“…the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever…” (RSV Catholic edition, Revelation 4:10)

Among the great tourist attractions of England are its medieval cathedrals, and each year hundreds of thousands of visitors both from home and overseas look round them.  But the last thought which entered the heads of the men who designed and built them was that they were constructing a tourist attraction.  They did not even build them as the great places of pilgrimage which they quickly became.

For the cathedrals were built for the praise and glory of God by men who believed in God as other people believe in the Law of Gravity.  It is no coincidence that the most magnificent examples were built in the Age of Faith in the 13th and following centuries; and they were served by monastic communities or secular canons whose whole lives were devoted to the offering of worship to God.

From first to last these great churches were planned, constructed and used for God’s honour and glory.  That is why they were built on so vast and ambitious a scale – not because great numbers of people crowded in for the services, but so that they might be a worthy offering to the high and holy God.  And for the same reason they were made splendid with a profusion of sculpture and carving, and crowned by great towers or soaring spires pointing significantly heavenwards.

Thus beauty and magnificence were alike given to God just because he is God.  As King Solomon said of the Temple which he built in Jerusalem: “…the house that is to be builded for the Lord must be exceeding magnifical…” (1 Chronicles 22:5).

These masterpieces of the architect’s and craftsman’s skill were the outward expression of their own religious faith and aspirations, and had the power of turning the minds and hearts of succeeding generations to seek in their turn those things which are above.  Thus these great places of worship had their origin in the love and devotion within those men’s hearts, for God dominated their lives, as the cathedrals dominated the cities in which they lived.

Today is Trinity Sunday, the one feast in the year when we honour God for himself alone.  In all the other festivals we commemorate some benefit which his love has brought us.  At Christmas we rejoice in the salvation which Christ was born to bring; at Easter in that eternal life that can be ours through the Risen Christ; at Pentecost in the power of the Holy Spirit by whose aid we can attain it.

Today, however, we honour God for his own sake, for what-he-himself-is-in-his-eternal-glory.  In the words of Revelation, “Worthy art thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for thou didst create all things, and by thy will they existed and were created” (RSV Catholic edition, 4:11).  And there is the very essence and spirit of that worship for which the cathedrals were built and for which we ourselves have been created.

What then is meant by that familiar word ‘worship’?  It has been defined as “…the total adoring response of man to the one Eternal God self-revealed in time”. (1) Its quality, therefore, will depend first on our knowledge of God and then on the love for him which that knowledge kindles in our hearts; and its effects will permeate our whole selves and therefore be evident in our whole life.

Everyone’s attitude to God is determined in the first place by his or her ideas of what God is like; or, to put it from another point of view, one’s attitude is determined by how far one has grasped God’s own revelation of himself.  The ideas of God which those medieval architects and craftsmen held, may be seen from what they built.

The beauty and the greatness of the cathedrals and their separateness from the world around and at the same time their central dominance in the midst of that world, were all expressive of the beauty and majesty of God; of his holiness by which he is totally separate from all that is sinful and sordid in the world, and expressive also of his perpetual presence within that world.

But that kind of knowledge, though essential, is inadequate in itself.  For the knowledge of God that is necessary for Christian worship and life is a personal and not an abstract or academic knowledge.  It is not information that can be acquired from an encyclopaedia, but an actual acquaintance with God himself that comes from a living relationship with him.  It is the difference between knowing a friend and knowing someone whom one has never met.

Thus a knowledge of God is incomplete without a love for God whereby one lives naturally as in his Presence, and turns to him in trust and confidence.  And it is the offering to God of one’s love and trust and finally of one’s whole self, which is worship.  Its quality and its depth will depend on the quality and depth of our faith and love; and the extent to which our worship is reflected in our daily life will be determined by the extent of our relationship with him.

Worship, therefore, is something which grows as we grow in the knowledge and love of God.  We know that only the best is good enough to be offered to God; but it is only rarely that we approach or reach that ideal, and so for most of the time we have to make do with offering something that falls far short.  As G.K. Chesterton once unexpectedly said, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly”, though he would have been the first to agree that we should never be satisfied with doing it badly.

The knowledge and the love of God which dominated the hearts of those medieval builders was given practical and enduring expression by them in the world in which they lived.  So our worship, if it springs from a real relationship with God, will deepen that relationship, and its practical effects will be evident in ourselves as we live our ordinary daily life.  We shall increasingly live, not as those who have been in the Presence of God, but as those who are always in it.

Thus true worship becomes the heartfelt and adoring offering of one’s whole self, and therefore of one’s whole life to God, just because he is God.

Reference

1. Underhill, E. (1937) Worship, London: Nisbet & Co Ltd.