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| What
Makes Christian Worship Different? |
| Steve
Griffing |
| After
the Beatles disbanded in 1970, lead guitarist
George Harrison pursued an active spiritual life
nearly fulltime. Transcendental meditation guided
his pursuit, but he was not judgmental of another
paths. His belief system allowed for many paths
to enlightenment. Late that year, this conviction
inspired him to compose My Sweet Lord,
a song in which Hindu mantras were mixed interchangeably
with Christian acclamations. To Harrison the difference
between singing “Hare Rama”,
and “Hallelujah” was merely
phonetic, being superficial to cosmic reality. |
| After
its release, My Sweet Lord became an
immediate success. It had been a daring and novel
move. While its musical content was rather ordinary,
(he was later sued for copyright infringement),
its overall concept was anything but ordinary.
My Sweet Lord was novel because it was worship.
The idea that a hit record could be made out of
worship was absolutely unprecedented. But the
tune was catchy, and people in that war-torn era
were captured by the idea that all human beings
might share a common religious experience; that
religious labels and doctrine were merely superficial
and manmade. |
| Since then, this
syncretistic idea has gained almost universal
acceptance in popular culture. By asserting that
all religious paths lead to the same destiny,
syncretism offers the promise of reconciling religious
differences, promoting acceptance and tolerance
among disparate cultures. Yet for Christians it
presents an uncomfortable challenge to the uniqueness
of our faith and worship. For us to claim that
our worship experience is unlike any other simply
sounds narrow-minded, arrogant, even bigoted.
After all, who are we to claim that our worship
is somehow different from that of anyone else
who is “a good person”, with a religious
life that “works for them”? |
| Socially
incorrect as it is, conveying that difference
graciously to those around us is precisely what
we are called to do. It is a divine mandate as
part of the Great Commission. It is as inescapable
as it is uncomfortable for us to proclaim that
worshiping Jesus as Divine Redeemer has no equivalent
in human experience. Our task then is to make
the distinction clear, first in our own minds,
and then in the minds of others. |
| Nowhere is the distinctive
of Christian worship seen more clearly than in
the fourth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel,
a narrative which constitutes the inaugural text
for all Christian worshipers. This account begins
with Jesus and his disciples arriving in the Samaritan
town of Sychar in their journey from Jerusalem
to Galilee. Weary from travel, Jesus rested at
a well, and asked a Samaritan woman for a drink.
She was astounded by Christ’s request because
it was common knowledge that Jewish law forbade
any contact with Samaritans. Furthermore, this
law specifically prohibited the use of utensils
that had been used by Samaritans. Thus, assuming
that Christ would never accept a drink from her
utensil, the Samaritan woman asked in John 4:9,
“How can you ask me for a drink?” |
| But Jesus’
response was equally surprising, declaring, “If
you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks
you for a drink, you would have asked him and
he would have given you living water. Everyone
who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but
whoever drinks the water I give him will never
thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become
in him a spring of water welling up to eternal
life.” |
| When the woman asked
for this living water, the situation became awkward
as Jesus suggested that her husband may also want
it. When she responded with the half-truth, “I
have no husband”, Jesus supernaturally (and
privately) exposed the central moral failing of
her life. “You are right...”, he declared,
“...you have had five husbands, and the
man you now have is not your husband. What you
have just said is quite true.” |
| What transpired next
(in verses 19-20) is often misinterpreted in Bible
commentaries. After acknowledging the veracity
of Jesus’ prophetic insight, she asked a
curious question about where to worship. To some
this may seem a diversion. But in the context
of their culture she could not have made a clearer
confession, because she was asking where to atone
for her sin in a valid manner. |
| Although Jews and
Samaritans disagreed on where the atoning sacrifice
should be made, Gerizim in Samaria or Jerusalem
in Judea, they did agree on one central principle
exemplified in Leviticus 17:11: “it is the
blood that makes atonement for one’s life.”
They knew that unless the matter of sin and atonement
was settled, all other liturgical issues were
moot. Thus, the relationship between worship and
atonement was, and still is, the central issue
of faith. |
| Jesus’ answer
must have astounded this contrite woman. For instead
of instructing her to make a pilgrimage of atonement
to the temple in Jerusalem, as would be expected
of an orthodox rabbi like Jesus, he declared (in
verse 21), “Believe me, woman, the time
is coming when you will worship the Father neither
on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” Then
after acknowledging that salvation would come
only from the Jewish tradition, he went on to
declare (in verse 23-24), “Yet a time is
coming and has now come when the true worshipers
will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for
they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship
in spirit and in truth.” |
| With
this extraordinary statement, the Son of God swept
away centuries of tradition, establishing a new
paradigm for drawing near to God, by invoking
higher principles from the Old Testament. With
this declaration Jesus Christ inaugurated Christian
worship, setting it apart as completely unique
in human experience. Dissecting Christ’s
statement will identify six characteristics that
differentiate Christian worship from all other
devotional systems. In this process we can contrast
Christ’s language and implicit assumptions
with those of the Samaritan woman. This becomes
relevant today because her assumptions exemplify
concepts that are widely accepted today by many
churchgoers and even some clergy. |
| Divine
Initiative “...for..the Father seeks.” |
| Christian worship
is unique because it begins with God seeking man,
rather than man seeking God. The premise behind
the Samaritan woman’s inquiry is that the
penitent worshiper initiates the process of atonement
that leads eventually to reconciliation. But Divine
initiative in Christian worship demands that man
cannot initiate this process. |
| This is clear throughout
Scripture. After feeding the five thousand, for
example, Jesus said, “No man can come to
me, except the Father which has sent me draw him”
(John 6:44). Because of Divine initiative the
apostle Paul could confidently write to the Roman
Christians, “While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.” Thus, long before we
engaged in any kind of religious activity, our
heavenly Father was pursuing us vigorously. |
| The word, “for”,
in the quotation from John 4:23 establishes an
unbreakable causal link between Divine initiative
and Christian worship. In other words: No Divine
initiative, no Christian worship. People can and
do initiate worship, but they cannot initiate
Christian worship. Therefore, authentic Christian
worship is our positive response to a divinely
initiated pursuit. |
| Divine
Relationship “...Father...” |
| “Father”
is a very important word in our narrative. Actually
our Samaritan woman was the one who used it first
in the eleventh verse. She also referred to “our
fathers” in verse twenty. Jesus, seizing
the syntactic opportunity, made “the Father”
central in his dissertation. Of course, the difference
is that she was referring to ancestors as an impersonal
tradition, while Christ was talking about a personal
relationship with “Father”. Tradition
and ceremony play a role in all worship, but are
ancillary to Christian worship. While Christian
worship can connect us institutionally with the
past, its essential characteristic is that it
connects us personally with the Father in a present
relationship. |
| Divine
Nature “...in spirit...” |
| In her question about
worship and atonement, the Samaritan woman spoke
in finite terms of religious places and procedures.
Jesus, on the other hand, spoke in infinite terms
of Divine nature. She spoke of space. He spoke
of spirit. |
| Jesus explained that
true worshipers must worship “in spirit”,
because “spirit” is what God is. Since
“spirit” describes a personal quality,
it addresses more who God is, rather than where
God is. Jesus wanted her to understand that the
atoning currency of heaven is spiritual, not temporal.
Because of sin, human action, no matter how noble
or religious, can never tip the scales of divine
justice in man’s favor. For us, it would
be like trying to spend dollars in France. |
| This
quality is completely unique to Christian worship.
In all other religious systems, the worship itself
is the atonement, seeking to gain cosmic favor,
religious fulfillment, or spiritual consciousness.
Christian worship, on the other hand, seeks neither
to gain divine favor, nor to appease divine wrath
through atonement. |
| The only valid atoning
currency in the courts of heaven is the blood
of Christ, the Lamb of God. Given this fact, Jesus
Christ was the first to worship the Father “in
spirit”. Hebrews 9:14 declares that Christ,
“through the eternal Spirit offered himself
unblemished to God.” The only way we can
worship the Father “in spirit”, is
through Christ as mediator. Christian worship
is the only worship that is separate from the
process of atonement. |
| Divine
Covenant “...in truth...” |
| This simply means
that Christian worship must be free from pretense.
That is why Jesus addressed the woman’s
sin. He knew that for her to have the living water
of salvation, she had to “be real”
about whom she was, just as he was “real”
about whom he was. |
| Christian worship
is unique in that it requires genuineness, under
divine covenant, on the part of both the worshiper
and the worshiped. All other religious systems
bind only the worshiper in devotional covenant,
leaving the cosmic object of worship free to act
arbitrarily. Christ is the only object of worship
that actually makes and keeps covenant promises. |
| Divine
Grace “...the water I give...” |
| We have already seen
that our worship cannot please God because it
is human action, not spiritual currency. Psalm
49:8 says, “the ransom for a life is too
costly, no payment is ever enough...”. That
is why the water of life must be a gift. When
Jesus said, “the water I give”, (verse
14), he liberated Christian worship unconditionally
from religious performance. This means that our
worship seeks not to appease God, but to celebrate
God as our Redeemer. |
| Divine
Indwelling “...will become in him...” |
| All other religious
systems require on-going religious performance
by the worshiper. As the Samaritan woman depended
on the well, likewise the non-Christian worshiper
is bound to devotional discipline for atonement
and validation. But the incredible mystery of
Christian worship is that it frees us from that
kind of dependency. |
| Christians should
worship Jesus Christ not because we need to, but
because we love to. For the non-Christian, worship
is a cosmic remittance requiring renewal. For
the Christian, it is a divine love song celebrating
the perpetual gift of salvation. |
| The
God Squad is a popular TV show hosted by
a Catholic priest, Msgr. Thomas Hartman, and Rabbi
Marc Gellman. In one interview, each was asked
to summarize his faith. Rev. Hartman explained
succinctly that Christians depend upon the blood
of Jesus Christ for atonement. Rabbi Gellman quickly
differentiated Judaism by saying, “In Judaism,
the individual atones for himself.” The
same could be said of any other belief system. |
| Hebrews 13:15 describes
our worship as a unique response to Christ’s
redemption by urging, “Through Christ, therefore,
let us offer to God a sacrifice of praise...” |
©
2007 Steve Griffing, ZionSong Ministries. All rights
reserved.
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