Thoughts on the Divine Service
32. Standing and Sitting
Dear friends,
We’ve made it through our exploration of the liturgy, but I thought I might spend a week or two on a few other aspects of the service. Now that we know why we say what we say and chant what we chant, it’s good to know why we do what we do.
This week, standing and sitting.
There’s an old, tired joke that you know you’re a Lutheran if you sing, “Stand Up! Stand Up for Jesus!” while you’re sitting down. The one-liner can’t be all that old, though, because pews made their first appearance about five hundred years ago: before that, worshipers stood for the duration. Now, we stand and sit periodically throughout the service. These movements are not merely break up the monotony or give an opportunity to stretch. Like everything else in worship, they’re meant to teach.
Since the Divine Service is a foretaste of the feast to come, think of the service as a big family banquet. The default position of guests at a meal is sitting as they receive both food and words from their host. There will be a few instances at a formal dinner where guests are expected to stand. For instance, they might be asked to stand to say something important, to receive a gift of recognition or to show respect to a dignitary who has entered the room.
For worshipers, most of the Divine Service is spent sitting: as students sit in a classroom to hear and respond to their teacher, so we sit to hear our Lord’s Word and respond with hymns. At times, though, we stand. Better yet, we rise: we rise to our feet as a reminder that, for Jesus’ sake, we will rise from the dead on the Last Day.
We rise for the Invocation at the start of the service, because the Invocation is a reminder that we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In Holy Baptism, we are joined to Jesus’ death and resurrection (Romans 6:4). We remain standing through the Confession and Absolution, because that’s a foreshadowing of the Last Day where we stand before the judgment seat of God (Romans 14:10): the absolution now is the “not guilty” verdict that welcomes you into heaven on the Day of Resurrection.
We also rise to show respect. We rise to hear the Gospel reading: while all the readings are God’s inspired Word, it’s in the Gospel lesson that we hear the incarnate Jesus Himself acting and speaking to us—the red letters, if you will. We rise for a processional hymn as the crucifer carries the cross down the aisle, a movement to honor our Lord both for His death on the cross and His visiting us in His means of grace. We stand for those triangle-marked doxological hymn verses, where we sing glory to the triune God, honoring Him for being who He is and what He has done for us. Finally, we rise for most of the communion liturgy, because the Lord Himself is present in His Supper, to give us His body and blood.
Likewise, we rise when it is given us to say something important: we stand to say the Creed, because it’s our opportunity to respond to the grace Jesus has given in His Word. (As I’ve said before, faith loves saying the Creed because, having heard about Jesus, faith wants to talk about Jesus.) We normally stand to pray, a gesture of both respect and gratitude that the Lord Most High desires to hear our prayers; and our prayers are important because the Lord considers them so important that He commands us to pray.
I’m sure I’m leaving some examples out, but you get the idea. Once again, standing and sitting are meant to teach—it is not as though your prayer is less effective if you’re sitting down. If you’re unable to stand or sit due to disability, let the movements of others remind you. Let the lesson of our movements be this: we rise because we have new life in the risen Christ, and we sit because the Lord has prepared a seat for us at the table of His eternal feast. What joy!
A nerdy note: we end the service standing for the benediction, and some have asked me when it’s appropriate to sit down again. The answer is that there’s no correct answer: technically, the service has already ended with the benediction. This means that it’s time for people to exit; however, you’re always welcome to stay and pray for a bit if you desire.
At Good Shepherd, as at most congregations, the pastor exits down the center aisle to the narthex in order to greet people as they leave. (This is a relatively new practice: until recently, the pastor would exit to the sacristy and not greet worshipers.) The congregation tends to do one of two things, depending on the service: everybody sits down right away, or rows of worshipers sit down as the pastor has walked by. There’s no law and no teaching attached to the pastor’s exit: if you, like me, normally stand until somebody leaves your office after a meeting, then you might keep standing until the pastor has gone by. If you prefer to sit sooner or later, or keep standing, that’s fine too.