 My Hiding Place |
A Republic Gone Awry  |
Everything Old, Is New Again
When I was young I served as an alter boy in a small church, it was an honor to be able to just serve and participate in the ceremony to worship God. It left a huge impression on me, later in my life I moved into a more western version of an evangelical faith. Through those years the form of worship seemed to be whatever felt right, most churches in this vein follow a fairly similar pattern, there are some variances but not by much. And to be honest Catholicism was always viewed as nothing more than a bunch of empty ceremonies, with too much focus on the virgin Mary.
So imagine my surprise that I’m now attending an Anglican church and in many ways am following some of the same Roman Catholic ceremonies, and here’s the kicker: I’m finding that they are FABULOUS!!!
I had never even heard of the term ‘Stations’, but have been reading them over at Michael Spencers site and I’ve found them to be moving, full of impact and causing me to really reflect on what this holiday really stands for. As well I’m learning about the tradition of Baptism in the Anglican church and I’m impressed, everything that’s done has a purpose, everything has a well thought out reason. There’s no reason to go into a diatribe about Easter and it’s true meaning, but a little reflection at the least would do all of us some good.
For so many years I heard talk of freedom of worship, but I think we got the message wrong. You have the freedom to worship any way you want, but there is *so* much we can learn from the ancient church, it’s arrogant and to be honest: fully unwise to simply ignore their traditions!. You can have a modern service and still follow the liturgical traditions that have been passed down since the time of the church in the first century. Too often we forget that the early church was filled with Jew’s who came from a culture that has incredibly deep worship traditions, we would do well to pay attention to how they approached worship. After all we are 2000 years removed from the time of Christ, many of the traditions held today in some of the Ancient churches have been around since the first century church.
This doesn’t mean that I support every tradition, we need to have discernment. But we should also have an open heart and not be afraid to ask questions, if you do I think you’ll find that some of the ancient traditions are incredibly powerful and help keep us humble in our worship of Christ.
Peace to you this holiday season.
-Paul-
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