The Divine Service

11 October 2023

This is the function of the Divine Service in the Christian life: to be taken out of ourselves and into the life of God. At the core, the problem of our anxiety is the problem of our constantly drifting away from the center of our lives, which is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Under the pressures of daily living we wander and sometimes run to the edges of life, where we eventually come face-to-face with our own anxiety. This anxiety is a warning sign that we have drifted far. We begin grasping for a secure place to hang on that will prevent us from falling over the mind’s edge into the abyss of despair. […] We tell ourselves all we need to do is try harder or its opposite, relax more. We try to discover some new technique or lifestyle that will resolve the tension. The farther we drift from God, the more we are doomed to our own failing resources. In the end this destroys us both physically and spiritually. God’s response to our drifting is dealt with in the liturgy of public worship, and He begins by giving us a password by which to enter into His presence. That password, given us in the Invocation, is His holy name of “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” In the Invocation, in the Benediction, and when we speak or sing in praise saying, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,” we call on God to lift us out of ourselves and into His healing presence. There, our vision of life is broadened and the air becomes fresh once again. It is there, in the presence of God and lifted out of ourselves by God, that we find healing for all our anxieties, worries, and fears. And if we are willing, they can all be left behind so that we may return to our homes in peace.

Richard C. Eyer, “They Will See His Face”