About Our Liturgy

On this page, you will find a series of blog posts describing the parts of the liturgy. Use the sidebar to navigate through various posts, all addressing the question: Why do Lutherans do what we do in the Divine Service?

Our Lord speaks and we listen. His Word does what it says. He is the Source of all things, the one true God who comes to our aid in time of need. Our Lord Jesus Christ is truly present in the Divine Service, where He comes to us to bestow His gifts upon us—the gifts of forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation which He won for us by His death on the cross. The liturgy is the form through which God works in Word and Sacrament to deliver these gracious gifts to us.

The Lutheran liturgy did not begin in the 16th century. It is rooted in the holy Scriptures, Old and New Testament. It took on its shape during the first few centuries after Jesus’ resurrection, and it has been retained ever since. And through its weekly repetition even now, God’s Word is imprinted on our hearts in order that that it might be on our lips at all times, especially in the hour of death.

The rhythm of the liturgy is from God to us.

He speaks and we listen.

He gives and we receive.

And we respond in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving for all He has done for us.

Each individual part of the liturgy has a specific purpose in telling the story of salvation: to point us to Jesus and to bring His gifts to us.

Benedicamus and Benediction

Having received the Lord’s body and blood in the Sacrament and given thanks for His gracious gifts in the Collect, the service concludes with the Benedicamus and Benediction. Once again the pastor announces the Salutation, “The Lord be with you.” The Salutation is not a mere greeting, but it announces that the Lord is truly present in this place to bring His blessings to His people. The Salutation occurs three times in the Divine Service: before the Collect and Scripture readings, at the beginning of the Service of the Sacrament, and finally, before the Benediction. The final Salutation announces to the congregation that we are about to receive the blessing of the Lord as we prepare to go out into the world.

Benedicamus is Latin for “let us bless.” The language of blessing is closely tied to praise in Hebrew, especially when the Lord is the object of blessing, for example, “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Psalm 34:1). Each of the five books of the Psalms ends with an invitation to bless the Lord for all His wondrous works. It is fitting that we conclude the Divine Service with a similar invitation to acknowledge the Triune God and the gifts He has bestowed upon us in the service. The congregation responds, “Thanks be to God.” This is the response of faith in thanksgiving for the forgiveness of sins and life we have received.

The Benediction is a blessing that imparts what it says. It is taken from Numbers 6:24-26, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.” This blessing was first given to Moses for Aaron and the priests to bless the people and place His name on them. So also at Jesus’ ascension, He lifted up His hands to bless His disciples before He departed from their sight (Luke 24:50). With this threefold Benediction, we have come full circle, recalling the Invocation of the Triune God at the beginning of the Divine Service. The Lord has placed His name upon us in Baptism and He continues to bless us through the Means of Grace. The presence and blessing of Christ which we receive in Word and Sacrament now abides within us as we prepare to go out into the world to love God and serve our neighbor in our vocations. In this final Benediction, we have the assurance that we are Christ’s and that all He has is ours by virtue of His name. As we confess in the Large Catechism, “Where God’s name is, there must also be life and salvation” (LC IV 27).

Post-Communion Collect

After singing the Nunc Dimittis, the Church confesses that the Eucharist is the Lord’s gracious gift and responds in thanksgiving using the words of Psalm 107:1, “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.” This verse introduces the Post-Communion Collect, a prayer in which we give thanks for the gifts received in the Sacrament and ask for the continued blessings which our Lord promises to give through the Sacrament. The first option for a Post-Communion Collect in the Lutheran Service Book was composed by Martin Luther for the Deutsche Messe (1526). In this prayer, Luther notes that the Sacrament brings salvation, which stands in stark contrast to the Roman Catholic teaching that the Eucharist is a sacrifice that we offer to God. He also emphasizes the proper relationship of faith and works—that as the Sacrament refreshes our faith, so also it strengthens us for love and service of our neighbor. This prayer was the most common Post-Communion Collect found in church orders after the Reformation and remains popular today.

The second Post-Communion Collect in the LSB calls upon God the Father as “the fountain and source of all goodness” (p. 201). We confess in the Creed that the Father is the creator and sustainer of all things, and here in this prayer we acknowledge that the greatest gift He has given us is His only-begotten Son, born in the flesh to redeem us from our sins. In this collect, we give thanks for the “pardon and peace” which we receive in the Lord’s Supper and we ask that the Holy Spirit would always rule our hearts and minds so that we are enabled to serve God in all that we say and do. With its emphasis on forgiveness, this collect is especially appropriate during the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent.

The third collect in the LSB recalls the language of the Eucharistic Prayer, calling the Lord’s Supper a “foretaste of the feast to come” (p. 166). The emphasis of this prayer is eschatological as we ask that our heavenly Father would keep us steadfast in the one true faith until that day when we join with all the saints to “celebrate the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom which has no end.” This collect refers to our earthly life as a pilgrimage, recalling Israel’s journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, which is the Old Testament picture of the life of the Church as God rescues us out of the slavery of sin and death and brings us to everlasting life. This prayer is closely tied to the seasons of Christmas and Easter as we celebrate the central acts of God to bring us salvation.