Exhortation

These comments are thoroughly indebted to James Jordan.

Every week, God invites us to His house and serves us, so we come here to be refreshed by the Word and Sacrament. His is a house of praise, so we also come together to offer Him the sacrifice of thanksgiving.

But that is not all that goes on in worship. We do not gather as a retreat from the world. Worship is not a peaceful enclave of piety in a violent world of sin. When we gather for worship, we don’t leave the world outside in the parking lot. We bring the world in here. We worship on behalf of the world.

Worship is not private devotion; it is an official act of the whole church, and we gather as the representatives of the nations, as the priestly people, to perform official functions before the Lord. St Patrick’s Breastplate is exactly right: Christ above us, and Christ below us; He is the firmament between heaven and earth, and He is the true holy land. All things hold together in Him, and in union with Jesus, we embody the whole creation. We are the world. We are in the heavenly places; in Him we are the rulers and governors of the nations; in Him, we are the guardians of creation.

We confess our sin on behalf of the world, like Job confessing on behalf of sinners who do not confess their sins. We pray for the peace of the whole world, and for the well being of all the churches. We confess the faith on behalf of the world, offer prayers for the whole world, and eat bread and drink wine – we do all this for the life of the world.