Moses before he intercedes for us.  But better — because he does not point to something yet to come.  He points to what he himself has done – to the wounds that he sustained by taking sin and death into himself.  He points to the Sacrifice that has the Lord’s name on it.  By his intercession at the Father’s right hand, we are clean and holy – and so our praises of thanksgiving are acceptable too.  They are pleasing to God as surely as our cries for mercy are heard. 
The kingdom of God does not come with observation.  No, it is, as Jesus says, within us.  This doesn’t mean that that is where we look to find salvation.  It means that we lay hold of salvation by faith alone.  We won’t see the glory we so desperately want to feel.  But by faith in the gospel, the forgiveness of sins rules our hearts and conscience.  And he who now makes us wait here at the base of Mt. Zion will descend again – with trumpets of joy.  He will not rebuke us.  He will not shatter the Testament of stone in anger like Moses did.  No, because the Testament that saves us is sketched into his flesh that bears the scars of our salvation.  He will not make us drink the gold of a false god.  No, he gives us to drink of his Holy Spirit who remains within us, giving us life.  He who invites us here to eat and drink the body and blood of the true God will prove at last that it has been our salvation.  And when his Day is revealed, we will feast with God forever in heaven where he dwells. 
Amen. 

No comments:

Post a Comment