Christian Worship as Response to Salvation History

The worship of Christians is in response to God's saving action in the living, dying, and rising again of Jesus Christ; it is patterned on the history of salvation, offered to the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. Through the centuries of the Old Testament, God was offering his love to the people, but they did not "know" him; he did not reveal his inner nature. Jesus came as the revelation of the Father (Matt. 11:25-27). The mystery of God, hidden for ages and generations, is now made manifest (Col. 1:26), and the essence of that mystery is that God is love (1 John 4:8). This Jesus made plain by his life, his words, and his passion, death, and resurrection. That is why he has been called "the sacrament" of the Father, the showing forth of the Father, and the revelation of his saving purpose, adumbrated throughout the ages but now made known in Jesus Christ. But Jesus is not only the revelation of the Father; he is in himself the communication of the Father's love, th…