Liturgy Lessons: November 8, 2020
Morning Service (9 and 11 a.m.)
Call to Worship – Psalm 146
Prayer of Invocation
Hymn of Exaltation – O Worship the King
Confession – Jeremiah 9:23-25 and prayer
Assurance of Pardon – Eph. 2:4-9
Hymn of Assurance: My Worth is Not in What I Own
Catechism/Prayers
Reading of the Word – Luke 20:45 – 21:4
Doxology – #731
Sermon – Rev. Eric Irwin
Meditation
The Lord’s Supper – How Deep the Father’s Love for Us; Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Wretched
Benediction
Evening Service (6:30 p.m.)
Call to Worship – Psalm 65:1-8
Prayer of Invocation
Hymn – I’ll Praise My Maker
Reading of the Word – Ruth 2
Homily – Rev. Shiv Muthukumar
Meditation – I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say
Communion – How Lovely is Your Dwelling Place; Here is Love, Vast as the Ocean
Benediction
“Enemy-occupied territory: that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”
– C. S. Lewis
In the opening monologue for SNL on Halloween night, comedian John Mulaney gave a snarky summary of this election. “There’s two elderly men, and you’re supposed to choose your favorite of the elderly men,” Mulaney explained, “You can put it in the mail, or you can … write down which elderly man you like, and then we’ll add them all up, and then we might have the same elderly man or we might have a new elderly man.” Indeed, it may be that both Donald Trump (age 74) and Joe Biden (77) are a bit long in the tooth for presidential candidates, but it is the ongoing drama surrounding this 2020 election that is really getting old. By the time you read this, we hopefully will know which golden-ager will be retiring to the White House. However, as it stands right now on November 4th (a full 24 hours after the polls closed), we are told to expect further delay for ballot re-counts and impending lawsuits. Just because you’re over the hill doesn’t mean you can’t fight to be King of it.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this election is that most people are simply backing a party or policy, not rallying behind a leader. Both candidates are far from inspiring. Biden seems too square for the oval office, and Trump just has too many sharp corners to fit. More than that, both men seem deficient in moral integrity. But to millions of Americans, that doesn’t matter. We simply put up with the person on the platform. Our expectation of true character as a prerequisite for the highest office in the land is now a thing of the distant past.
Of course, the gold standard in this regard has always been our nation’s first president, George Washington, the magnanimous leader who set the precedents that would define what it means to be a constitutional executive. “His integrity was pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision,” Thomas Jefferson observed. “He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man.”
In an article entitled “The Man Who Would Not Be King”, Matthew Spalding of the Heritage Foundation tells the story of what made George Washington a truly great leader.
Washington’s most important legacy comes during moments of temptation, when the lure of power was before him. Twice during the Revolution, in 1776 and again in 1777 when Congress was forced to abandon Philadelphia in the face of advancing British troops, Gen. Washington was granted virtually unlimited powers to maintain the war effort and preserve civil society, powers not unlike those assumed in an earlier era by Roman dictators. He shouldered the responsibility but gave the authority back as soon as possible.
After the war, there were calls for Washington to claim formal political power. Indeed, seven months after the victory at Yorktown, one of his officers suggested what many thought only reasonable in the context of the 18th century: that America should establish a monarchy and that Washington should become king. A shocked Washington immediately rejected the offer out of hand as both inappropriate and dishonorable, and demanded the topic never be raised again.
George Washington must have known from direct experience with King George III the very real dangers of pride and the abuse of power. Absent any humility or altruism from its leaders, a peaceful society can easily give way to revolution or outright tyranny. “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when the wicked rule, the people groan” (Pr. 29:2)
Washington’s willing surrender of power to save the fledgling republic is an exemplar of the gospel story, which is so perfectly encapsulated in the hymn to Christ found in Philippians 2:6-11. Jesus emptied himself, was found in human form, and embraced the shame of the cross. Now all who embrace him can claim citizenship in heaven, where they will forever praise Him whose kingdom is not of this world (Jn. 18:36). He is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings (1 Tim. 6:15), the Ancient of Days whose dominion is eternal (Dan. 7:13-14). He was raised from the dead and seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places. He is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come (Eph. 1:20-21). And, even now, the government is upon His shoulders (Is. 9:6).
In 1789, the year that George Washington was sworn in, a British politician named Charles Grant was preparing to move with his family from India back to England. Charles was an evangelical Christian who served as chairman of the British East India Company. An influential leader in international affairs, Grant was returning to his homeland in order to champion some causes of social reform, among them the abolition of slavery. For years he worked alongside William Wilberforce, leaving a lasting legacy of faith-driven political activism. It was Charles’ second-born son, Robert, who would carry the torch back to India.
O Worship the King
Text: Robert Grant, 1833
Music: LYONS, Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792)
Robert Grant was born in India in 1779, where he lived for the first 10 years of his life. He grew up in a world of politics. He studied law at Cambridge. He then became King’s Sergeant in the Court of the Duchy of Lancaster and entered Parliament in 1818. In his later years, he became Governor of Bombay, India. He was even Knighted by the British government. Robert was a powerful politician who was directly involved in royal affairs. He was also a devout Christian, and he saw his work in politics as a way to honor Christ and serve the common good. Despite his Scottish roots, Grant was Anglican, not Presbyterian.
One day in 1833, Robert was studying Psalm 104, wherein he read about the manifold ways that the Lord governs over his creation. He began to make a descriptive list of poetic comparisons, drawing upon terms of 19th-century British royalty to describe the splendor of the Lord. Robert brilliantly used the metaphor and imagery of earthly monarchy to communicate the magnificence of the King of kings.
“O Worship the King, all glorious above
And gratefully sing His power and His love;
Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days,
Pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.”
Robert had grown up at the height of the British empire. Yet even though he was surrounded by the “glory” of England, he knew the far superior, unsurpassable glory of Christ. He was an earthly ruler who chose to cast his crown before the Lamb. It was through his hymn that he was humbly calling others to do the same, to give God the praise that he alone deserves. Robert considered it a duty and a privilege to worship and serve the One who holds the king’s heart in His hands (Prov. 21:1). He also recognized that the Lord was the greatest Ruler of all, perfectly shepherding and stewarding all of His creation.
“O tell of his might and sing of his grace,
whose robe is the light, whose canopy space.
His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,
and dark is his path on the wings of the storm.
Your bountiful care, what tongue can recite?
It breathes in the air, it shines in the light;
it streams from the hills, it descends to the plain,
and sweetly distills in the dew and the rain.”
Hymnologist Erik Routley (1917–1982) calls Psalm 104 a “pageant not merely of God’s power but also of his love.” He says that Grant’s hymn happily reflects the psalm on which it is founded, and he praises the hymn for its “sheer literary grace and beauty” and “eloquent simplicity.” “O Worship the King” is rightly considered one of the finest hymns ever written in the English language.
The hymn was published posthumously in 1839 in Sacred Poems, a volume edited by Grant’s brother, Lord Glenelg. In that edition, it was set to a tune written by German composer Joseph Martin Kraus. The tune was taken from one of Kraus’s earlier works for piano and violin and named for a small town in France. LYONS is a hymn tune that has become quite famous, often paired with various other hymn texts. It is a dignified and elegant tune in triple meter, full of an understated pomp. The penultimate phrase in the melody rises in steady quarter notes almost all the way up the scale before arriving at the top note in the final phrase in inevitable triumph.
I think it is perfectly fitting that the first Sunday after the election we open our worship with this hymn. We all are, at some level, anxious and afraid about the current state of affairs in America. But the true King is with us, and we do not put our trust in princes. We may be in enemy-occupied territory, but our rightful King has landed, and as part of his campaign of sabotage, we sing a hope that never fails.
“Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
in you do we trust, nor find you to fail.
Your mercies, how tender, how firm to the end,
our Maker, Defender, Redeemer, and Friend!”
Brothers and Sisters, let us declare together the “measureless might” and “ineffable love” of Jesus Christ, who upholds the universe by the word of his power, and who now sits at the right hand of the Majesty on High (Heb. 1:3-4). No matter who governs our nation, or in what manner they do it, we will have cause to rejoice. Jesus Christ, the ruler of kings on earth, loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen! (Rev. 1:5-6)