Our theme today is the Anatomy of worship. If you thought I had contorted the text to say some of things I did last week, you will, at first, have an even tougher time trying to figure out how today's text talks about worship. Which, by the way, referring to last week, I think I may need to provide some kind of explanation. I was hoping to stir some discussion on the challenge we have been facing here at Zion. I'm sorry about any confusion I may have caused. It's not about my family situation, but rather a difference in understanding about the ministry. I might have gone at it a little too hard, though. On other occasions you may hear me describe myself as a sheepdog. If you haven't, ask me about it later. But as a sheepdog, I'm afraid I might have actually bit the sheep. So, please accept my apologies.

But it still might look like I want to contort the text, because it doesn't sound anything like worship--not even close. The only place where we might say, "mayybbee," is in reference to the temple. But that's not it.

Now, don't be afraid that if I start talking about worship I'm going to bring out a description of the tremendous clashes between those who advocate a style that is natural, light, and easy and those who would prefer a style that has been used by the church since its beginning. Style will be nowhere in the discussion.

Instead, in three steps, Our Lord outlines the very heart of worship. He had spoken of worship in spirit and truth earlier to the woman at the well. He shows us the elements of that kind of worship in our text today. First, Jesus mourns over Jerusalem, which gives rise to the discussion of the worship attitude, particularly our awareness of our sin that compels us to worship. Second, He purifies the temple, showing what happens when we confess our sins and are absolved. Third, He teaches in the temple and the people hang on His words, showing their value for survival. That's it. No talk about style, form of music, preference for instruments, or the particular words that are spoken. Just these three elements: proper attitude, purification, and hearing.

That should be safe, right? So the scene opens up with Jesus weeping. He looks at Jerusalem and weeps over the lack of a proper attitude for worship. But then He would also weep for you and for me. Our attitude is never always right. We will never achieve the right attitude when we come to worship, because we will always be sinners. We will never come and want to purely receive His gifts, because we will always have some sinful thoughts mixed in. We will always struggle with irrelevant thoughts like "What is she thinking?" or "Did I do this right?" or struggling to resist the even more blatant thoughts, "I don't really want to be here," or "I've got better ways to use this time."

But Jerusalem is another matter. She is smug in her salvation. She didn't care. The people of Jerusalem enjoy most favored nation status, and for them that's all that mattered.

This is Jerusalem, for heaven's sakes. You look for the Almighty God, and you don't find Him anywhere else. You see evidence of Him in other places, but not His resting place--not His mercy. The Temple, the king, the history. Jerusalem is THE place. This is where it happens. And they knew it.

But Jerusalem, the city with peace in its name, didn't know peace. She didn't know the king of peace, who was riding a donkey, coming over the ridge, looking at her, praying for her, and weeping deeply over her, amid the deafening cheers of the people gathered on the side of the road during his triumphant entry.

He sees what is to happen to her in less than 40 years and it breaks His heart. He describes what is to happen, but this is still off in the future. She could be told--she was told, but she laughed it off. "Can't happen to me. I'm God's chosen one."

Ooh. Dangerous. "Can't happen to me. I'm God's chosen one." Is that confidence? Or smugness? Big difference. This was not confidence in His grace and mercy. They weren't even thinking about grace or mercy. Instead, they looked at His selection of them as His people, and used it as an excuse to do whatever they wanted. They were smug in their salvation, comfortable in their sins. They sought refuge from the penalty of their sin in the temple.

Can this happen to us? Can we do this? Use the Church as a place to hide so we can be safe with our sins?

Our Lord weeps over Jerusalem for that reason. That's exactly what she was doing. She deceived herself into thinking everything was fine. Later, speaking through St. Paul, the Lord says pretty much the same thing, "Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." It's a call for humility.

"I'm safe. I'm fine. I'm baptized and confirmed. You don't have to worry about me."

Really? It's the ones who say this that we should be worried about. They think they stand. They have no idea how much danger they are in. They have become smug in their sin. Remember what Peter had said, "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." It's the ones who think they are fine, who have a target painted on them--if they are not already in the process of being devoured.

Instead, the Bible abounds with what is the proper attitude. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Yes, fear. Fearful recognition that God has every right to damn us. Only by His grace He doesn't. Only because of Jesus are we spared, because He took our punishment. Without it, we are lost. He is our only hope.

Jerusalem lacked fear. She lacked humility. So do we if we say, "Don't worry about me."

St. Paul talks about himself being the chief of sinners. There's the right attitude for worship. At another time, as he writes to the Romans, and he spells out the struggle. "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing…Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" There! That's it! Run to Jesus for mercy and forgiveness.

John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was not arrogant when he said he was loved by Jesus. Far from it! It was a statement of humility. By this statement John was saying, "Wonder of wonders. Unworthy sinner that I am, Jesus loves even me."

And our entrance hymn, written in the 9th century, captured the humility I would love to see all of us imitate. Read it with me, but let's pause after "engraved." "So deep are they engraved (that is, my sins), so terrible their fear. The righteous scarcely shall be saved, and where shall I appear? Wow! If the good people will barely make it, what about me? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. A far cry from Jerusalem's attitude, wouldn't you say? It's this cry of desperation that should be on our minds as we come to worship.

The next stage in Jesus' visit to the Holy City, is to go straight into the temple, but what does He see there? A bunch of merchants. God's holiness was no big deal to them. Holiness, Schmoliness. They had business to do, money to be made. It didn't make any difference where it was done. Although, if you consider it, the temple was a good spot because people needed to buy animals, and oil and other items for worship and there was so much room to set up shop. Their relaxed attitude toward this holy place had even led them to cheat as they did their business.

Jesus eyes smolder as He begins to throw them out. He throws them out as though they were demons. As He purifies the temple, He quotes Isaiah and Jeremiah, but behind the white hot voice that is cracking with rage we can also hear His tender young voice when He was only twelve, after His parents had accidentally left Him back in Jerusalem. "Don't you know that I must be in my Father's house?" This was His Father's house, a house of prayer, a house of worship. Unclean things like these have no place there.

Neither do we. We have no right to be here, no right to be in the presence of a Holy God, but we have been invited, invited for the sake of Christ. Far from taking a nonchalant, relaxed attitude, we see our sin, and cry out to have it removed. The Law has done its work. Now we need to be purified. We confess our sins. We are absolved by His blood. We are purified. We are prepared to come even closer to His holy presence, to even take His holy presence into the sewers of our own bodies as we eat and drink His holy flesh and blood.

It takes us back to the practice of the priests in the temple. They would purify themselves with blood before they went into holy places. As the Lord says through the writer to the Hebrews, "Under the Law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness." But this was an imperfect model as the Lord had said in the same book, "For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the Living God.

Isaiah cries out in the presence of a holy God, "Woe is me. For I am lost. For I am a man of unclean lips and live among people of unclean lips." Then the Lord purifies Him with a hot coal as it touches his lips. Now he is prepared.

You are purified. Your sin is removed you confess it and you are forgiven all over again. We never leave behind that rhythm. Confessing our sins, then receiving life and forgiveness. It comes out explicitly in the beginning of the Divine Service, during the rite of preparation, but it is always there throughout the Service of the Word and the Service of the Sacrament.

Finally, having purified the temple, He goes into its courts and teaches. The people recognize His teaching for what it is--words of life.

A couple weeks ago I talked about a certain group of Christians who in lived in Europe, in a little town called Berea. I talked about how these Bereans checked to see if Paul was being a faithful prophet. But we also should note they received his words with all eagerness. That's what was happening with the people in the Temple. They received His words with eagerness.

But Luke describes that same kind of eagerness in a more concrete way, "The people were hanging on everything as they were hearing." They were hanging on. It's like they are clinging to these words, knowing that these are words from the mouth of the Lord. These are the most valuable words they could ever hear. These are the words that will preserve their life, like a raft for a drowning swimmer. Here is the means to stay alive.

It describes our very lifeline--His Word. Here we hear our Lord speak the word of forgiveness. This was the purification part, the absolution, but our souls cling to this word, and say, "This is for me. He spoke this to me." He preaches, and we hear the word that is directed to us. Again, we can say, "These are words of life. Words of life spoken to me. My Lord speaks to me." We consider our baptism, and rather than saying, "Yeah, I've got it made I've been baptized," we say, "Lord, you have shown me undeserved grace and mercy when you adopted me, but the fact that you have adopted me and set your seal upon me, giving me your name gives me great comfort when I realize every day I prove I don't deserve it." And then we come to the altar rail. We hesitate because of our sinfulness, but we are drawn by His invitation and our need. "Lord, you come to me. You put your holy body and blood, into my body. What an amazing thing, that you would do this for me, but you do it, and I am made alive through it."

This is worship--worship in Spirit and in truth. Confessing my need for what He has to give me, and then humbly receiving it. It's not about style. It's about attitude, and thanks be to Jesus, He demonstrated that for us today.

AMEN