O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness

This is the first line of a familiar Epiphany hymn. The verses go on to contemplate the gifts of the wise men – gold, incense and myrrh – relating them to the qualities of obedience, lowliness and humble adoration.

In Matthew’s gospel, the wise men explain to Herod their extraordinary journey of faith, saying that they had observed the new king’s star at its rising and had ‘come to pay him homage.’ The historic meaning of ‘homage’, dating from the feudal era, is that of a person paying public respect to his personal lord. A vestige of this survived in the Queen’s coronation service, when, in a particularly moving moment, her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, knelt to do her homage as she sat, newly crowned. In the same way, these wise men, clearly people of wealth and status, knelt before a new born baby, impelled to do so by their understanding of what they read in the sky, drawn by the Holy Spirit of God. It is an amazing event and worthy of reflection in its own right, not just as a colourful part of a nativity play – the child reading that part of the story in our lovely children’s nativity this Christmas was puzzled by the word ‘frankincense’, which she read out as ‘frankensteins’ – in the best tradition of such plays.

In many services and outreach events these days, the emphasis is on making the Good News accessible, rather than stressing the holiness, or ‘other-ness’ of God and there are sound reasons for this, especially in an age when the Christmas story is unfamiliar to many and when we are seeking to immerse children in the stories of the Bible. But this is not the whole picture and, as adult Christians, we need to recall the holiness of God and our utter dependence on him. Paying homage to God is an important part of worship, which is ‘something beautiful for God’ and not just a comfort or strength for us – though it can be that too. As we come to God in humility and adoration, he will speak to our deepest needs in his transcendent power.   

At the beginning of this week, the Church of England commemorated William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was beheaded on 10^th January 1645. In an age when disagreements among Christians could, literally, be life or death matters, Laud, who was closely associated with Charles I’s political cause, sought to restore to the church some of the beauty in worship which he perceived to have been lost after the Reformation. As the king’s power waned and that of the Roundheads grew, Laud paid the price for his beliefs but not before he had meted out severe punishments to his critics during his years of power. Much of the dignity which we associate with Anglican worship is traceable to Laud, who would certainly have approved of the sentiment of the hymn. As we approach the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity next week and reflecting on Tony’s words in the sermon last Sunday, when he said that it is our job as Christians to show God’s glory and love to those around us, we can give thanks that the Church, these days, offers different forms of worship in different contexts and that Christians of all traditions are and can be friends. But let us remember that when we worship, we consciously enter the presence of Almighty God and seek to do him homage.

                                            O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!

                                            Bow down before him, his glory proclaim;

                                            With gold of obedience, and incense of lowliness,

                                            Kneel and adore him: the Lord is his name.   

Mrs. Morag Bushell