The Lutheran Culture Of Worship: An Insightful Quote

I have for some time now been reading Heaven On Earth The Gifts of Christ in The Divine Service by Arthur Just.  I find the study of why we worship the way we worship to be exciting and insightful.  A favorite Latin phrase is lex orandi, lex crendi, the law of worship founds the law of believing.  One of the most glorious aspects of the Lutheran theology of worship is that Scripture shapes the culture and practice of worship.  Scripture supplies the context for why we do what we do, leading us as we gather around Christ present for us in simple means each week.  God freely pours out Christ for us in worship. Worship gives us forgiveness, assurance of Salvation, and life! 

Worship feeds us, sustains, preserves, and is always equipping us to serve in our vocations as children of the Light, delivering Christ to our neighbor.  Lutheran worship impacts the ins and outs of our daily lives in that it shapes the way we live as Christians.   In the Divine Service we are given the reason for the hope that is in us, so that as we take up our crosses our hope and faith is firmly set on Christ's return.  This brings us significant comfort in all seasons of daily life. 

"Lutheran worship is it's own culture, distinct from both the pop culture of secular society and the worship that characterizes most evangelical denominations in our country  today. The Lutheran Church must develop and maintain its own cultural language that reflects the values and structures of Scripture, not of the current culture. And this language can be shaped only by a biblical theology that affirms Christ's work of making right what has gone wrong in declaring us righteous and offering this righteousness to us through His bodily presence in our worship in Word and Sacrament. Our belief that Jesus Christ is present in worship binds our Church together as a community, confessing one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all.  This community is the Body of Christ, the Church.  One day, the liturgical problems will no longer exist for the Church, for we will worship the Lamb in His Kingdom that has no end.  For now, however, we must constantly remember that we have now the one God who is sacramentally present among us as Savior and who continually invites us to the ongoing feast. "  

- Arthur A. Just Jr.  

Heaven On Earth The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service  Pg. 29