Historical Background of the Evangelical Liturgy

What is Liturgy?

The word "liturgy" is derived from an ancient Greek word, λειτουργία, which itself is a combination of the terms λαός ("people" or "public"), and ἔργον ("work" or "service"). It originated as a technical term, which referred to works of public service (e.g., infrastructure projects, military funding, hosting major feasts, etc.) that wealthy benefactors performed for their communities. In this vein, the word λειτουργία appears in the Scriptures in reference to the charitable service offered by Christians to one another (Romans 15:27; 2 Corinthians 9:12; Philippians 2:17, 30). In a real sense, all of creation is part of a cosmic liturgy that the wealtheist Benefactor, God Himself, performs for the good of all things. The fact that we have life at all is an act of this Divine benevolence. So, too, is the fact that man is able to find new life in Christ. In this way, the Scriptures also use the word "liturgy" to refer to the priestly ministrations of the Old Testament (St. Luke 1:23; Hebrews 10:11) and the public ministry of the New Testament (Acts 13:2). This latter sense is particularly highlighted by St. Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews, where he stated:

Where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry [λειτουργίας]. (Hebrews 9:16-21)

Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens; A minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount. But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry [λειτουργίας], by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. (Hebrews 8:1-6)

In this light, liturgy is an instantiation of the heavenly principles expressed in Hebrews (the patterns in the temple were not arbitrary, but were physical manifestations of heavenly realities, the two being united in the true Temple of the human person) through the New Testament in Christ’s Blood. Christ’s Blood is the life-giving force that renews and unites mankind to Him. As the blood of beasts ritually purified the Mercy Seat in the Jewish temple, which was a shadow of things to come, so the fullness of the Light of Christ purifies the Throne of our hearts through the washing of rebirth and renewal in His Blood. That Blood substantially enters our bodies in Christian worship, aiding in the purification of our souls and equipping us with the power we need to live lives renewed in the Image of Christ. The Word dwells in our hearts, where it takes the throne. 

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. (2 Corinthians 3:3-9)

The liturgical worship of the Christian Church was constructed as a corporate instantiation of the healing of the human soul, as well as a microcosmic instantiation of the reunification of heaven and earth. Where our first parents were cast out of paradise, with New Adam we boldly re-enter the Garden in Christian worship. Instead of blocking our entry, the Angels join with us as we appropriate their song at the beginning of worship, “Gloria,” celebrating the peace that Christ brings to us as His Glory from on high dwells among men, making men glorious. Indeed, we appropriate the song of the Seraphim, the highest rank of Angels, in singing “Sanctus” as heaven literally unites with earth in time as we glimpse eternity in the Eucharist, where the bread and wine that we bless truly are the substantial Body and Blood of Christ. This symbolic uniting of heaven and earth takes things one step further—the Body and Blood of God unite with our bodies as we partake of the Mystic Meal. This makes us higher than the Seraphim. We become participants in the Divine Nature (2 St. Peter 1:4). 

This participatory aspect of worship is sometimes called mystagogy: the process whereby human beings are able to participate in the Mysteries of God. The mystagogical nature of the liturgy, through which we participate in the cosmic story and Biblical narrative in our own bodies, points to the reality of how God intends for us to worship: “true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him” (St. John 4:23: Note that the word for “worship” used here, προσκυνήσουσιν, is analogous to the word “prostrate,” meaning physical obeisance). In other words, believers who have been renewed in the spirit and recognize the symbolism of the cosmos and the deeper meaning behind the letter will bodily worship Christ not only here or there, but everywhere that His glory has been revealed. By participating in these realities in the body, we subject the body (and with it the letter) to the rule of the spirit and truth. 

Liturgical worship it is the story of life and death, an instantiation of the pattern that the Blessed Reformer called "the making of a theologian:" Oratio (prayer), meditatio (meditation), and tentatio (testing, i.e., ascesis, or exercise). The liturgy is a corporate expression of what it means to live as the re-created son of God that the human person is meant to be as a result of union with Christ and becoming, soul and body, the Temple of the Triune God. The liturgical worship of the Christian Church is meant to aid in metamorphosizing the human mind (nous and logos) through an understanding of the deeper Mysteries of God. Scaffolded by proper sermons and catechetical mystagogy, the Divine Service can enable the human person, soul and body, to participate in the spiritual reality of God and His truth. These Mysteries of God are multitudinous, and the full depth of the Christian’s participation in them, even in the context of liturgical worship, is impossible to innumerate fully. But consider briefly the example that unfolds from the narrative of Christ’s Self-revelation on the Road to Emmaus (St. Luke 24:13-36). 

Like those two holy disciples, the Christian must set aside the cares and concerns of the world (tentatio) to enter into meditation on the Word of God (meditatio). In corporate worship, the Christian comes from wandering the narrow Way of Christ amidst the challenges and testing of the world into the saving ark of the Church. This is bodily experienced when we pass from the narthex into the nave. There, we bodily with our ears experience the worship leaders opening the Scriptures to us like Christ did for His two Emmaus disciples. They had to move beyond the mere facts of what happened – the letter – into the deeper mysteries and meaning latent in those narratives. This passing from the letter to the spirit requires the Christian to employ the logical mind (logos). In sacred dialogue, the preaching and singing of the Scriptures begin to re-order the mind and illuminate the soul. This gives rise to true spiritual and physical contemplative prayer (oratio), where the veil is removed in the Sanctuary and our eyes are opened to fully behold Christ (theoria) and know Him “in the breaking of the bread.” Indeed, more than seeing, we receive Him—and with Him, the Father and the Spirit—and walk with Him in the Garden of our heart, where He reigns as King from the Tree at the Center of the Garden—His Throne of Grace (cf. Genesis 3:8ff). 

On a final note, the disciples on the Road to Emmaus returned from their encounter with Christ back to the narrow Way to share what they had seen and heard with others. This brings the idea of liturgy full circle. We return and share what we have seen and heard, spirits overflowing with the life-giving water of Christ, to bring new life to the ends of the earth. We engage in prayer and meditation in our own homes and lives apart from the corporate assembly. We walk the Way of testing and ascesis as we strive to achieve new heights of illumination and purification by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Way of Life is engaging in this process of renewal and growth in the “making of a theologian” over and over again in overlapping ways. Thus we must always return to the Church's worship, to know the Lord Jesus in the breaking of the bread. There, Christ Himself stands in the midst of us and says, “Peace be unto you" (St. Luke 24:36).  He proclaims that Pax to us through the shepherds of his flock as we prepare to receive the foretaste of the eternal Wedding Feast, just as He proclaimed it to those disciples two thousand years ago. He proclaims to us that He is risen and, with Him, we too have the gift of life for time and for eternity. The experience of life—communion with God—will never reach an end, because God Himself is infinite. Yes, we will know fully, even as we are fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12), but the depths of the riches of the knowledge of God are beyond ever fully searching out because He is the eternal Well-Spring and Source (Romans 11:23). So too, we return to the liturgy in time, mystagogically growing in the knowledge of God unto eternity. 

Setting the Stage for an Evangelical Reform of the Liturgy

At the time of the Holy Reformation, the heart of the liturgy—mystic union with Christ through Word and Sacrament—was obfuscated by the woeful judeo-papal misunderstanding of the question of “merit.” There is nothing Adam did to “merit” the gift of life or His place in the Garden. There is likewise no merit God requires of man to participate in the rebirth of New Adam or to earn entry into the Garden-City of New Jerusalem. The idea that the gifts of God are transactional is still prevalent today, particularly among those who ignore the Biblical heremeneutic of life vs. death and reframe the question of merit in terms of “you can’t do it” or “Jesus did it for you.” The result is the same Biblical illiteracy and ignorance that was rejected by the Reformation, which leaves little no room for a spiritually-illumined comprehension of the Scriptures and participation in the life of Christ. The stagnated sixteenth-century papal misconceptions of merit and grace are a different side of the same coin as such articulations of the Gospel, which reduce grace to little more than God’s happy thoughts about us rather than the intrinsic power that it is for renewing the human person, body and soul, unto glorification (1 Corinthians 15:10). This further results in a loss of the centrality of Christ’s resurrection, His dominion over and union of heaven and earth, and the restoration of the cosmos, which groans in birth pain-like anticipation for “the manifestation of the sons of God[, . . .] to wit, the redemption of our bodies" (Romans 8:19b, 23f). It likewise results in an ignorance of the hope of the glorification of the human body in the world to come and the metamorphosis of the human soul in the present world. Few can articulate what it means to be re-created in the Image of God (knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness) through union with the risen Christ, much less how the constitution of the human soul (nous, logos, and spirit) reflects the Blessed Trinity. The resulting lack of clarity and biblical basis for dealing with the host of anthropological errors and questions (e.g., biblical manhood and womanhood, LGBTQ+, AI, transhumanism, etc.) threaten to undermine the Biblical witness of the Church today. As a result of this misunderstanding, there is little to no discussion of the experiential nature of the Christian life, or the “making of a theologian” (oratio, meditatio, tentatio/ascesis), which has resulted in a general fruitlessness, lack of foresight, naïveté, and unwillingness to discuss or engage with difficult questions and sanctified living. This means more than is usually articulated by the moralistic frame. It means living as the re-created son of God that the human person is meant to be as a result of union with Christ and becoming, soul and body, the Temple of the Triune God. The simplest and yet most profound way to fix these problems is to reestablish a proper understanding of worship, as described above. The Blessed Reformer was keenly aware of this reality, which inspired his 1523 publication of Ordenung Gottis Diensts Ynn Der Gemeyne . 

The Order of Divine Service in the Congregation

The Ordenung Gottis Diensts Ynn Der Gemeyne (“Order of Divine Service in the Congregation,” LW 53, 9-14) of 1523 laid out many suggestions for what worship should look like, ranging from less formal study of the Bible in the Divine Office, to the fuller celebration of the Mass and Vespers on the Lord’s Day. The Ordenung also established basic principles for Evangelical worship: 

1. The Word is central. All public worship should involve preaching and prayer.
2. The chants and liturgical texts that conform to the Scriptures should be retained.
3. The ministers are responsible for maintaining liturgical worship.
4. The cult of the saints should be abolished, but the biblical Feasts retained.
5. The Sacrament should be offered every Sunday and whenever it is desired. 

Luther’s publication of the Formula Missae shortly after the Ordenung was a practical manifestation of these Evangelical ideals. At the outset, he again maintained, “It is not now nor ever has been our intention to abolish the liturgical service of God completely, but rather to purify the one that is now in use from the wretched accretions which corrupt it and to point out an evangelical use” (LW 53, 19). This reality was instantiated in the Formula Missae’s retention of the traditional ordinary of the Mass, collects, chants, and cycle of lessons, but with the restoration of an overarching Evangelical paradigm. This paradigm, distilled to its core, can be understood from the first of Luther’s Evangelical principles of worship: the Word is central. 

For Luther, at the heart of that Word was the Evangelical understanding that the forgiveness of sins is freely given, i.e., that we are justified by faith alone. The classical definition of "liturgy" as an act of benevolence for the good of the people underscores this interpretation. In terms of the Holy Reformation, this meant understanding the public liturgy or "Mass" as a gift—God’s Work (Divine Service). This was opposed to the dogma that Luther termed the “abomination of the mass” (SA, II, II, 1), which posited that the the work of men in offering the mass was the focal point, such that just the right words spoken in just the right way would appease the wrath of God and atone for the sins of the living and the dead by virtue of the work performed regardless of faith. In contrast, the Evangelical Mass, or Divine Service, delivered the fruit of Christ’s once-for-all atoning sacrifice, understanding that the propitiation of our sin and new life in Him are given from the wellspring of His life-giving blood rather than on the basis of merit. 

In the Deutsche Messe, published three years after the Formula Missae, Luther augmented this emphasis on forgiveness that comes by faith alone through musical composition. Unlike the Formula Missae, the Deutsche Messe included notation for various chants and other musical prescriptions, which were likely edited by Luther’s kantor, Johann Walter. The Formula Missae did not necessitate complex musical settings for an obvious reason: it was an Evangelical revision of an existing liturgo-musical cultus. Although a vestige of an ancient civilization, the Latin Mass represented the survival of a unique musical and linguistic culture—admittedly, with numerous regional dialects as it spread further from its source in Rome. Nevertheless, the text and music of the Liturgy were already suited to the language and culture of Latin in its various forms. In contrast, no such liturgical cultus existed for the German language. Luther had the monumental task of developing a textual and musical expression that represented the culture and language of Germany rather than Rome. The success of his labors is represented by the chorale tradition that flourished in the centuries that followed.

The Centrality of the Chorale in the Evangelical Liturgy

From the publication of the first Lutheran hymnal in 1524 and the Deutsche Messe in 1526, the chorale held pride of place at the heart of the movement’s liturgico-musical expression. The Blessed Reformer is credited with the conception of the chorale as a musical form. As a trained musician himself, Luther composed over 45 chorale melodies along with their attendant prose. The premise behind the chorale as a construct was to provide accessible, appropriate, and musically interesting settings of “German Psalms” that could be used in corporate, vernacular worship. Luther understood this to be a truly catholic undertaking. He sought to recast and use the models of Latin hymnody and Psalm chants that the Church had used for centuries in the construction of these German settings. 

The success of the chorale was also demonstrated in its liturgical enshrinement in the Evangelical tradition. In addition to the staple chorales that formed the ordinary liturgical canticles, the seasonal chorales that Luther and his contemporaries composed became the Kernlieder (“core hymns”) that formed the basis of weekly liturgical expression, which earned pride of place through the ages in German hymnals, as evidenced in compendiums like the 1682 Neu Leipziger Gesangbuch used through Johann Sebastian Bach’s (1685-1750) time in Leipzig (1723-1750). These hymns also became enshrined in the liturgy as the Hauptlied (English: Chief Hymn) of the week, which shaped piety throughout the Church year. For a laity that had been deprived of basic catechesis, these texts and melodies were a ritual that ordered the yearly rhythm of life. In the words of Carl Schalk, 

Since the time of the Reformation, three books, it has been said, have been the principal shapers of Lutheran piety. Of these three books—the Bible, the catechism, and the hymnbook—one might reasonably argue that it was the hymnbook, certainly the most regularly and frequently encountered, that has had the most enduring and lasting influence. It is unquestionably the regular and recurrent use of hymns in worship that has shaped so much of our basic vocabulary of words, phrases, and images that have become part of both our individual and collective memory as church. Hymns planted deep in memory and recalled to mind in various situations of the Christian life, are more powerful and influential in our spiritual nurture than we might imagine. Nor was singing in Lutheran piety relegated to the Sunday gathering of the faithful. It was equally part of Lutheran piety in the home in family and personal devotions, and hymns—at various times in Lutheran history—could be heard at work, in the fields, wherever Christians might gather. Singing hymns was an activity that permeated the Christian life day in and day out (God’s Song in a New Land, Kindle location 112–119). 

While Schalk’s description of the role of hymnody in the average Evangelical-Lutheran household during the period of Lutheran Orthodoxy might seem somewhat wistful, the manifest importance of the chorale might be most clearly evinced by the inspiration it provided for the copious musical compositions from a wide swath of German composers, ranging from Michael Praetorius (1571–1621) and Johann Pachlebel (1653-1706) to J. S. Bach, who utilized them in diverse ways. Volumes have been written chronicling the musical nuance of Bach’s works, among the other German masters, as expressions of theological truths based on the melodic character of the chorales upon which they were based—even without any textual reference. Indeed, the chorale was proffered by composers of organ and other instrumental pieces that became liturgico-musical offerings in their own right, fulfilling Luther’s philosophical conviction that “the music, or the notes, which are a wonderful creation and gift of God, help materially” as a source of spirituality and praise (LW, vol. 15, p. 273). 

Meanwhile, the Reformer's sixteenth-century Deutsche Messe flourished and was codified in the Saxon agendas (i.e., liturgical books), which embellished upon his original metrical offerings with new settings in the spirit of his original vision. The prototypical Agende of the Saxon tradition was produced by Justus Jonas and others under the auspices of Duke Henry IV the Pious (Herzog Heinrich IV der fromme) in 1539/1540—a mere thirteen years after the original publication of the Deutsche Messe (see Jonas, et al., Agende). The liturgical flow of the Agende and its structural elements were adapted from Luther’s rites, with a simpler form for village settings and a more elaborate ritual for cities. It is important to note that the Agende did not rigidly follow Formula Missae or Deutsche Messe exclusively in either the city or village. The Latin prose settings of the liturgical canticles were juxtaposed with chorales. Later versions would embellish even further, including with the addition of chorale settings of the Kyrie and Gloria. These liturgical “Ordinary” chorales used in the Saxon Agende had the potential to become even more enshrined in the hearts of the faithful than the ritualized use of the Hauptlied, since the liturgical chorales were a weekly mainstay of the rite. This promoted the inculcation and continuing cultural significance of the chorale tradition on a much deeper level. Indeed, while successive editions of the Saxon Agende were published, the volume remained relatively consistent until the eighteenth century, when it inspired rites in the fledgling Evangelical bodies of the United States.

The Universality of the Evangelical Liturgy

Although the Blessed Reformer's initial liturgical efforts were centered in Saxony, it is important to remember that the impact of the chorale exceeded the German idiom. Indeed, there were Evangelical-Lutheran Churches that existed outside the boundaries of German politics and language. Nevertheless, the liturgical chorales permeated all of Lutheranism, owing at least in part to the influence of the Saxon Reformer who inspired them. Indeed, beyond Luther himself, theologians and compatriots of the Reformer spread the Evangelical message of the Holy Reformation abroad to various peoples and languages, including Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Although the fledgling Reformation was spread to England, its influence was tempered by radicals who rejected the Evangelical philosophy of music that resulted in the development of the chorale. While the chorale was translated by Victorian Anglicans into English, its central use as a feature of liturgical worship was not the same in the official Churches of the English-speaking realms, albeit among dissenters and Moravians there was some usage. Nevertheless, when Germanic, Scandinavian, and Eastern European members of the Evangelical Church immigrated to the United States, they entered a religious scene basically devoid of the chorale. They brought the Evangelical liturgy with them, but its translation into English never fully manifested. Today, most Evangelical Churches use liturgical forms inspired by Anglo-Catholics and the papal church. It is within this liturgical vacuum that the Evnagelical Psalter seeks to provide a uniform English rite of the Evangelical Liturgy.