Laudamus Te; Benedicimus Te; Adoramus Te!

I love Sunday. “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into house of our God,” but even more likely would I be the one saying “Let us go.”

My favorite place to be is church, preferably a beautiful church with high, vaulted ceilings and intense stained-glass images, one whose atmosphere is one of reverence and formality. Why? Because I believe those aesthetics represent the character of our God so much better than strictly functional surroundings—a view shared by war-weary king David (II Samuel 7). Certainly a casual glance at nature communicates the idea that beauty was important to God; confirming this notion, God’s instructions for the Temple construction concluded often with the words “for glory and for beauty” (Exodus 28).

While the Old Testament protocols are not part of our worship, we see that God does want us to think of Him in connection with “glory and beauty.” He wants us to have some impression of his majesty and worth, and so it hurts me to be inside an ugly church.

Liturgical worship is very special to me. I love its formal structure, its artful text, which, for the most part, is taken straight from the Bible. It’s an especially lovely experience when we sing the Matins service with its ancient canticles, the Venite and the Te Deum.

Of all the fragrant Matins text, the one bit that possesses my mind is this line from the Venite: "O come, let us worship Him!" My body shivers as I turn on the organ mixtures and play this sweeping line of music, which, set off from the rest of the text at the end, communicates the prophet-king’s compelling call for God’s people to worship with him. I’m not just playing the service—I am investing my spirit in the call to worship, for God has called me to Himself. I am irresistibly drawn to worship Him, and I must compel the redeemed to worship with me. In the space of that sanctuary, it’s as though I myself turn eagerly to my fellow believers and beg them to “kneel before the Lord Our Maker.” (How could we not—“for He is a great God; a great king above all gods; in His hand are all the deep places of the earth!”)

Half the thrill comes from knowing that even predating the Incarnation, God’s elect sang those very same words in formal, corporate worship. If it was fitting to sing this in the days before Christ, how much more to sing it now, illumined by the utter fulfillment of God’s promise? My prayers, my worship, mingle with those of other worshippers—no longer separated by time and space, but all in praise before our common Lord. “O come, let us worship Him!” This primitive, urgent cry sums up the only response appropriate to the love of our God . . . Who became our Savior.