Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness Part 2 - July 2024
The Lord's Prayer from the Lutheran Book of Worship
“Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”
1 Chronicles 16:29, Psalm 29:2, Psalm 96:9
Part 2
In last month’s article, I approached the idea of “worshipping the Lord in the beauty of holiness” from the beauty of our worship spaces. This included anything that adorns and enhances our worship such as symbols, stained glass windows, robes, altar cloths, and the like. But there is beauty also in the way that we worship. I’m thinking particularly about the liturgy and the language used in it. We should be no strangers to the beauty of language. It seems to me that things like poetry or lyrics set to music are intended to become beautiful creations.
I was once in a conversation with a retired pastor many years my senior, and he pondered why we don’t simply use contemporary language for all the parts of worship. He was mainly thinking about the Lord’s Prayer, and how we pray it using the old King James English with the “Thy” and “Thine” instead of “your” and “yours.” Why not use the other option and speak like we normally speak from day to day? My answer to that, and the reason I choose not to switch back and forth between the options, is that one has a more beautiful language than the other. Also, the more traditional one is likely to be the one most people have memorized. If your eyesight isn’t what it used to be, you can still participate by memory!
So firstly, the beautiful and poetic language of our liturgy helps us commit the words to memory. Studies show that as we age, things that pertain to ritual, such as the words and prayers of worship, are held onto the longest by our minds. I have often visited with parishioners over the years, who due to dementia or Alzheimer’s have forgotten many things, but they still knew, “Our Father, who art in Heaven…” and “for Thine is the kingdom…” It is a beautiful thing that remains even in their hardship.
Another beautiful thing about the language of our liturgy and prayers is that they are already there for our use. These words are the tradition of the church passed down through centuries and spoken, sung, and prayed by generations of believers. I love a quote from composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) that reads, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” This certainly does not mean that we can’t come up with new and beautiful words for worship, as we indeed do so. But we don’t have to scramble to come up with anything on the fly. We have the wellspring of beautiful tradition to draw from. When praying, does your mind ever draw a blank? We already have beautiful words to call upon, whether from a worship book, or from memory.
Now, does God require or even need our words of praise and prayer to be beautiful? Surely not, for the glory of God is far more beautiful than any human words might attain. And when we are at our lowest, it’s not inappropriate to turn to God in prayer with our most raw language that expresses what we are feeling. Our God can take whatever we are able to dish out. But again, just as the adornments of our worship space help us worship, so too does our language. The beautiful language of our liturgy is another tool that helps us in our worship. In this, our Lord uses our own language to comfort, to bless, and to fill us with good things.
The peace of the Lord be with you,
Pastor Hooks