When We Gather · Stop 5
What is happening when the service ends?
At the end of many Lutheran services, someone says words like: Go in peace. Serve the Lord. And everyone answers: Thanks be to God. That isn't a polite way of saying it's time to leave. It's the last movement of worship.
Start this stopSending
The Sending is short. It often includes a blessing, a song, and a few words that send everyone out. Many churches use a blessing from the book of Numbers that God gave to Moses: The Lord bless you and keep you.
The old Latin service ended with the words Ite, missa est, which point to people being sent out. That's where the English word Mass comes from. The whole service was named for its ending.
Being sent is different from being dismissed. Dismissed means the event is over. Sent means the work starts now. What happened inside the church goes with you into school, home, work, and wherever your week takes you.
Luther's explanation of the First Article says that God gives us everything we have. His answer to that gift is to thank, praise, serve, and obey God. The Sending is where that serving begins.
Read it in your Bible
- Numbers 6:24–26. God gives Moses words of blessing for the priests to speak over the people: may the Lord bless you and keep you, make his face shine on you and be kind to you, look on you with favor, and give you peace.
- Matthew 28:19–20. Jesus sends his followers to make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them. He promises to be with them always, to the end of the age.
The First Article, from Luther's Small Catechism
I believe that God has made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my limbs, my reason, and all my senses, and still preserves them; in addition thereto, clothing and shoes, meat and drink, house and homestead, wife and children, fields, cattle, and all my goods; that He provides me richly and daily with all that I need to support this body and life, protects me from all danger, and guards me and preserves me from all evil; and all this out of pure, fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me; for all which I owe it to Him to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him. This is most certainly true.
Words to know
- Benediction. From the Latin for speaking good words; a blessing near the end of the service. You leave with God's blessing spoken over you.
- Dismissal. The last words of the service, such as Go in peace. Serve the Lord. In worship, the goodbye is really a sending.
- Blessing. Words that ask for God's goodness on someone, like the words from Numbers 6. The same blessing has been spoken over God's people for thousands of years.
- Serve. What Luther's First Article says we owe God, along with thanks, praise, and obedience. Serving God happens mostly out in the world, with your neighbors.
- Peace. What the blessing in Numbers ends with, and what the dismissal sends you out in. Peace is God's gift before it is your job.