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Easter Redux
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Saturday evening I went with friends to an Orthodox Christian Easter service. It started at 11 p.m., which suited the strangeness of things. I had never been inside their cathedral before, nor any like it, with its domed roof, iconography covering the walls and ceilings, the carved wood screen in front, the bishop’s throne to the right. My friend explained the meaning of all these things, the deliberateness of them. For the first time since childhood, I experienced a Christian service as an almost complete outsider.
I often make the things of God comfortable. I skim my Bible, having heard this story before, or not wanting to dwell on exactly how the calf gets carved up to suit God’s strictures. Like most Protestant churches, mine doesn’t place many demands on worshippers; we sing a bit, and sometimes there is a responsive reading, but mostly we sit and listen. Occasionally there is toddler duty, which I’ve found gets inflicted less when one asks if one is allowed to spank them. It’s easy to get comfortable. I suspect comfort may be the greatest danger to active faith.
So it was enlightening to view an entirely different kind of worship. The unfamiliarity of their worship made me consider how we Protestants have our own rituals, though in radically truncated form, and how maybe ritual can be a good thing. The Orthodox use, for example, voices in their service — the choir singing or chanting, actual chanters, the priests themselves, all of them blending tones to outdo even the most elaborate multi-piped organs. Hearing the bishop chant John Chrysostom seemed somehow more right than an entire congregation warbling the latest Chris Tomlin song.
There were other things, like the way they all crossed themselves at the drop of a hat. And the way they knew when to respond with a phrase like “Lord have mercy,” or even exclamations in other languages. The fact that they stood for almost the entire service. How they kept their arms crossed as they went up for communion, and almost knelt for the bishop to drop it into their mouths, many of them carrying sleepy children who also received communion. All of it — even the rituals I didn’t understand or care for — felt holy, if one is allowed to feel one’s way to holiness.
There were a thousand things for a dutiful Calvinist to get irate about, I suppose, but what struck me was the earnestness of this gathering, all shouting “Indeed He is risen!” at the top of their voices at 2 a.m., when the service ended. Afterwards, almost nobody went home, because there was a feast in their fellowship hall. People brought baskets of the things they’d forsaken for Lent, and the party began.
I ate too, because the bishop made clear that all faithful are welcome at Christ’s banquet table. And even though I had already celebrated Easter, I left feeling full, not just with food, but with the sense that, though their rituals are not mine, I have 300 million brothers and sisters (the estimated size of the worldwide Orthodox Christian congregation) stumbling and grasping their way to God as I do, as I suspect many of you do.
He is risen.
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Don’t blame racism
“Hearing the bishop chant John Chrysostom seemed somehow more right than an entire congregation warbling the latest Chris Tomlin song.”
Why is ‘more right’ in itallics? Why does one have to be more right than the other? Why can’t both be worship and beautiful? Aside from the warbling which is a discription that makes the muically challenged like myself clam up during congregational singing:)
Isn’t it kind of funny, or maybe ironic, that we tend to think of things done in a ritualistic, deliberate manner as being holy?
The most ungodly sinner, familiar with the rituals (or with the latest praise chorus, for that matter) can seem holy.
We know it is not the ritual or the deliberateness (for lack of a better word) that is holy, but the heart-attitude. But there’s something about it, the ritual, that looks holy.
Adios - I, too, am “musically challenged” (very much so), but I still sing, though not too loud. I take comfort in knowing that God is pleased with my singing efforts to praise Him nonetheless.
Maybe, hearing us through the blood of Jesus, we sound beautiful to Him.
Rituals have the power to keep one practicing the ritual even when the heart-attitude is not there. This can have good consequences as well as bad. There are people who fool themselves into thinking that the ritual alone is good enough. But there are also people who continue to come to church, pray, hear and read the Bible, even when they feel that their faith is gone, because of the power of ritual. And some of those people will in time find their faith strengthened through the continued interaction with the people of God and the Word of God.
As soon as I read it, I knew some folks would tune only into that non-judgemental reference to right and wrong worship music, the age-old argument. But we knew what you meant Tony; and we also suspect sometimes what we’re missing in our non-denominational churches who go out of their way to MAKE EVERYBODY comfortable, and we’re still not.
That was a wonderful piece; many of us are starting to wonder what we’ve lost in the worship experience.
A middle-aged Orthodox man visiting an evangelical church for the first time might say, “It was so warm, so inclusive. The music gave a modern voice to ancient truths. For the first time, the worship came out in the language of my heart! And EVERYONE sang! And the homily! (or whatever they call it — sermon?) The pastor read straight from the book of Galations and explained it in a way that made sense and is applicable right here in 2008 Dubuque. Oh, the freedom I’ve sacrificed on the altar of Orthodox stodginess!”
Every believer needs an occasional reminder that what unites us is greater than what divides us.
He is Risen indeed!
Here’s an interesting article about Vladimir Grigorenko, a former atheist who began studying church art, which led him to become an Orthodox Christian, and he’s now an Orthodox iconographer. He’s just finishing up painting the interior of an Orthodox church in Dallas (which I believe is the home church of crunchy con columnist Rod Dreher). How long has he spent painting this single church? Eight years. And that’s painting full time, year round.
http://snipurl.com/2669r
Here’s a video report on the project.
http://snipurl.com/266am
Check out this video about him, too.
http://snipurl.com/266am
Tony I can relate. We hosted an Orthodox Christmas Eve dinner in our home for some Macedonian Orthodox friends. In researching what to prepare I learned of the deep symbolism of each action. As we cut the first piece of cross-marked bread and laid it aside “for the Lord”, I sensed a part of the fellowship of the saints that I’ve missed all my life. The Orthodox Christmas dinner will hopefully be a tradition in our family from here on - whether we have others to celebrate with or not.
Karen O,
“The most ungodly sinner, familiar with the rituals (or with the latest praise chorus, for that matter) can seem holy.”
I guess I don’t understand why it matters if someone looks holy or not. I don’t think we should be looking around to see who looks more or less holy than others.
Tony, sounds like you’re on the road to Constantinople. Better that than the road to Rome!
“Occasionally there is toddler duty, which I’ve found gets inflicted less when one asks if one is allowed to spank them.”
LOL - That line jumped out at me from this article and just struck me as funny.
Sorry for the bad sense of humor today, people.
Now, I’ll go back and slowly read the remainder of the article.
“Every believer needs an occasional reminder that what unites us is greater than what divides us.”
Ah! Well stated StuBob!
May our speech be like that of the puritan Phillip Henry. Matthew Henry, says of his father, that every Lord’s Day, his father’s greeting was, “He is risen, He is risen indeed!”
I loved this post Tony, esp. the paragraph on “I often make the things of God comfortable.” as well as “I have 300 million brothers and sisters”.
Christians love to separate, that being technically defined as holy. But to me, holiness is of God. It is found in the birth of a child, the death of a saint. Creation screams of God’s holiness.
Yet, this week we visited a Free Presbyterian Church, which was founded by the Irish Radical Ian Paisley. His idea of holiness was to shout at Pope John Paul at the top of his lungs that he was the Antichrist.
Since that Pope is dead, Paisley was wrong, but he goes on shouting. His church is the most separationist I have seen in a while, yet I would not call that holiness. I would call it exclusive and self righteous.
Even so, I consider them brethren in the Lord. They would not say the same of me.
John M. - My point was that what “looks” holy isn’t necessarily holy at all, & that we humans can be swayed or impressed by what “looks” or seems holy.
Holiness is in the inside, in the heart-attitude & character of a person or church. Even those of us who know this full well, as Tony must, can get an impression of holiness from the sights & sounds of ritual.
(On the other hand, I am not saying that those performing these rituals were then not holy. If any were holy, it is because of what Christ has done inside them, not what they did on the outside.)
Thanks for this fine piece concerning your experience at an Orthodox Great and Holy Pascha service.
May we look forward to a better day when Orthodox chanters and singers lift their voices in the mother church, the Hagia Sofia.
Karen,
Clearly rituals can actually be “holy” even though they are not performed by persons who are holy. The Bible makes this abundantly clear when God prescribes a certain form of worship for the Jews, expecting both Levites and the rest of the people to engage in worship in a particular manner. These rites were holy in and of themselves because God prescribed them; they were not dependent on the holiness of the person(s) performing the rites.
Bobstu- Loved the comment about stodginess. Don’t we all wish someone would reformulate the Bible so that it could be warm and inclusive, speak the language of MY heart, and give modern voice to ancient truths. I’m looking for a nice tickle, here.
All- It appears that Tony experienced a service that, for once, was not all about what it offered him (whether in terms of cool music, great preaching, good feelings, or whatever) but was simply about what it offered God– worship. Perhaps it catered to God rather than to people? Odd concept, that . . .
I attended an Orthodox Catholic church in Longwood some time ago at the behest of an online friend. (Long story.)
At first, I was somewhat uncomfortable because everything was “new” and relatively unfamiliar. I’d been prepped beforehand by my friend, but obviously that couldn’t encompass everything.
I thought it was interesting how so many symbolic things in scripture (the prayers of the saints are like incense, etc.) were turned into literal and metaphorical parts of the service.
The entire service was laden with symbolism, and every symbol had a meaning. I didn’t necessarily agree with all of the symbols, but I respected that everyone in the congregation knew what each symbol meant and why they did it.
The entire service was sung, except for a brief Bible “lesson,” and we had copies of the liturgy to keep track of where we were in the service, and what the proper “responses” were when the time came.
We weren’t allowed to take communion because we weren’t Orthodox, but we were invited to eat with them afterwards nonetheless. In fact, I found it very interesting that a significant number of people who attended the church were former Baptists. Apparently, their traditions and history are very attractive to many in the Baptist church.
I thought the service was beautiful, and though I disagree with a lot of their theology, I don’t think they’re plunging headlong into hell, and I wouldn’t mind attending another service if I got the opportunity.