The invocation has its roots in Baptism. In the Baptism of Jesus God is revealed for who he is in himself: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt 4:16– 17). In your baptism, his name is put upon you (Matt 28:19). When Christians assemble to hear God’s Word, to eat his Supper, and to respond in prayer and praise, it is fitting that it should be explicitly “in God’s name.” “For,” our Lord says, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matt 18:20; also Exod 20:24).

It is our Lord who began what matters at your baptism (John 1:12–13) His work now continues in what follows (John 5:17). The pastor speaks the invocation, with New Testament precision “putting God’s name on the people” (Num 6:16–20), with the sign of the cross, as it is in Jesus that God’s name is on us. The people may trace the sign of the cross over themselves as a reminder that, as at their baptisms, they remain “marked as those redeemed by Christ the Crucified. They also respond with the first “Amen” of the service, that is, “yes, yes, it shall be so!” We gather as those surely baptized into God’s name, and he is surely with us. Such is the certainty of our Christian worship.

To “confess” means “to say the same thing, to agree.” Here God’s Law has compelled our agreement: I have “justly deserved your temporal and eternal punishment.” Yet we do so to our “merciful Father” “of [His] boundless mercy” and “for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of [His] beloved Son, Jesus Christ.” Here, contrition, sorrow over our sin and its fruits, meets faith in Christ, and his fruits.

Repentance goes with the Gospel (Mark 1:15; Luke 24:47). Here we “plead guilty of all sins, even those of which we do not know, as we do in the Lord’s Prayer.” The pastor then absolves the congregation at once, by the authority of his office, “in the stead and by the command of [his] Lord Jesus Christ.” There the Gospel does its work. Luther’s Small Catechism says of this: “I believe that, when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, especially when they exclude manifest and impenitent sinners from the Christian congregation, and again when they absolve those who repent and are willing to amend, this is as valid and certain, in heaven also, as if Christ, our dear Lord, dealt with us Himself.” What a gift, given straightaway, of a clean conscience before God. This is what the pastor is for! (1 Tim 1:5)

The Kyrie is named after the beginning of the first line in Greek, Kyrie eleison, “Lord, have mercy.” The Kyrie has been used in Christian worship from the beginning. 

We recognize the words of the Kyrie from the New Testament itself, as the cry often addressed to Jesus for mercy. This is our first prayer in the Service of the Word. It is not strictly a confession of sins or a plea for forgiveness, but a cry to our Lord that he have mercy on us wherever we need it. What kinds of needs did those have who cried out to Jesus for mercy? What kinds of needs might you imagine addressing to him as you sing the Kyrie?

The Kyrie gives us a regular opportunity to gather up all our concerns, known and unknown, and bring them to our Lord Jesus. It is also an opportunity to think on mercy. The Kyrie situates us as those who have nothing to offer, nothing to give, but nonetheless expect, for their Lord Jesus’ sake, great and abundant mercy from their God.

The Gloria in Excelsis (Latin for “Glory on High”) is sung each Sunday except for penitential seasons of Advent and Lent. The Gloria breaks out right on the heels of the Kyrie. Faith glorifies God for the mercy asked for, even before the eyes see that it has been granted. This is fitting, for although we have not yet seen “all things in subjection,” we have seen Him (Heb 1:1–3; 2:7–13).

In the Gloria, a song from above is joined to song from below, and we worship “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven.” Angels began the Gloria at Christmas (Luke 2:14), when the only-begotten Son, the image of the Father (John 14:1–14), was born of Mary, “for us men and for our salvation.”

The Church today continues the song, adding a Trinitarian hymn of praise. We praise, bless, worship, glorify, and give thanks to God for his great glory, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

One of the tiniest parts of the Divine Service is also one of which we have the earliest evidence. In the Salutation’s brief exchange between pastor and people, our faith speaks, which believes the promises of our Lord to be present where his people are gathered to hear his Word and eat his Supper.

The pastor says to the people the ancient greeting (Ruth 2:4; Judges 6:12), “The Lord be with you.” This is not merely a greeting or pious wish, but a blessing, or a proclamation that the Lord is keeping the promises he made to come and save, to be our Immanuel (Matt 1:20– 23). 

The people respond, “And with thy spirit.”The idea is that the Lord is not simply present in the pastor’s person, but that the Lord is present by his Spirit, in the office vested in the pastor, to serve in Christ’s stead and by his command. This response has therefore been called “the little ordination,” the congregation acknowledging that the one who stands before them to offer their prayers, to speak to them God’s Word, to feed them the Lord’s Supper, is put there by God to do these things, and that through him God will keep his promises.

The theme of the day has been heralded by the Introit; our need for grace for all of life, cried out in the Kyrie; and the coming of our Lord Jesus down to earth to serve us, joyously confessed in the Gloria. The congregation has received her under-shepherd as having the Lord “with his spirit,” to bring to pass the teaching of the Word and administration of the Sacraments, which Christ gave him, and through which the Holy Spirit works and sustains faith. All this builds up to the reading of the lessons and the preaching of the sermon, where the “goods” of the Service of the Word are delivered.

Before we get there, the pastor offers the collect, a prayer, generally of ancient origin, collecting the particular promises of the day’s readings into a specific prayer for God’s acting on and for us in this Divine Service. Most of the collects are, by and large, what have been used continuously in the Church for over 1,500 years, and the youngest of them are as old as the Reformation. In this way the whole Church (of all places and even times) might be seen as praying together, as in Revelation 5—8.

Frequently we conclude the reading of Holy Scripture with the phrase, “This is the Word of the Lord!” More than just a “word" from God, this is his revelation in which he makes known to us his will, most specifically, his merciful will that desires our salvation.

Ultimately, this word points us to the Word, the incarnate Son of God. He is God's final and full revelation to us, the mirror of the Father's heart.

That is the point that the writer to the Hebrews makes in the opening verses of his epistle: “In many and various ways God spoke to his people of old by the prophets, but now in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb. 1:1-2a).

Only through Him — God's only Son — are we able to know the Father's favor and grace.

In the sermon, the Word of God is brought to bear on the lives of the hearers. This is the equivalent of sitting at the feet of Jesus. But it's more than mere instruction.

Through the sermon, God speaks to us with his two-edged sword of condemnation and promise, Law and Gospel. The subject of the sermon is both God and us.

Through the sermon we come to a better understanding of ourselves, especially our need for God's forgiveness. But we also come face to face with God's mercy and love.

Week after week, God's faithful hear the voice of their Good Shepherd, preparing them, in a sense, for that final day when Jesus calls them to their eternal reward.

The word creed comes from the Latin credo, which means “I believe.” There are three creeds called ecumenical, meaning they were accepted by the whole Christian church: the Apostles’ (~150AD), the Nicene (325–381AD), and the Athanasian (c. 451–700AD) Creeds.

The Apostles’ Creed is so named because it very simply relates the teaching of the Apostles as contained in the New Testament. Historically it develops from an old Latin (Roman) baptismal creed, summarizing the essentials of the faith. It is still the Creed used for basic instruction in the Small Catechism.

The Nicene Creed was drawn up in the great ecumenical council at Nicea in 325AD and elaborated upon in an another council at Constantinople in 381AD. It was written originally in Greek, and began “We believe.” Here we confess what we believe—not only what we think to be true, but what we trust for all we need: that this Jesus Christ is Lord, who has redeemed us for our salvation.

Because the Nicene Creed goes into more detail as to the person of Jesus, especially his two natures as true God and true Man, it is particularly fitting for use when the Church eats the Lord’s Supper. As we do, and say the Creed together, we are reminded we are not alone in faith.

The lengthy and rather poetic Athanasian Creed is used but once a year on Trinity Sunday. On Trinity Sunday we rejoice in this Creed at the precision with which God has given us to know him, and take seriously what the faith means for us: “Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic (that is, the one, whole, apostolic) faith.”

History tells us that in the Early Church the singing of a psalmody accompanied a procession of laypeople to the altar, as they brought various offerings from their livelihoods to support the ministry and the poor. This offertory reflected a sacrifice of praise, the devotion of our hearts to God and our hands to our neighbors in consideration of what Christ does for us in the Divine Service. 

Our offertory is simple. David’s words of his great Psalm of repentant faith, Psalm 51, remind us of the truest sacrifice of praise, which is that, “once faith has strengthened a conscience to see its liberation from terror, then it really gives thanks for the blessing of Christ’s suffering. It uses the ceremony itself as praise to God, as a demonstration of its gratitude, and a witness of its high esteem for God’s gifts. Thus the ceremony becomes a sacrifice of praise.” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession XXIV 74). 

Our singing of David’s Psalm is part of that; our gifts and offerings are another, a sacrifice of praise offered in response to Christ’s singular atoning sacrifice. We praise God by giving to his work and to those in need. But even more than that, we praise him by coming to receive what he died to give us. The Offertory reflects on what has been, and looks forward joyously to what will be! 

Prayer is a great privilege granted to God’s people, to know to whom they pray and that their prayers will be heard. Following the pattern our Lord has taught us in his own prayer (“Our Father...”) and the command he gave through his apostles (1 Tim 2:1–6), the Church, when she gathers together, prays for the needs of the congregation, the Church at large, and the world. We follow the example of the early Church, which gathered each Lord’s day for the “apostles’ teaching and the fellowship,” for the “breaking of the bread” and “the prayers” (Acts 2:42). 

While the prayer of the church may take many forms and incorporate many concerns, its intent is to gather up all the needs of “the congregation, the Church, and the world,” to present them to our heavenly Father, in Jesus' name, for Him to hear and act upon. 

It is appropriate that all our prayers should be offered after we have been strengthened in the Gospel and await the coming of our Lord Jesus in his flesh and blood, under the bread and wine, to save us. As our Lord prepares to give us the greatest gift, of himself, we elaborate in our prayers that in Him we expect all good things. Therefore, the church prays together for we are encouraged in Hebrews to “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). And then, we say, “Amen,” that is, trusting in Christ’s working and doing for us, and His sure intercession before the Father on our behalf. 

The Preface begins with the Salutation, which we have seen already before the Collect of the Day and will see again before the Benedicamus and Benediction. The Salutation, “The Lord be with you” is the pastor’s announcement to the people that the Lord is present with his minister, according to his definite promise—in this case, to deliver his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. The people respond, “And with thy spirit,” acknowledging that the pastor serves “in the stead and by the command of his Lord Jesus,” that he is called and ordained to be the Lord’s instrument, the servant specifically sent to deliver Word and Sacrament.

The pastor and people then say, “Lift up your hearts,” and “We lift them up unto the Lord.” With these words we prepare joyfully to receive him who comes to us in his body and blood. 

Finally, the pastor says, “Let us give thanks unto the Lord our God,” and the people respond, “It is meet and right so to do,”  We are saying that Jesus is worthy!  Such is our confidence in what he comes to do, that we thank Him before the meal! So the great song of heaven’s thanksgiving, the worship of the Lamb once slain and now alive (Rev 5:6–14) reverberates among us on earth, and we, “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” praise the name of Jesus, who has redeemed us by his blood. 

With these ancient words we are led faithfully and joyfully (Col 3:1–17), to the Supper of our Lord, with which he has fed and sustained his Church from the beginning, and to which he gathers us together into the body of Christ.

If any part of the service has been recognized as providing a glimpse of heaven, it's the Sanctus: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of your glory.”

This is the eternal song of the angels who hover over the throne of God in the vision of heaven that was given to Isaiah (Is. 6:1-4). Such was the splendor of their song that the very foundations of the threshold of the temple trembled at the sound.

At first glance, these words appear to be out of place at this point in the service. Nevertheless, the reality is that there is nothing in this entire world that compares with the miracle of Jesus' bodily presence to feed his people.

In this meal God is breaking into our world to give us life. No wonder our repeated cry is “Hosanna in the highest,” for what is more needed in this dying world than the Lord's salvation?

The second half of the Sanctus contains a statement as bold as the first. Here we have our own little Palm Sunday. Just as the crowds cried out to Jesus as he entered Jerusalem, so do we declare, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Mt. 21:9; Ps. 118:26).

Heaven continues to break into our world as Jesus, our humble king, comes riding into our midst in the Lord's name. This confession in the Sanctus of Jesus' real presence is so significant that Luther proposed moving the Sanctus after the Words of Institution in order to highlight the reality of the words we sing.

Now to the heart of the matter: those absolutely indispensible Words (Verba in Latin) by which our Lord gives us his Supper: His true body and His true blood, under the bread and wine, for us Christians to eat and drink, for the forgiveness of our sins. 

The Lord’s Supper is not some grand human work or offering; rather, by these words, God gives the gift of this Sacrament to his Church, for the forgiveness of sins. 

The pastor chants (an ancient custom from a more musical and less amplified age) or speaks the verba clearly and distinctly. These words are meant to consecrate the bread and wine to be the body and blood of Jesus, for the forgiveness of sins. They are to be pronounced at every celebration of the Supper because our Lord said, “This do.” The words are not meant only to consecrate the elements but also to proclaim to the faithful assembled what it is they are about to receive (1 Cor 11:26) so that they may receive it in faith.

Certain actions traditionally accompany the saying of our Lord’s Words. At the words, “This is my body” and “This cup is the New Testament in my blood” the pastor makes the sign of the cross over the elements being consecrated (set aside for the Lord’s purpose). This is to depict visually and physically a proper reverence for the great condescension of our Lord, that he comes to us himself, body and blood, through these humble means, for the forgiveness of our sins. These actions remind us that these are no more mere bread and wine, but “in, with, and under the bread and the wine” the true body and blood of Jesus.

Of course our Lord does not come in these things simply to be adored or worshipped, but to be eaten and drunk, for you, for the forgiveness of your sins. 

Looking to the book of Revelation, at one point John sees a scroll in the right hand of the One who was sitting on the throne. A “strong angel” puts forth the challenge, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”

Then, between the throne and the elders, the Lamb comes into view. Undoubtedly the most significant feature in John's description of this Lamb is that it is a lamb who hasth been slain.

When we sing the Agnus Dei, “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us,” we are preaching and praying all at once. It was, after all, with these very words that John the Baptizer pointed his disciples to Jesus (John 1:29, 36).

As we prepare to feast on the Lamb of our salvation, we do indeed proclaim Him who gave his life for us. Here is the Lamb of God! Yet we also pray to Him who is now present in His body and blood.

We pray for mercy, mercy from the One who showed the true depths of mercy and compassion as he was silently led to slaughter, dying like a lamb shorn of all its honor.

Again in the book of Revelation John has a vision of heaven, and we hear his description of the saints in white robes.

“Who are they?” John is asked. The answer: “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:13-14).

This is the blood of our redemption, that is foreshadowed at the first Passover when the blood of the year-old lambs was sprinkled on the doorpost as a sign that blood had already been shed in that house.

So it is at every celebration of the Lord's Supper. The blood of the Lamb is poured out for our drinking and His flesh for our eating. Clearly, God's mercy is shown, and His peace rests on us.

“Come, for everything is now ready!” So goes the invitation in the parable of the great banquet (Luke 14:17). Similarly, what our Lord has prepared for us His word and institution, now awaits the Christians for whose eating and drinking it has been prepared.

The pastor, whose duty it is to be the “steward of the mysteries” (1 Cor 4:1– 2), is Christ’s instrument in distributing His Supper to His people. St. Paul carefully teaches us that the Lord’s Supper is here to be given to the one who is prepared worthily to receive, or the one who has faith in the words "for you". However, to the one unworthy and unprepared, it can do great harm (1 Cor 10:1–22; 11:17–34). It would be evil of a pastor to give the Lord’s Supper to one he knew ought not receive it, for whom it would not be “for you, for the forgiveness of sins,” but instead “sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.” The pastor therefore carries out the distribution with love, care and discernment.

Likewise, the people come with reverence and in faith. Believing they are to receive the true body and blood of Jesus, they treat these sacred things in a proper manner. At the words of distribution, “The true body / blood of Christ,” the people may say, “Amen,” confessing faith in our Lord’s words, which make it so.

The Nunc Dimittis, “Now you let depart,” appears as a post-communion canticle only occasionally in the ancient tradition, and also occasionally in the early Lutheran sources. The Nunc Dimittis clearly proclaims what Lutheran churches in particular believe the Lord has just brought about for us in His Supper, namely, His true presence in body and blood, under the bread and wine, and to deliver nothing less than forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

From Luke 2:25-35 we receive the words of this canticle where Simeon says his eyes have seen the Lord’s salvation.  Simeon saw a baby, but no ordinary baby! His eyes wee fixed upon His salvation found only in Jesus. Informed by the Word of God, Simeon’s words become our words which speak of the salvation prepared “before the face of all people,” the glory of God’s people and light to the Gentiles. As we prepare to go out from the Divine Service to render service in the world, Simeon’s words remind us that the word of God we bear is to be shared to give others around us eyes to see the salvation that is for them in Jesus Christ—done before the whole world in His crucifixion and resurrection, but seen for what it is only by those who are made wise by His Word. We go forth from the place of worship not only singing but also living the words, “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,” so that those who see and hear may with us believe.

It is only fitting, having received the gifts of our Lord’s body and blood, for the forgiveness of our sins, that we should thank Him. This is something like the pattern suggested by the Catechism for mealtime, in which God’s people first ask the blessing and then, when the meal is finished, return thanks. Some prayer of thanksgiving has, rather naturally, been part of nearly all Divine Service liturgies.

Our hymnal provides us with two options for a post-communion collect of thanksgiving. One option, “We give thanks to you...” was written by Martin Luther for his “German Mass” of 1526. Rather like Paul’s prayer of Ephesians 1:15–23, it moves from thanksgiving to petition. Of course, thankfulness toward God is most evident in our joyfully receiving his benefits and calling upon him in every need. Luther asks that even as we have been refreshed through the Lord’s Supper, we would also be strengthened in a two-fold way: in love toward God, and in fervent love toward one another. Christ has given his body to us, for the forgiveness of sins. But he has also given us “the body of Christ,” the Church, for the members to care one for another. May the Lord’s Supper move us, as Luther prays, to love and cherish both!

Another option is derived from a 13th century English rite. In original usages, it was a private prayer of the priest as he held the body of Christ. Our service takes it over to be a prayer offered on behalf of all the people who have been given “pardon and peace in this Sacrament,” and we ask that just as God has here “sanctified us” in the broad sense, making us holy by taking away our sins, so would he also “sanctify us” in the narrow sense, ruling our hearts and minds by the Holy Spirit, that we may serve Him.

Then follows the Benedicamus, the pastor saying, “Bless we the Lord,” and the people responding, “Thanks be to God.” The response, “Thanks be to God,” is a repetition of the thought that God is praised or blessed when we thank him for what he has done for us. The phrases, “Bless we the Lord” and “Thanks be to God,” reflect in kernel form two chief modes of Israelite prayer, carried over into New Testament forms. Both are grounded in God’s saving acts, and praise Him for His mighty deliverance of His people. 

The benediction follows the Lord’s instruction to the priests of Israel for putting his name upon his people (Numbers 6:22–27). By these words, those ordained to speak for God to his people put His name upon them—and the Lord says, “I will bless them.” 

The use of the Aaronic benediction at the conclusion of the service is something of a Lutheran usage, being suggested by Luther in his revision of the Mass. The final blessing developed over time in various liturgies. Early on it seems the understanding was that receiving the Supper was blessing enough! These words, though, do not detract from, but unpack, that thought. When Jesus ascended into heaven, Luke writes that Jesus blessed them, and in the blessing, was parted from them (Luke 24:50-51). Luther speculated that he might have used words like these of old. To us they are meant to suggest the fullness of the blessing our Lord has given us in His body-and-blood presence with us in the Divine Service—for you, for the forgiveness of your sins. And where there is forgiveness of sins, surely there is also all life and salvation. Thanks be to God! Amen.