Standing together
“Standing is the posture of the Easter people for Easter prayer”.
These words of our Liturgy prof. in the seminary ring in my ears as I consider our posture during the Liturgy. The liturgical books of the church direct us during our worship to the various common postures of standing, sitting and kneeling not to be rigid on the people of God but to make us look like what we really are—one body. This is expressed in common posture adopted by the participants.
Standing is different from standing around. Standing at the Liturgy is not a hands-in-pockets, hanging out type of affair, it is a posture that is ready to move if necessary, a sign of the readiness of the People of God to meet their God. It is a posture that looks forward to the second coming of the Messiah.
The ancient people of the Exodus were instructed to eat the Passover while standing up, in haste, with the cloak and shoes on, and a staff in the hand. The Passover meal was to be a meal for the Journey. The Eucharist too is a meal of the journey - the journey of our lives. It makes us, as we sing, companions on the journey, (that is fellow bread breakers) travelling together in the adventure of the Kingdom of God. Our common posture during the liturgy is a sign of the unity of the members of the church, gathered for this sacred meal. Ritually, it both expresses and fosters a spiritual attitude of alertness and engagement. Standing also indicates that we are not just passive recipients, seated all the time in the receiving mode. We are an animated people at worship: the joy of our togetherness in this assembly expresses itself in our standing together, and underlying this standing is a whole range of feelings and interior convictions about what we are doing in the presence of God and being in dialogue with the Divine One.
We stand before the One who determines and defines our life, who gives strength to our existence; we come to our feet at the beginning of the liturgy to signal that God is the one and only Lord, as scripture teaches us to do. [Read the meeting of Abraham with God at the oak of Mamre in Genesis 18.v8.] We stand up out of respect for the Most High.
Remember how the ancient people built their temples on hilltops to indicate visibly a sense of greater closeness to God. In a similar manner, our posture of standing up at prayer tends to place us in a more intense conversation with the Divine One. This posture becomes especially important in the moment when we greet Christ in the Gospel and at the time of the proclamation of our faith in the Creed, and later when we actively move forward to the altar to receive Him in the Eucharist. In these exterior movements of the body, we are giving a public profession that the Lord's Passover is the foundation of our lives and the foretaste of our destiny. At the Gospel, when we stand up we are in listening mode; in the Creed, we are vocal in declaiming the Nicene Creed which the church has professed since the Council of that name in the year 325. As we stand and walk forward to receive Holy Communion we are walking towards the heavenly Jerusalem while at the same time standing at the foot of the Cross.
Our standing together helps us to avoid pretending that we can find in our
own selves or by our own efforts all the energy, grace and purpose by which
we live. Rather, our very standing is an act of prayer which proclaims to the
world that our salvation comes from God. The psalmist said:
I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where shall come my help?
My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth..
So, the Liturgy’s invitation to us to stand together expresses the faith that we
desire to grow into the full stature of Jesus Christ. It invites us to join in a
fruitful pilgrimage through life. Our standing represents our readiness for
growth in Christ.
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