Ancient Future Worship

        What is worship? I think when most of us are asked this question, the first thing that comes to mind is music and dancing. However, I feel that this is a very shallow answer and lacks much theological depth. In Robert Webber’s book, Ancient-Future Worship, he goes into the idea that worship DOES God’s story. What he means by this concept is that we are to remember God’s redemptive actions in the past, anticipate the eschaton and have the connection of the two manifest in the present.

        Imagine yourself at the age of 80, sitting next to the fireplace with a cup of coffee with your husband/wife of 50 years. As you sit there, you begin to remind yourself of all the great experiences you two had together. You especially remember all the times when they came to your side when you were in need of company and help. Similarly, worship is to do the same thing. We are reminded of the many stories in the Bible of when God came to the rescue of His people (The Exodus, David vs. Goliath, Samson, Gideon, etc.). We ultimately see God’s greatest act in salvation through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 Going a little further, we see that Jesus’ message and job in the Synoptic Gospels (Matt. Mk. Lk.) was to announce the breaking-in of the Kingdom of God. When we read the Bible, you can’t help but to notice that there is an understanding of God’s Kingdom already being here but it has yet to be fully realized. We are anticipating that day when Christ comes back and fully ushers in the Kingdom on Earth (“Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on EARTH as it is in Heaven”). We are awaiting to be back in the Garden, where we are fully in the presence of God. It is like a long pregnancy, where you have gone through much of the work in keeping your baby healthy but you still are looking to the day when they are finally born and with you.

 So what does this look like in our context today? Webber states that proper worship connects the past with the future. In our own worship, we are to be reminded week in and week out that we have been saved out of sin’s grasp. However, we must be sober-minded and not forget that the work is not yet done. We live in anticipation for Christ’s return, when he will redeem all of creation.

 The fear is that when we over-realize the eschaton, we celebrate too much and forget the fact that sin and pain are in this world. We forget out responsibility of helping the poor and preaching the Gospel. If our realization of the Kingdom being here is too low, we get weary of the life we are to live and we become like the whiny Israel in the desert; we lose hope. We are in need of understanding what it means to live with both aspects in life.

 What we must do then in response to this understanding is to take seriously the preaching of the Word and be very mindful of the right administration of the sacraments (Baptism and Eucharist). As we “act out” our redemptive history and our fully realized future redemption, we remind ourselves that we are living for a good God who has all things under His control.