When Old Is New

    The cultural pendulum is always in a state of flux.  In one generation it swings toward ideas that are foreign to the one before.  In the next generation it heads back to whence it came.  In my generation there are kids who are picking up what has been set aside as old and making it new again.  Beards are in.  Flat caps are in.  What was collecting dust is being rediscovered.  What was old is now new again.

This happened in Luther’s day too.  The Church had been choked by the weeds of money and false teachings like purgatory.  When Luther saw the ancient architecture, that is the Church, he did not want to tear the whole thing down and start from scratch, like some others wanted to do.  Instead he wanted to clean it up and restore what was being done by the saints of old.  He didn’t throw out the liturgy.  He removed the errors and brought the church back into connection with what the saints had done.  He didn’t remove the robes and the church year.  He brought it back to a place where the Gospel was made clear and the life of the Church in Christ was evident day by day and year by year.  What was old had become new again in the Reformation for the sake of the Gospel.

Today we are told that we need to amp up our Church service in order to cater to the appetite of the culture.  We are told that the worship service needs to be in tandem with the cultural pendulum in order to save souls.  Yet time and again history shows us that the pendulum is ready to come off its hinges.  The Church should not parrot or cater to the culture.  When She does, She is not heard because she is just another voice in a chorus of people who want to sing the tune of the day.  Although it will sound radical to a culture in a state of change, the Church sings to her own ancient tune.  We continue to use these antiquated liturgies because they have been carefully and lovingly passed on to us from one generation of saints to the next.  They are woven together by the enduring Word of God and not by fading fads.  They point to Christ and His forgiveness generation after generation.  By God’s grace, each age realizes these ageless truths are theirs too.  Each generation is reformed from individual cravings into the image of Christ’s Body.  Each generation needs to clean the ancient architecture from the gaudy yearnings of the world and submit to something so much greater, so much older than anything else this world can offer.  Sometimes that means that when something is introduced we hear that words, “Well, that’s new to me.”  even when it has been done by the Church for hundreds upon hundreds of years.

I don’t mean to claim that old ways are better because they are old.  What we must ask in our day are these questions together; is this consistent with what the bride of Christ has always done? Does this make the Gospel clear?  Will this endure for our children and grandchildren?  The Divine Service we use answers yes to all of these questions.  Yet we discover this for ourselves generation after generation.  What is old, ancient even, is made new, rediscovered, reformed by Christian after Christian and it will continually be made new in each generation until Christ returns.

1 Peter 1:24-25 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

Rev. Nava