Liturgy and Spiritual Awakening, Part Two

In the comments below, I am quoting from Clifford Ansgar Nelson’s translation of Bishop Bo Giertz’s herdabrev, “Liturgy and Spiritual Awakening,” published by Augustana Book Concern in 1950.

Bishop Giertz begins his discussion of these matters by positing that “The Word of God creates the church” (p. 10). That Word appeared in two different forms—those “which seem to be more or less improvised and spontaneous and those which appear fixed and unchangeable”—or “awakening” and “liturgy,” as they are commonly called (p. 10).

Liturgy has deep roots in the apostolic age: “The altar is today the only place in our modern life where, with unbroken tradition, the vestments are still used which were worn by people in that olden day. Within the walls of the church one can still hear musical settings that preserve something of the very tones of that hymn of praise which our Lord and His disciples sang when they ate the paschal meal” (p. 12). And yet it is not the antiquity of the service that most commends itself, but “the fact that it is a form which the Spirit Himself has created to preserve and deepen the life which He has awakened in the church” (p. 13).

Awakening also has apostolic roots. But its language is different. “The instrument of awakening is the spoken Word, a word with prophetic authority, powerful to crush the hard rock of a soul and also appealing with all the inward warmth of the gospel. The language of awakening is often akin to everyday speech….Therefore, the words of awakening do not employ such phrases as, for the example, the Root of Jesse, or the Key of David. Rather do they speak to the children of the age in the language of the age about those things which have been forgotten but need to be heard again,” while liturgy “uses all the richness of the Scriptures, all the meaningful symbols and prefigurements of Christ in the Old Testament” (p. 14).

Both are necessary. “Awakening is always needed…because there is always the need for awakening even among the most faithful members of the church….The old Adam in each one of us is prone to fall asleep, to make the Christian life a dead routine, to use liturgical form to cloak his self-complacency and impenitence” (p. 16). “Liturgy is just as needful. There can be no normal church life without liturgy. Sacraments need form; the order of worship must have some definite pattern. It is possible to live for a short time on improvisations” but “in circles where people seek to live without any forms, new forms are nevertheless constantly taking shape….But it would not be wrong to say that the new forms that grow up in this way are usually less attractive and more profane than the ancient liturgy….The new liturgy that grows in this manner is poorer, less Biblical, and less nourishing to the soul than the discarded ancient order” (pp. 17-18).

Giertz notes that liturgy has many enemies, including “sluggish, dead passivity” (p. 19). But liturgy’s most formidable enemy is awakening, because few worldly sluggards count themselves as more spiritual than liturgy, but the awakened are tempted to count liturgy as an improper form of worship (p. 19). But as Giertz perceptively notes, “there is often a goodly portion of self-righteousness and egocentricity in [awakening’s] judgment. The old Adam is an unequalled opportunist” (p. 21). Awakening dismisses the liturgy because a person was not awakened in the liturgy but in some other manner and therefore, this manner “must be the proper way” or even “the only right way” (p. 21).

Giertz adds that there is another reason many oppose the liturgy, “humanly understandable but no more valid: There are people who find it difficult to feel at home in the liturgical forms” (p. 22). In other words, some people find liturgical forms “very natural, so that they immediately feel at home in them, while other people find it hard to become accustomed to them” (p. 23). A solution might be to abandon the liturgy in part or in total, but Giertz will have none of that: “All liturgy demands the submerging of self” (p. 22). A Christian “who will not subordinate himself in such fellowship is no Christian, because one cannot be a Christian by one’s self” (p. 23). “When revival piety in the church is unwilling to live in the framework of the liturgy in the common service of worship, it has placed itself outside the fellowship of the church and can no longer be counted as a living movement of the church of Christ” (p. 25).

Lest this seem too big of a burden for the non-liturgically oriented to bear, Giertz adds, “Outside the common worship service there must be freedom….There must be full freedom also for all those forms of worship which truly serve for edification; they may be services of prayer, inner circles of fellowship, liturgical orders of devotion, and many another type of worship” (p. 25). The only stipulation is that these worship forms “shall never displace or be a substitute for the great fellowship of the Sunday common service.”

Having spoken against awakening’s interference with the liturgy, Giertz warns about a false liturgy, which can “become an almost impregnable armor for the old Adam” (p. 26). He asks (p. 26), “What can the Holy Spirit do with a person who goes to Communion more faithfully than anyone else in the congregation, who for an hour a day prays beautiful prayers from the Psalter or from the classic prayer books of Christendom…but who through all these exercises only becomes more and more convinced that he is a better kind of person, a person…who loves no one except himself and his holy ceremonies?” Thus, “liturgy without awakening is probably the most dangerous of all church programs. It is possible to enrich and beautify the worship service, to add vestments and choirs, to plan lovely vespers, and even to arrange for more frequent communions, without a single person in earnestness asking himself, ‘How shall I, a sinner, be saved?’” (p. 28).

Giertz adds that “awakening needs liturgy” (p. 30), if it is going to be sound enough to pass on its heritage from one generation to the next. But “awakening, or revival, can also serve liturgy. When men are wakened, there is new life in the old forms of devotion….Ancient, beautiful custom becomes more than custom. It becomes an expression for the life which is born again” (p. 31).

Giertz concludes by positing that “the need for awakening will one day cease. It belongs to this world, where men still sleep the sleep of death….But liturgy will remain….a never ending thanksgiving to the Creator and Father of all things” (pp. 31-32).