GENESIS

GENESIS

Why do weWorship?

創世記

Deuteronomy 5:6-12 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7 you shall have no other gods before me.

8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me, 10 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.11 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.

Sacrifice of Noah 1509

Psalm 113 Praise the Lord ye servantssung by the Gloucester Cathedral Choir

on the CD The Psalms of David – Volume 3

It’s Jesus in Me sung by the Caravans

on CD ‘The Glory of Black Gospel’

Where did our worship come from?

Three CamaldoliteMonks at Prayer1713-14Alessandro

Magnasco

Hours of the Office at dawn Matins at dawn Lauds at ~6 am Prime at ~9 am Terce at noon Sext at ~3pm None at sunset Vespers Known as "Evening Prayer" or "Evensong") at bedtime Compline

Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)Archbishop of Canterbury

Baptism of Christ1568El GrecoGalleria Estense, Modena

Saint Ambrose baptising Saint AugustineBenozzo Gozzoli (1464-65)

What does worship achieve?

If our worship is dull, it is not because of any lack of showmanship on the part of the clergyman or of musical virtuosity on the part of the organist or the choir, but because the participants (and perhaps even the leader?) have lost their sense of being swept up into the living purposes of an almighty God.

Last Supper（最後的晚餐） by Zhang You-

Ming

Army Chaplain celebrating the Eucharist during the Gulf War

Was ever another command so obeyed? For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from pinnacles of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church... — one could fill many pages with reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei — the holy common people of God

Dom Gregory Dix – The Shape of the Eucharist.

GENESIS