Worship is something so central to the Christian life, that it often gets overlooked. In my experience and reading, it has never been given a proper definition which usefully speaks to daily life. It’s as if worship is treated as something so basic that no one should waste time asking the question, “What is Worship?”, much less try to explain what it means!
Yet this is what I desire to do in this (hopefully) short essay, though I hesitate to call it an essay because I want this piece to be heartfelt and pastoral in nature. In short, I believe that having a proper understanding of worship is crucial to sustaining a lively walk with Jesus Christ, because worship is the first and most fundamental way we relate to and walk with God.
So then, I approach this topic of worship in the following order:
- A Working Definition of Worship
- What is a “god” anyway?
- Worship as Posture
- Worship as Action
- Worship Perfected in Christ
- Eucharist as Highest Worship
- Conclusion
A Working Definition of Worship
In order to establish a working definition of worship, what follows is a brief survey looking at how different traditions have understood worship based on their catechisms.
Luther’s section on the first commandment is a great starting point for understanding worship. Regarding this commandment, Luther writes, “See, here you have the meaning of the true honor and worship of God, which pleases God, and which He commands under penalty of eternal wrath. The heart knows no other comfort or confidence than in Him. It must not allow itself to be torn from Him”. On idolatry, Luther writes, “For it happens not merely by erecting an image and worshipping it, but rather it happens in the heart. For the heart stands gaping at something else. It seeks help and consolation from creatures, saints, or devils”. From Luther’s words, I think it can be safely said that all our hearts are gaping at something. Every human heart is transfixed by something that holds the potential to provide us with a lasting happiness. This, at its core, treats worship as a posture of the heart, which can either be turned toward or away from God as the final source of said happiness.
In its section on the First Commandment, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “Adoration is the first act of the virtue of religion. To adore God is to acknowledge him as God, as the Creator and Savior, the Lord and Master of everything that exists, as infinite and merciful Love. ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve,’ says Jesus, citing Deuteronomy” (CCC 564). Jesus also says that the sum of the Law hinges upon loving God andloving neighbor. This is reflected in the Ten Commandments themselves, the very first of which is “Worship the Lord your God only”. We may conclude then that Love and Worship are intertwined. Specifically, Worship is a posture of love.
Furthermore, the catechism states the following: “The worship of the one true God sets man free from turning in on himself, from the slavery of sin and the idolatry of the world” (CCC 564). Martin Luther uses the very same language, writing that “Sin is man curved in on himself (homo incurvatus in se), so that he uses not only physical but even spiritual goods for his own purposes and in all things seeks only himself.” (Lectures on Romans, 1515–1516). This ties back into Luther’s words from his catechism. The human heart is, by default, turned in love toward something, utterly captivated by it. It may be turned inward in love to the self, or outward in love to the one true God. This is worship as a posture.
Regarding the First Commandment, this catechism of the Eastern Orthodox church reads, “We are taught to turn and cleave to the one true God, or, in other words, devoutly to worship him” (260). This treats worship particularly as an action, not just a posture. In doing this, the catechism distinguishes between inward and outward worship. The catechism says that inward worship consists of the following: “To believe in God, to walk before God, to fear God, to trust God, to love God, to obey God, to adore God, to glorify God, to give thanks to God, to call upon God”. Then it says this about outward worship: “To confess God, and to take part in the public divine service enjoined by God and appointed by the Orthodox Church”. This catechism crucially ties our inward worship to our outward worship. Our inward worship and devotion to the one true God is manifested in our outward worship in Church on Sunday, which will be further discussed later in this article.
So far, we can say based off these catechisms from the church that worship is both a heart posture and an action. Regarding worship as an action, Augustine makes an apparent connection between worship and sacrifice. He writes, “Thus a true sacrifice is every work which is done that we may be united to God in holy fellowship, and which has a reference to that supreme good and end in which alone we can be truly blessed” (City of God X.6). This statement is a summation of what he wrote in his previous section, namely, that to God “…we owe the service which is called in Greek λατρεια, whether we render it outwardly or inwardly…” (City of God X.3). Our works may be called worship to God when they are done out of love for Him. This is likely what Paul means when he says, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice…which is your spiritual worship [λατρεια]” (Rom. 12:1). In light of Augustine and Paul’s words, worship occurs through our works when we rightly acknowledge that we belong body and soul to God, and work according to that assumption.
In light of these definitions of worship, I have come to identify worship in this way: Worship is a posture of ultimate love enacted through sacrifice.
What is a “god” anyway?
A god is anything from which we derive comfort, security, purpose, identity, wisdom and a whole myriad of good things, outside of the one true God. Your true god is that which you would never give up, even for the world itself.This is humanity’s default wiring in how they relate to God. In the same way that our relationships to our friends are defined by a shared interest, and the relationships to our enemies are defined as relationships of opposition, so every human’s relationship to God is supposed to be one of worship. Wrapped up in this worship, is love, adoration, dependence, etc.
Idolatry, then, is seeking the aforementioned good things without the true God in the picture. This is Satan’s fundamental temptation to man. At the outset of creation, the Serpent attacks the worship life of humanity. The Serpent’s promise to Eve was life, wisdom, and godlikeness, without God in the picture. In other words, a host of good things without their source, God himself.
Worship as Posture
In Abraham’s own life, we see on display worship as a posture of the heart. When God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, we might say that in Abraham’s faith being tested, his worship life was inevitably tested as well, because faith and worship are intimately tied together. We can see just how difficult this must have been for Abraham if we notice that Isaac was Abraham’s “only” son. In other words, humanly speaking, all of Abraham’s hope for an heir and for fulfilling God’s promise could be seen to lie in keeping Isaac alive. And yet, Abraham obeys, proving that Abraham’s faith was such that he was able to recognize that even if he had to slay his son, his only son, His God would provide another. There is a declaration of the heart to God embedded in this sacrifice and it is this: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you” (Ps. 73:25). This is worship as a posture. It is saying to God Almighty “I could lose that which is most valuable to me here on earth, and I would still be OK because I know I have you”. So then, whatever you look at in life and ultimately sing this declaration to, that is your true and proper God. That is what grips your heart. That is what you are ultimately “gaping at”, in Luther’s words.
If this is the case, we must consider how such a posture of love affects our actions. In short, heart posture produces action, and action is the fulfillment of a worshipful heart. Adoration becomes worship through action. We may look back to Abraham’s story with Isaac to affirm this. As they are preparing to approach the place of sacrifice, Abraham says to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.” What Abraham had in mind at this point surely was not singing praise songs! It was not merely musing about God and His attributes. It was sacrifice. In this seemingly small remark, Abraham reveals that for him, what was about to happen was a sacrifice to enact his complete and utter devotion to His God. In this way, in order for worship to be fulfilled, action is necessary. And the pattern given us in Scripture of this action, is sacrifice. Action proves what one’s heart truly worships. This is exemplified in the story of Jesus and the rich young ruler. This young ruler claimed to have followed all the commandments (which includes worship the Lord your God only!), and asked Jesus, “…what must I do to inherit eternal life?”. Jesus tells him to sell all his possessions, sacrificing them. At this suggestion, the young ruler “…became very sad…”. Why? Because what the young ruler’s heart truly worshipped was his wealth. From this story, we see that worshipful heart posture is proven true in sacrificial action, and in fact this inward worship requires action to be fulfilled.
Worship as Action
Worship in action is, by nature, sacrifice. As much is reflected in Augustine’s words mentioned above. This is why proper sacrifice demands a cost. A sacrifice without cost is no worship at all. Worship in this sense is “dreading nothing but the loss of you” (2019 Book of Common Prayer). That is to say, there is nothing I could lose on this earth that could compare to the thought of losing my God. Worship as sacrifice is a statement toward the object of worship saying: ‘I lay down this thing of great value to me, and by laying it down I declare that it is not as important as you are to me’. In this way, the offering of Abel was a true sacrifice. Abel gave of the firstborn of his livestock, a living creature in which was the breath of life (Gen. 1:30).
So, when the New Testament talks about offering up sacrifices of praise of thanksgiving, we are offering our times, talents, and efforts to our God, not to ourselves. Not to soothe our own consciences, but to sacrifice in light of grace already given. We offer up our time and talents in a new light now. Not to prove our worth, justify our existence or to ease our restless hearts, but to serve our God because our hearts are already at rest in Him. I think a beautiful example of this is the life of Eric Liddell. He was a Scottish 100m sprinter who, refusing to race in the Olympics on the Sabbath, instead opted to race in the 400m, an event he never raced before. He ended up getting gold in the 400m. Even so, for Liddell, this was not his peak. Following his athletic success, he went on to be a missionary to China, where he eventually passed away in a prison camp. I share this story to make this point: Liddell’s sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving was his running ability. He counted the honor of his God and his God’s Sabbath of more worth than any gold medal he could achieve. He used his gifts to honor his God, not himself. He truly ran for his God, and in his own words: “I believe God made me for a purpose. He also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”
Worship Perfected in Christ
There are obvious instances where worship is connected to a sacrifice (for example, in the sacrifice of Isaac and in Rom. 12 which calls us to proper worship as living sacrifices), but there are other instances where sacrifice is not immediately present, but worship is still happening in some way. For example, in Luke 2:37-38, the prophetess Anna is said to have been “worshipping in the temple with fasting and praying”. So, while she may or may not have been offering sacrifices per se, she was worshipping in light of the altar (because she was in the temple), so that every time she was fasting and praying she was being reminded of the redemption that would be brought by an altar, by a sacrifice. And this I think is why upon seeing Jesus, the final sacrifice, “she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem”. Of course, we know Jerusalem is the heart of Jewish worship, and by extension, sacrifice, which we see further affirmed in the fact that Jesus comes to Jerusalem for His Passion. He dies at Moriah, where Isaac was going to be sacrificed. And it is in the Binding of Isaac narrative that Abraham refers to what he is about to do with Isaac as “worship” (Gen. 22:5). Thus, Christ the “true Isaac”, as it were, enacts the ultimate act of worship to the LORD God in the Crucifixion, perfectly obeying the will of the Father. We may return to Augustine’s words on worship who says “a true sacrifice is every work which is done that we may be united to God in holy fellowship, and which has a reference to that supreme good and end in which alone we can be truly blessed”. The Cross as a supreme act of true and proper worship, is the work by which Christ united not himself to God, but us to God. In doing so, he restores us to the Father who, in Augustine’s words, is “that supreme good and end in which alone we can be truly blessed”. When Christ sacrifices Himself, he declares in that act that He considers His own life worth laying down for our sakes. With that said, that is obviously not to say we are a sort of object of worship to Christ. Rather, as stated previously, the death of Christ is the ultimate act of worship to the Father, not to us, and is a “pleasing aroma” to the Father, not to us.
Eucharist as Highest Worship
If such is the case (namely, that the sacrifice of Christ is the ultimate act of worship), that leads us to the following conclusion: The Eucharist is the highest form of worship, as it is in the Eucharist that “we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26). Why His death? Because it is through His death, His sacrifice, that life came to the many.
This is why we need proper liturgy. Liturgy is a summons to true and proper worship. Liturgy is directional in nature because our hearts are always waiting to be directed, either to God or to false ones. What proper liturgy does is direct our hearts toward the crucified Christ, given for us. And if proper liturgy guides us to the Crucified Christ, then proper liturgy must guide us to the Eucharist, where we partake of the Crucified Christ given for us. In this way, worship is enacted in action. Our spoken devotion to Christ is proven true when we partake of His body and blood at the altar.
But as stated previously, worship is also a posture. This posture is encouraged through liturgy centered upon the Eucharist. By building up to the Eucharist, you are treating the body and blood of Christ as the apex of Sunday morning, and by extension, your entire week. In this way, your posture is turned to Christ as the most beautiful and lovely person you will ever see throughout your week. In Church, you are attributing to God all the beauty, loveliness, importance, and glory that He is due. Revelation 4 reflects such a scene, where it is written:
“And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, ‘Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created’” (Rev. 4:9-11).
True and proper worship is placing all glory, honor, and power, where it belongs, namely, with God. This of utmost importance, because if you don’t do this rightly with Christ then you are doing it inevitably with something else, whether consciously or subconsciously. There is no “a-worshipful” human being. All humans are worshippers. So then, when we receive the 1st commandment to worship God alone, we are not receiving a command from a power-hungry egotist desiring attention, but rather a command that just as a fish so naturally swims, to the same natural degree is man called to worship in the capacity that he was made to. So if we are worshippers who look to our object of worship as the one from whom we derive all hope of lasting joy and life, then it is on Sunday morning at the altar that we declare all our stock is in the body and blood of Christ set before us. Our lasting joy and life is to be found in the Savior whom we worship, who sets himself before us at the altar. This is why shifting the center of worship from the Eucharist to anything else results in an atrophied congregation. If you focus the service on music or even the sermon as opposed to the Eucharist, you are shifting the focus of the service away from our God as He makes Himself most available to us for worship.
God has prescribed what proper worship of Him looks like, and Christ tabernacles with us so that we can enact it. It has always been within God’s character to provide a way for his people to worship Him where he is directly present and available. He knows our hearts need to be directed, so He makes Himself available to us, so we can fulfill our worship towards Him through the tabernacling of Christ in the elements of the Eucharist. Throughout the Old Testament, God tabernacled with man through various means. He appeared in the burning bush to Moses, as a cloud and a fire to Israel in the wilderness, ultimately coming to rest at the Tabernacle, until the Temple was built as God’s house. When Christ comes, His Crucifixion tears the veil in the Temple, signifying not an end to the Temple’s purpose, but the fulfillment of it. The Old Testament Temple’s function of mediating God’s presence is transferred to the New Testament Church. This mediation, this tabernacling, happens through the real presence of Christ in the elements of the Eucharist. In this way, God gives us a tangible means of fulfilling our heart’s worship towards Him, by providing us with a tangible means to relate to Him. As Jesus Himself says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (Jn. 6:56). In this way, without action, we cannot fully worship God.
Conclusion
While this has become a longer article than I anticipated, I do hope it is of benefit to those who read it. Worship is at the core of who we are, and if we are not careful, we will be tempted to give our heart’s adoration to something else. All of temptation and Satan’s devices seek to make us love and worship something other than God and derive our final happiness apart from the fountain of life which is Christ. So, heed the warning of Christ to “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Matt. 26:41). Guard against anything that steers your heart’s affection away from our Lord. And continually enter God’s house with faith, and receive Christ who makes Himself readily available at the altar. For further reading, I highly recommend reading the full excerpt referenced from Augustine’s City of God. Namely, book X chapters 1-7. It is a beautiful read that left me very encouraged!
Works Cited
Augustine. The City of God. Translated by Marcus Dods, edited by Robert Maynard Hutchins, vol. 18 of Great Books of the Western World, William Benton, 1971.
Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2nd ed., Random House, 1995.
Luther, Martin. Small Catechism. Concordia Publishing House, 2019.
The Holy Standards: The Creeds, Confessions of Faith, and Catechisms of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Edited by Joshua Schooping, translation of “The Shorter and Longer Catechism of St. Philaret of Moscow” by R. W. Blackmore, 2020.
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