Essential Element: Celebration

‘For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. Luke 15:24

True worship is the celebration of being in covenant fellowship with the sovereign and holy triune God, by means of: the reverent adoration and spontaneous praise of God's nature and works; the expressed commitment of trust and obedience to the covenant responsibilities, and the memorial reenactment of entering into covenant through ritual acts, all with the confident anticipation of the fulfillment of the covenant promises in glory. – Allen Ross, Recalling the Hope of Glory

Celebration is an idea that many have a hard time associating with Christian worship, including myslef. I remember the first time I saw a church label its Sunday morning worship time a “worship celebration.” It made me very uncomfortable. “How superficial!” I thought, as I reasoned that this new title for a worship service was merely another casualty of the growing trend toward prosperity-gospel preaching, designed to make people feel better about themselves as they joined together for “happy time” on Sunday morning. I thought it trivialized worship.

As I wrestled with this idea, I began searching through Scripture for the way it uses the word “celebrate” as compared to our modern definition and connotations. The Merriam-Webster dictionary echoes two main ideas for what a “celebration” means. First it says that to celebrate is “to perform (a sacrament or solemn ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites” or “to hold up or play up for public notice.” Second, the dictionary says, “to honor especially by solemn ceremonies or by refraining from ordinary business, to mark by festivities or other deviation from routine.”

Thinking of worship as a celebration should help us understand that worship is a public, corporate, visible endeavor. This aspect of worship highlights the collective nature of the church. We are not called to be many individual worshipers—we are called to be one church celebrating the glory of Christ and our commitment to Him together, openly. Thinking of worship as celebration should also help us remember that the church’s worship services represent a break from our routines, setting aside time to come together as a family in Christ.

This is much different than my first impression. Understood correctly, celebrative worship doesn’t mean “feel-good” worship. We are not to ignore the presence of sin in order for a church service to make us feel like we are “just alright.” On the other hand, neither are we to sit in silent confession continually lamenting our guilt before a Holy God. Professor Carl Stam writes, “There [are many] that [have] a hard time celebrating. (So serious about sin and our broken and wicked condition. All of which is true, but is only part of the story. ‘There is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.’) So much of the ‘celebration worship’ is designed to soften our human condition and cheer us into the kingdom. You can't have one without the other. The doctrines of grace, the biblical balance of Creation-Fall-Redemption-Glorious Culmination in Christ is the full story.”

True celebration comes out of the recognition of what salvation really means. The full story of the gospel is our need for a Savior as well as our assurance of that Savior. We were dead, but now we live. Lost, but now we are found. Let us celebrate!