1. The potential for idolatry. No, I’m not saying that every church or pastor that uses a big screen or Power Point slides during their service is necessarily guilty of idolatry.  But when the people of a church finds themselves thinking things like “we can’t reach this generation without this kind of technology”, or when a pastor finds himself freaking out when the Power Point presentation crashes two minutes before the service starts, they might be.  I have heard people actually say that the glitches in their church’s Power Point presentation were caused by the devil.  Really?  I think Satan is more interested in making us think that the Power Point presentation is necessary in some way, and that people will either not believe in Christ without it or that the church will die without it.

God does not need a big screen or a Power Point presentation.  His Holy Spirit is the one who creates faith in our hearts through the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments.  There will not be one more person in heaven because a pastor decided to supplement his sermon with Power Point slides or because a church decided to put the lyrics of all their songs on a big screen.  Conversely, there will not be one more person in hell because a pastor or church decided NOT to do these things.  When we think that our human activity apart from the Word of God makes the difference between heaven and hell, we are no longer trusting in God alone to save sinners.  We are guilty of idolatry and need to repent.

2. Making the screen the focal point of the service. Instead of the focal point of the service being the pulpit and the altar and the baptismal font – the places where the Word is proclaimed and the gifts of God are distributed – the focal point is the big screen at the front of the sanctuary.  Instead of drawing people’s attention to the place where God comes down to us, the screen draws people’s attention to the things WE are doing.  If there is a way to NOT make the screen the focal point, I would be very interested to hear how that could be done.

3. Detaching lyrics from the actual musical notes to which those lyrics are sung. I have learned the tune of many a Lutheran hymn simply because the words AND musical notes were available to me in the hymnal.  Musical notes are generally not projected on a screen, for copyright reasons – and thus the only songs that are projected onto the screen are usually 1) very simple praise songs with little depth and/or 2) songs with tunes that everyone knows already.  Since big screens are purported to be an “outreach” tool, how does it help outsiders to the church if everyone expects them to already know the tunes of all the songs that are being sung?  Had it not been for the hymnal and its inclusion of the musical notes I would have been hopelessly lost when I first started attending a Lutheran church – where the majority of the hymns were hymns I did not know.

“But what about the fact that most people don’t know how to read music to begin with?”  That’s more of a commentary on the current state of education in this country.  Drawing the conclusion that “thus we should completely abandon written music in church” does not follow.  The fact that many (maybe even most?) people nowadays are NOT able to read music is no excuse for making it more difficult for the rest of us who are.  I have found that my ability to read the music of a tune unfamiliar to the people around me makes it easier for them to catch on to the melody.  Take the hymnal away and I might be just as lost as anyone else.  Without the written music it makes it much harder for people to learn new or unfamiliar songs that have any theological depth.

So those are a few of the reasons why I am not a big fan of screens in church.  You may disagree with me, and that’s fine.  Or you may feel the same way as I do but for other reasons.  Feel free to post your comments.  And read this article by Pastor Fisk.  Great stuff.

The ministry of Jesus was quite simple: He traveled from town to town in Galilee for two and half years teaching the people and performing miracles as signs that the new creation had dawned.  Then He turned His face to go to Jerusalem for the final miracle, where through death He took on Himself all sickness and sin, and through His resurrection He demonstrated in His resurrected body what we shall one day become.

Teaching and miracles – that's what Jesus' ministry is all about.  And those same two activities of Jesus continue in the Church today as the Lord continues to teach His people through the Word that is read and preached in our Divine Services.  Through the miracle of Baptism we enter into the Body of Christ, His Church, so that we might partake of the Body of Christ in the miracle of the Lord's Supper.  Sacraments are the new miracles of Jesus in the world today because they testify to the bodily presence of Christ in His creation bringing in the new creation.  In Baptism, Christ is present in water through Word and Spirit where He turns sinners into saints, taking us across the boundary of death into a life that never ends, delivering us from darkness into His light.  In the Lord's Supper, Christ is present in, with, and under bread and wine to give us the very same body and blood that was crucified on Calvary and raised again on the third day.

The teaching and miracles of Jesus, therefore, continue in the Church today through the liturgy of Word and Sacrament.  We hear the voice of Jesus in His Word and we take Him into our bodies in body and blood for our health and salvation.  How remarkable that these are the very same structures of table fellowship – Word and Meal – in which we experience now a foretaste of the heavenly feast with angels, archangels, and with the whole company of heaven.  Our liturgy is nothing more and nothing less than table fellowship with Jesus.

From Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service by Arthur A. Just Jr.  Concordia Publishing House: 2008, pp. 93-94.

1. Theological Shallowness.  Modern "praise songs" are, by and large, very theologically shallow compared to hymns.  They tend toward the vague and many of them speak generically of God rather than Christ – and even when they do speak of Christ they can be remarkably vague about what He did.  "There's Just Something About That Name" and "Bless That Wonderful Name of Jesus" come quickly to mind.  This sort of thing encourages, in my mind, the assumption of the Gospel that is all too prevalent in evangelicalism.

2. Definition of Contemporary – How does one define "contemporary"?  The truth is, most folks who want to introduce "contemporary" music into their churches will never be up on what is contemporary enough to really be cutting-edge and relevant to today's youth.  I hear Lutherans discussing the merits of praise songs from the eighties!  How is this relevant, exactly? It might be relevant to those who are in their forties and fifties, but certainly not to teens!  In twenty years we might be debating the merits of a song that came out in 2009.

The problem with selecting songs on the basis of "relevance" and how "contemporary" they are is that today's "relevant" and "contemporary" songs are tomorrow's moldy oldies.  It is much better to select songs on the basis of Christian content than on the basis of something as fickle as "relevance."

3. Inward focus vs outward focus.  In my experience and observation, praise songs tend to be very focused on what is happening inside the person singing rather than focused on what is outside of us – the objective reality of what God has done, and continues to do, through Christ.  For example, here's a song we used to sing at my old evangelical church:

Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this place;
I can feel His mighty power and His grace.
I can hear the brush of angel's wings,
I see glory on each face;
Surely the Presence of the Lord is in this place.

In this song, how do you know the Lord is present?  Because you feel it, you have an experience, etc.  As Lutherans, our feelings are not the gauge of whether God is present among us. God is present among us in His Word and Sacraments.  This is an objective reality whether I feel it or not.  Christ died for my sins and rose from the dead for my justification, regardless of whether or not I feel it to be true.

4. False assumption that new is good, old is bad.  This is an artifact of our constantly changing society.  The assumption is that people will think the liturgy and historic Christian worship is old, crusty and boring, so we should change it to accommodate what modern people like.  However, the false assumption here is that people want the same thing they get day in and day out in their everyday lives.  Lots of people are looking for something deep, meaningful and stable.  In my view giving up the liturgy for contemporary worship is like trading a priceless treasure for a cheap trinket someone bought last week at the dollar store.  The world's thinking is already only two inches deep.  Why should we want the church to be that way too? 

5. Focus on human activity rather than on God's activity.  The fact is many praise songs seem to have a sort of "me" focus – on me and my acts of worship and service rather than on what God has actually done.  "Everything within me worships you" is a line I particularly remember having trouble with as an evangelical when what I was really feeling was "everything within me is tainted with sin."  Many praise songs boil down to: I will do this, I will do that.  I will serve You in any number of ways.  I am worshiping, praising and adoring.  Often missing or simply assumed is why we should be doing these things, and when it is present it is often vague.  The emphasis is on what we are doing for God rather than on what God has done for us.

I recall a praise song that was popular years ago called "The Heart of Worship" whose chorus included the line, "It's all about You, Jesus."  But ironically, the rest of the song was basically about us, what was going on in our hearts, and what we were doing to worship God.  It was supposed to be all about Jesus but there was nothing in the song that said anything about what Jesus had done for us. 

6. False assumption that people are coming to church to be entertained.  If I want to be entertained, I will go to a concert, not a church.  If entertainment is what I am looking for, I will watch my favorite TV program.  Church is not the place I think of when I think "entertainment." And this is not a bad thing, because church is not about entertainment.

This point is somewhat related to point 4.  Are people really looking for "church as entertainment" these days?  When I can get megabytes and megabytes of shallow entertainment on my iPhone, why would I go to church to get more?  And even if there are those out there who do expect the church to entertain them, here's the thing – people are not saved because we entertain them to make the message more palatable to their fallen human will.  No, they are saved because the Holy Spirit, working through the Word, convicts people of their sin and creates faith in their hearts.

7.  What you confess determines how you worship (and vice versa).  I am convinced that behind "contemporary worship" is a different confession from that which Lutherans confess. This sums up all of the other points.

When I first started attending a Lutheran church I was struck by how participating in the liturgy was like being saturated in God's Word.  Everything that is done gives the worshiper more of the Word – the hymns, the prayers, the chanting, the readings, the sermon, the Eucharist – it's like swimming in a sea of wonderful, life-giving Scripture.  Why is this the case?  Because Lutherans believe that the Word of God is what creates faith, that it's living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, that the Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.  In Lutheranism, the Holy Spirit comes through the Word of God (and the Sacraments – the Word attached to visible elements).

There is a reason why evangelicals worship the way they do – because
1) they largely believe that the Holy Spirit comes apart from the Word of
God and 2) they largely believe that faith is an act of the will rather than God's gift through the Word.  Thus the songs that are more about God "touching your heart" and "drawing us close" during worship – the Holy Spirit coming in a mystical way through our emotions – than about what God has objectively done and is still doing in Christ.  Thus all the frantic efforts to be culturally relevant in order to appeal to human will. 

What does it say when Lutherans worship like evangelicals?  It says, "we believe no different than what evangelicals believe."  When Lutherans worship like evangelicals, they are confessing that they don't really believe that the Word of God is THAT powerful.  They are confessing that what happens inside of us is more important than what was done outside of us.  They are confessing that what we do for God is more important than what God did (and still does) for us.

What would I have done if, on that fateful morning when I first decided that I needed to see Lutheranism in practice, I had walked into a church full of Lutherans who were worshiping like Baptists or Pentecostals? 

I would have walked away and never come back.  At least not to that particular church.

Why? 

Because there's no hope for me when all I am pointed to is myself – to my feelings, to my obedience, to my devotion, to my worship.  Hope only comes from outside of me – through the external Word and Sacraments delivering Christ crucified for my sins. 

"Contemporary worship" seems to be less about God's Word and more about entertaining us, making us feel good and pointing us to ourselves while at the same time claiming to be Christ-centered.  But in my experience there is nothing more Christ-centered and cross-focused than the liturgy done by Lutherans who are not ashamed to be Lutherans.

There is a common assumption today that the liturgy must reflect the language and the ethos of the current culture.  If this is true, then liturgies will veer toward the pop culture in which we live.  These culturally devised liturgies are at times exciting and entertaining, but are not transcultural.  At most, they will give only immediate satisfaction.  These liturgies then become just another expression of the culture's malaise, a feel-good, shallow, artificially uplifting sentimentality.

Furthermore, focusing on the centrality of the worshiper's experience in contemporary liturgies runs contrary to our Lutheran understanding of the hiddenness of the Kingdom in the world in which we live.  The Church's liturgy is a humble expression and demonstration of the nature of the Kingdom.  No matter how difficult our hymns, how untrained our organist, how weak our singing, God is present in our liturgy, offering His gifts of salvation.  We dare not be seduced into thinking that the Kingdom comes by our own relevant production and performance.  We must always maintain that the Kingdom is hidden under the humble means of God's proclamation of the new era of salvation in Jesus Christ through simple words, simple water, simple bread, and wine.  This is why our liturgies are sacramental and why they give what we need the most: the forgiving mercy of God in Christ through which we are cleansed and made worthy to stand in His presence and receive His gifts.  Believing that God is sacramentally present in our ancient but enduring liturgy is at the center of our understanding of God's revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ and His salvation of the world through suffering and sacrifice.  The liturgical structures of Word and Sacrament transcend all cultures and create our Lutheran theology of worship.

Lutheran worship is its 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.

From Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service by Arthur A. Just Jr.  Concordia Publishing House: 2008, pp. 28-29.

What Christian worship is could be described from either the perspective of the Christian assembly or from the perspective of God.  In most descriptions of worship, one hears the Church's perspective, that is, the Church gathers to praise, give thanks, and glorify God because of faith that grasps hold of the gifts of God in Jesus Christ.  Worship is an appropriate word to describe our response to God's gracious activity in Jesus Christ, for worship defines our perspective, what we do in view of what God has done.  Worship, then, would describe our reverence and praise, our service and adoration.

However, this description of the Christian community's communal activity on Sunday goes against the grain of Lutheran confessional theology.  Lutherans seldom begin theology from below, from man's perspective, but from above, from God's perspective.  Martin Luther and the Reformation helped us to see that what is foremost in our worship is not our service and sacrifice to God but His service and sacrifice to us.  The gifts of Jesus are hidden in the simple means of water and Word, bread and wine.  We join a world outside ourselves by receiving gifts from heaven in the flesh of Jesus and submitting ourselves to the great mystery that heaven comes to earth through this bodily presence of our Savior.  We sometimes think of heaven abstractly, as somewhere "up there," but heaven is wherever Jesus is.  Because Jesus is present among us in the gifts of Word and Sacrament, then heaven itself is present among us.  It is the world of "angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven."

This mystery of heaven on earth is a biblical theology of worship.  God does not need our worship and praise and service.  But we do need His service, His presence, and His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation.  Whatever praise we give to God, whatever honor is due His name, is our response to God's service to us.

From Heaven on Earth: The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service by Arthur A. Just Jr.  Concordia Publishing House: 2008, pp. 16-17.

The Divine Service and the Mission of Christ’s Church

There are three fundamental questions in looking at the mission of Christ’s Church and the relationship to the Divine Service.  The first question is:  How is the liturgy understood theologically?  The second question:  Are we attentive to the religious culture of North America?  The third question:  What is the character of the community into which we seek to evangelize unbelievers?

In addressing the first question, the Augsburg Confession, Article VII provides our starting point:  “For it is sufficient for the true unity of the Christian Church that the Gospel be preached in conformity with a pure understanding of it and that the sacraments be administered in accordance with the divine Word.”  Preaching and sacraments require form.  Freedom from rites and ceremonies instituted by men does not imply that the question of form is neutral.  Lutherans are concerned with the form of the liturgy from the perspective of the confession of the Means of Grace.  Lutherans see liturgy as God’s work, Gottesdienst, His divine service to us.  Thus Article XXIV of the Apology to the Augsburg Confession insists that the liturgy is the Lord’s public service to His people.  Essentially, liturgy is what the Lord does.  Luther captures this in his sermon on John 14:  “Thus the apostles and pastors are nothing but channels through which Christ leads and transmits His Gospel from the Father to us.  Therefore wherever you hear the Gospel properly taught or see a person baptized, wherever you see someone administer or receive the Sacrament, or wherever you witness someone absolving another, there you may say without hesitation:  ‘Today, I beheld God’s Word and work.  Yes, I saw and heard God Himself preaching and baptizing.’  To be sure, the tongue, the voice, the hands etc. are those of a human being; but the Word and the ministry are really those of the divine majesty Himself.  Hence it must be viewed and believed as though we were seeing Him administer Baptism or the Sacrament with His own hands.  Thus we do not separate, or differentiate between God and His Word or ministry, not do we seek God in another way or view Him in a different light” (Luther’s Works, vol. 24, p. 67).

If the liturgy is the Lord’s work, it cannot be made into an adiaphoron (indifferent things; those things not commanded by God nor forbidden by Him), for the pure preaching of the Gospel and the evangelical administration of the sacraments are required (see Article X of the Formula of Concord for further examination of a distinction between that which is commanded by God and those items which are neither commanded nor forbidden by the Word of God).  Our concern for the liturgy is not fueled by romanticism for the past but for the sake of the Gospel which is given by external means (extra nos), the Word rightly preached and the sacraments administered in accordance with our Lord’s mandate.

In response to the second question, we need to recognize that the religious culture of North America is Evangelicalism.  This culture has its roots first in Puritanism, which is basically Calvinistic, and secondarily in the great revival movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  Evangelicalism puts the emphasis on conversion as a personal decision and the church as a spiritual democracy.  Evangelicalism’s stress on the autonomy of the believer and the immediacy of spiritual experience apart from sacramental means has shaped a religious culture that accents an individualistic faith over churchly life and tends to characterize Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper as peripheral to the Christian life.  This subjectivity, coupled with a suspicion of the intellect, has produced a religious culture that elevates heart over head, and emotion over intellect.  Wherever biblical authority is lost, Christ is displaced, and the Gospel is distorted, then our interests have displaced God’s, and we are doing His work in our own way.  The loss of the centrality of Christ in the life of today’s church in North America is becoming more and more common.  It is this loss that allows us to transform worship into entertainment, Gospel preaching into marketing, believing into technique, and living a sanctified life into feeling good about ourselves.  God does not exist to satisfy human ambitions, cravings, the appetite for consumption, or our own private spiritual interests.  We must continue to focus on Christ in our worship, rather than the satisfaction of our personal needs.  Our concern must be for God’s kingdom, not our own popularity or success.

Thirdly, what is the character of the community into which we are evangelizing unbelievers?  Our mission is to evangelize unbelievers into the Church, the body of Christ.  The Church lives in many cultures, but is at home in none, as our citizenship is in heaven.  In Revelation 7, John writes:  “After these things I looked and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying:  ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’”  This is the culture of God’s doing.

We may not drive a wedge between heaven and earth.  The Lord Jesus Christ “has ascended far above all heavens in order to fill all things,” say the apostle Paul.  Our Lord has crossed over from eternity into time in His incarnation.  He has given us the new birth from above, the rebirth of Holy Baptism by which we are made heirs of His heavenly kingdom.  Baptism gives us birth into a new culture, the culture of heaven.  We do not have to wait until we die to have a share in heaven.

The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is “heaven on earth.”  That is why we sing the Sanctus with “angels and archangels, and the whole company of heaven.”  That is why our liturgy is not and cannot be an echo of the pop culture with its sound bites and its exchange of edification for entertainment.  No, the liturgy is the repetition of the heavenly song.  Like Moses before the burning bush, we are on holy ground when we gather in the Lord’s name around font, pulpit, and altar.  These are holy places, for here God is distributing His gracious gifts to us.  Apart from these gifts, the Church has no mission.  Far from being detrimental to the Church’s mission, the liturgy is the source and goal of all missionary activity.

To God be the Glory.

In Christ,

Pastor Ray

As a former American evangelical myself, I was particularly interested in Mr. Parton's discussion of the thoughts and feelings of former evangelicals (him also being a former evangelical) coming into Lutheran churches, how many lifelong Lutherans fail to appreciate and often take for granted the rich liturgy, depth of worship and wonderful theology that they have, and the misconceptions that they often have about how evangelicals think and what they are looking for.  Here are some excerpts that I particularly identified with:

"…when evangelicals end up in Lutheranism, they end up looking for the most orthodox expressions of it that they can find.  They’re not looking for nicer people.  They’re not looking for better potlucks.  They’re not looking for a better community.  They’re looking for what they didn’t have in American evangelicalism.  I had all that there.  I had great friends.  We had a social life there.  We had all of that.  They’re looking for a clear expression of what they’ve been seeking in the areas of both reverence and mystery.  They’re not looking to be entertained." 

"… there is a mindset in Lutheran churches … that, “You know, American evangelicals have got all the answers on how to grow a church.  We just need to do what they’re doing.  And if we could just do it – maybe with a little bit of pizazz – we could get people to show up.”  But notice the assumptions that are behind this kind of approach – that the historic worship of the church is not something to be honored, that people come to church to be entertained.  These are uniquely Baby Boomer kind of concepts that have been picked up by, unfortunately, churches of the Reformation and pastors in churches of the Reformation …. when people come to these churches they often times hear nothing different than what they’ve heard in their evangelical experience.  And when they find that – let me tell you, if you’re a Lutheran pastor here – you want somebody mad, you do a bait and switch on an American evangelical who went through hell to end up in your church and you do this kind of crap.  When that is done, you better hope they’re not armed – ‘cause they’ll come looking for you…. And they’ll want to know why you jettisoned what they think are the true treasures of the tradition of the Lutheran Reformation – which is the Gospel being central, Law and Gospel preached from the pulpit, a consistent service [from] a hymnal, solid catechesis – that’s what they have come to find.”

"Why are Lutherans messing with [the historic liturgy]?  Because they think it’s boring to people.  They don’t understand, because they have a lot of people that have listened to this and say, “Ho, hum.  What is the big deal?  We’d like to do something racy and fun for the Sunday service.”  I’ve likened this to people that have grown up living in a great three-flower Michelin guide French restaurant …. Lutherans … have grown up in this great restaurant and they’ve never known anything else but three-flower guide meals – Law and Gospel, beautiful liturgy, magnificent hymnody, all of this – the catechism, all this wonderful theology with Christ in the center.  Then they discover Carl’s Jr.  And that is the funnest thing – “it’s new, it’s hip, it’s right down the block – and you know, we could get stuff like milkshakes from Carl’s Jr. and we could put it at the table with the foie gras.  And it’ll go together – it really will.  Or – you know, have you discovered styrofoam cups – maybe the Chateauneuf de Pape can be poured into a styrofoam cup and then it can be used again, too.  And maybe that would be fun to try.”  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of folks that have never been off the reservation in some of these Lutheran churches, and you’ll find a lot of frustration with them if you go to visit these churches – that they’re going in the direction that you’re leaving.”

“… people need to hear that we [Lutherans] are not weird and we’re not liberal.  We’re not Catholic and we’re not liberal, and that’s what they assume.  You’ve got to fight against that.  You’ve got to think, “How can I get out there and show that I am evangelical in the best sense, and I’m not Roman Catholic?” and explain that.  There’s a complete disconnect there.  Lutherans do not get that.  They think that they’re considered like everyone else.  As an evangelical I considered Lutherans unsaved.  You [Lutherans] consider the evangelicals saved.  They consider you lost.”

“I can just tell you my personal experience with Law and Gospel is in
the liturgy every Sunday, and particularly in Confession and
Absolution.  That is unheard of – I mean, the first time I went into a
Lutheran service … if you’re in an old place and an old service,
you’re going to confess your sins first.   And I’ll tell you, my wife
and I looked at each other when we did that and we thought, “We have
found something.  We haven’t done this.”  I mean, really confess what
you have done – what you deserve.  And then the Absolution coming from
the pastor in the stead of Christ, that our sins are forgiven.  Unheard
of.”

I hope to share my thoughts on these in more depth in upcoming posts.  But in the meantime, go to New Reformation Press and buy this lecture series!  It is well worth the money.

It is like stepping into another world.  This is the place where God comes down to give us His gifts.  He does this through the spoken word, through water, and through bread and wine.  Seemingly ordinary things, but not ordinary at all when the word of the Almighty God is attached to them.

God comes down to us here, not through some inner experience, but in objective reality.  He speaks His Word of forgiveness, life and salvation to us through the voice of a man that He has called.  He gives new life and connects us with Christ's death through the washing of water with that same Word.  And by that same Word Christ gives us His body and blood to eat and drink for the forgiveness of our sins and for the strengthening of our faith.

In our fallen humanness, we do not understand how these things can be so.  We want to try to reason them away.  But the Word of God is living and active.  It accomplishes what it says it will.  It is the Word of the God of the universe, who brought everything that exists into being by that Word. 

Here, God is not close to me because I feel it to be so.  He is not close to me because I live such a righteous and holy life.  He is not close to me because of what He sees in my heart.  No, I am a desperately wicked sinner who does not deserve God to come near to me in love. 

But here in the Divine Service this is exactly what He does – He comes near to me in love, for the sake of Christ alone.  He comes to me despite my feelings, despite my sins, despite my distractions and fears and sadness.  He comes to me through that which is outside of me, because it is only from outside of me that there can come any hope – Christ dead on the cross for my sins, delivered to me through my baptism, through the Holy Supper, and through the Word of absolution.

This is why it absolutely baffles me – as a former evangelical – why there are some Lutherans out there who would trade all this to become more like the evangelicals, who largely seek assurance inside of themselves – whether it be through how close they feel to God, how sincere they were when they prayed a prayer to accept Jesus, or how much more sanctified they are becoming.  The worship of the evangelicals reflects their a-sacramental theology.  If God does not come down to us through objective means, then He must be sought in some other, more subjective way.

I may not feel anything when I receive the Lord's Supper any given Sunday.  There is not necessarily any thrill of emotion as I kneel there at the rail, not necessarily any sense of being in the very presence of God.  But there is objective reality – Christ giving His true body and blood to me for the forgiveness of my sins.  Who can meditate on that for any length of time and not find it profoundly shocking?  That the Lord of Heaven and Earth would love me so much as to condescend to me in this way, so that I might know that His death was really for me?

No, this is no ordinary place.  May we never forget this.