The Liturgy of Love

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." -Hebrews 13:8, NLT

I love my wife.  I love the small, daily rituals we have, the continual, domestic liturgy of laying down together at night, kissing whenever we first meet after work, sitting down to watch TV in the evening. It is in these small moments of ritual, not in a continual splash of new experiences, that I feel closest to her, that my heart is free to be itself and simply enjoy and relish her presence.

Love is not hindered by ritual, but thrives in it the same way a rose thrives in the day to day sameness of morning, noon and night, water and sunshine.  The ritual itself is not love, but it is within the comforting familiar that our hearts relax.  Those who seek thrills are not seeking love, because ultimately love always settles into a kind of comforting sameness, and thus the thrill-seeker must constantly be running to new "loves" all the time to keep the spark of newness alive.

As believers, we do well if we consider this principle as we approach God.  It is fashionable within churches today to pounce upon anything deemed "religious" as a kind of Pharisaical heresy, a legalistic wall to be torn down.  Liturgy, ritual and traditions are dashed and, despite scriptural uses of the word "religion" being used to describe our faith (as in James 1:27), we treat the word as though it were comprised of only four letters.

If, as believers, we approached the Lord with half the reverence shown by our more devote (and liturgical) Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran brothers and sisters, we would do well.  Unfortunately, the fashion is to chase after new experiences, or after revivals to refresh us and pep us up for another spiritually draining year, or month, or week.  For my own part I put little stock in these things.  We shouldn't be seeking after experiences, thrills or revivals; it is enough to simply know the God who is the same "yesterday, today, and forever."

To know that the same God who commands the day and summons the night, calls forth the seasons in their turn and causes the flowers to grow, to bloom, to wilt, and then to grow again; this God who keeps the world moving by His direct, tireless and continual thought, who never grows weary of making the grass grow or the cycle of the rain continue onward throughout the years; to know, I say, that this same God looks down upon me, a man, a beast, an ultimately insignificant speck in the vast universe He created, and does so with the same tireless, unending, continual love, fills me with awe, as it ought to fill each one of us who are called by His name.

So continue to wake, kneel by the bedside and pray to your Father, without concern for whether your prayers are the same as yesterday, for He hears them with the same constant care today as He did then.  Sing your songs of praise without bothering to worry if your Heavenly Father is bored with the lyrics, for He is overjoyed to hear the voice of His child singing to Him.  Walk throughout your day without seeking for newness, without looking for sparks, but instead resting in the continual comfort that comes from knowing that He is near, never taking His eternal, loving gaze away from you.  Within that endless comfort, let our hearts rest and delight themselves in Him.