The Cross and Crown https://www.pgwinyah.com This is the blog of Prince George Winyah Parish Church in Georgetown, South Carolina containing reflections on Scripture, theology, and the Book of Common Prayer. Thu, 28 Mar 2024 04:58:35 -0400 http://churchplantmedia.com/ Leaning Into Holy Week: Good Friday https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-good-friday https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-good-friday#comments Fri, 02 Apr 2021 20:00:00 -0400 https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-good-friday "Almighty God, we beseech you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the Cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

I’d like to very briefly look at two features of our Good Friday Collect this evening. The first is the language of “behold this your family.” This Collect is obviously meant to be prayed in a church context, but it presses us to realize that the very people that surround us in the church are the new family that God has created. We don’t choose our biological families, and we don’t choose our spiritual family. God will save whom he will save. Sometimes this annoys us, and sometimes it does much worse. Just like in a family unit, we are broken people living life together: we hurt each other, sometimes severely. The good news for the church family is that we are united by something more powerful than any sin we can perpetrate against our Christian brother or sister: the free forgiveness offered to us all by Jesus on the Cross, which enables our forgiveness and love of each other.

The second feature is the end of the Collect, which prays that Jesus “now lives and reigns.” The Collect for Good Friday, which is dedicated to remembering the death of Jesus, cannot help but acknowledge that Jesus is alive. It cannot help but mention if only implicitly, the resurrection. Just as the Maundy Thursday service must at least gesture toward the Cross, the Good Friday service must in an ever so subtle way gesture toward the resurrection. This is because the Cross and Resurrection are two sides of the same coin. They are each as necessary as each other for our salvation. Lose one, and the other becomes meaningless. The whole Incarnation, Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus are one seamless salvific whole. And by faith, we are united to all of it. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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"Almighty God, we beseech you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the Cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

I’d like to very briefly look at two features of our Good Friday Collect this evening. The first is the language of “behold this your family.” This Collect is obviously meant to be prayed in a church context, but it presses us to realize that the very people that surround us in the church are the new family that God has created. We don’t choose our biological families, and we don’t choose our spiritual family. God will save whom he will save. Sometimes this annoys us, and sometimes it does much worse. Just like in a family unit, we are broken people living life together: we hurt each other, sometimes severely. The good news for the church family is that we are united by something more powerful than any sin we can perpetrate against our Christian brother or sister: the free forgiveness offered to us all by Jesus on the Cross, which enables our forgiveness and love of each other.

The second feature is the end of the Collect, which prays that Jesus “now lives and reigns.” The Collect for Good Friday, which is dedicated to remembering the death of Jesus, cannot help but acknowledge that Jesus is alive. It cannot help but mention if only implicitly, the resurrection. Just as the Maundy Thursday service must at least gesture toward the Cross, the Good Friday service must in an ever so subtle way gesture toward the resurrection. This is because the Cross and Resurrection are two sides of the same coin. They are each as necessary as each other for our salvation. Lose one, and the other becomes meaningless. The whole Incarnation, Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus are one seamless salvific whole. And by faith, we are united to all of it. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Leaning Into Holy Week: Maundy Thursday https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-maundy-thursday https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-maundy-thursday#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2021 21:00:00 -0400 https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-maundy-thursday “Almighty Father, whose most dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it in thankful remembrance of Jesus Christ our Savior, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

The Eucharist is an inestimable gift. And, as our Maundy Thursday liturgy reminds us: "This is the night that Christ our God gave us this holy feast, that we who eat this bread and drink this cup may here proclaim his perfect sacrifice." I think our appreciation of Holy Communion can only increase if we meditate on how the Prayer Book instructs us to pray around it. Take a few moments to meditate on these prayers:

103. Preparation for Public Worship
Guide and direct us, O Lord, always and everywhere with your holy light, that we may discern with clear vision your presence among us, and partake with worthy intention of your divine mysteries. We ask this for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

104. Before Receiving Communion
Be present, be present, O Jesus, our great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of bread; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

105. After Receiving Communion
O Lord Jesus Christ, in this wonderful Sacrament you have given us a memorial of your passion: Grant us, we pray, so to venerate the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood, that we may ever perceive within ourselves the fruit of your redemption; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

107. After Communion Liturgy of St. Basil
Finished and perfected is the mystery of thy dispensation to us, O Christ our God: For we have beheld the likeness of thy death, we have seen thy resurrection in the breaking of the bread, and we have partaken of thine inexhaustible and divine delights, of which do thou make us worthy, both now and in thy kingdom and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

As we wait until Easter to celebrate Communion again, may we increase in our estimation of this great gift, and in our devotion to the Lord who gave it to us. Amen.

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“Almighty Father, whose most dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it in thankful remembrance of Jesus Christ our Savior, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

The Eucharist is an inestimable gift. And, as our Maundy Thursday liturgy reminds us: "This is the night that Christ our God gave us this holy feast, that we who eat this bread and drink this cup may here proclaim his perfect sacrifice." I think our appreciation of Holy Communion can only increase if we meditate on how the Prayer Book instructs us to pray around it. Take a few moments to meditate on these prayers:

103. Preparation for Public Worship
Guide and direct us, O Lord, always and everywhere with your holy light, that we may discern with clear vision your presence among us, and partake with worthy intention of your divine mysteries. We ask this for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

104. Before Receiving Communion
Be present, be present, O Jesus, our great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of bread; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

105. After Receiving Communion
O Lord Jesus Christ, in this wonderful Sacrament you have given us a memorial of your passion: Grant us, we pray, so to venerate the sacred mysteries of your Body and Blood, that we may ever perceive within ourselves the fruit of your redemption; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

107. After Communion Liturgy of St. Basil
Finished and perfected is the mystery of thy dispensation to us, O Christ our God: For we have beheld the likeness of thy death, we have seen thy resurrection in the breaking of the bread, and we have partaken of thine inexhaustible and divine delights, of which do thou make us worthy, both now and in thy kingdom and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

As we wait until Easter to celebrate Communion again, may we increase in our estimation of this great gift, and in our devotion to the Lord who gave it to us. Amen.

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Leaning Into Holy Week: Wednesday of Holy Week https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-wednesday-of-holy-week https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-wednesday-of-holy-week#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2021 18:00:00 -0400 https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-wednesday-of-holy-week "Assist us mercifully with your grace, Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the meditation of those mighty acts by which you have promised us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever."

Our Collect for today reminds us of two important yet oft-forgotten realities. The first is that in the “mighty acts” of Holy Week (particularly Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection), God acts for “our salvation.” Notice who is the actor here: God is. We do not accomplish our salvation, try as we sometimes might. Everything necessary to win complete and full salvation for humanity is accomplished by God himself in Christ. We simply receive his promises in faith, and when we do that full and complete salvation is ours.

The second reality is one that just keeps coming up within this church (or at least so it seems to me): that salvation is the way to live the true human life. It’s been a theme in many sermons in the past year, and it seems to be a frequent subtext in books that the Inklings read. It is so important to be constantly reminded of it, though, because our flesh continually tempts us to believe the opposite: that a fulfilling life is one in which we give in to our every sinful whim and appetite and enjoy ourselves as much as we possibly can. Apart from a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, the best and most acclaimed human life is but vanity. The Psalmist says: “Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.” (Psalm 62:9) Only in Christ can we find true life, the fullness of what God intended us to be lived out first in our place, and then given to those that believe in Him so that they too can live the abundant human life.

Not for anything we have done or could do, but because of God’s sheer mercy and grace, He acts for our salvation, wins our full redemption, and offers us “life and immortality” freely. Good News. Amen.

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"Assist us mercifully with your grace, Lord God of our salvation, that we may enter with joy upon the meditation of those mighty acts by which you have promised us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever."

Our Collect for today reminds us of two important yet oft-forgotten realities. The first is that in the “mighty acts” of Holy Week (particularly Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection), God acts for “our salvation.” Notice who is the actor here: God is. We do not accomplish our salvation, try as we sometimes might. Everything necessary to win complete and full salvation for humanity is accomplished by God himself in Christ. We simply receive his promises in faith, and when we do that full and complete salvation is ours.

The second reality is one that just keeps coming up within this church (or at least so it seems to me): that salvation is the way to live the true human life. It’s been a theme in many sermons in the past year, and it seems to be a frequent subtext in books that the Inklings read. It is so important to be constantly reminded of it, though, because our flesh continually tempts us to believe the opposite: that a fulfilling life is one in which we give in to our every sinful whim and appetite and enjoy ourselves as much as we possibly can. Apart from a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, the best and most acclaimed human life is but vanity. The Psalmist says: “Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath.” (Psalm 62:9) Only in Christ can we find true life, the fullness of what God intended us to be lived out first in our place, and then given to those that believe in Him so that they too can live the abundant human life.

Not for anything we have done or could do, but because of God’s sheer mercy and grace, He acts for our salvation, wins our full redemption, and offers us “life and immortality” freely. Good News. Amen.

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Leaning Into Holy Week: Tuesday of Holy Week https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-tuesday-of-holy-week https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-tuesday-of-holy-week#comments Tue, 30 Mar 2021 18:00:00 -0400 https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-tuesday-of-holy-week "O Lord our God, whose blessed Son gave his back to be whipped and did not hide his face from shame and spitting: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

Suffering is universal to human experience. Particularly brutal and intense suffering has given rise to one of the more perplexing tensions that the Christian tradition of theology has had to navigate: the problem of evil. How can a perfectly good God allow great suffering, pain, and evil? Most folks who come into any contact with even the idea of God have or will ask that question. And there is no shortage of theories and answers that the Christian use of theology and philosophy has offered to answer that question. A few of them may even be good and intellectually satisfying.

But all the theories in the world don’t feel worth much when we are actually suffering.

How can we, then, “joyfully accept” (as our Collect says) something as horrible as suffering? How can God ask us to go through a felt evil with joy? I will not attempt an exhaustive answer to these questions, but our Collect offers us at least begins an answer by highlighting two necessities for this to happen: grace, and confidence.

The only way we can begin to suffer joyfully is to have an experience of God’s grace: his new attitude of acceptance toward us in Christ and his supernatural power in us by the Spirit that renovates us from the inside out. Naturally speaking, we will almost always come out of suffering more bitter and angry and hurt than we entered it. But, if we have God’s own supernatural power in us and knowledge that he loves us perfectly, we can begin to see suffering as something that can actually draw us closer to Christ, who suffered in our place and in solidarity with us.

That overarching goal of the Christian life, conformity to and union with Christ, speaks to the other necessity: confidence. If we have confidence that all of our sufferings will be redeemed, that God will never leave us nor forsake us in our suffering, that one day every tear will be wiped from every eye and the joy of heaven will explode over the horizon and swallow up suffering for good, then we can endure anything. Even death.

And all this because Christ suffered and died and rose again for us. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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"O Lord our God, whose blessed Son gave his back to be whipped and did not hide his face from shame and spitting: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

Suffering is universal to human experience. Particularly brutal and intense suffering has given rise to one of the more perplexing tensions that the Christian tradition of theology has had to navigate: the problem of evil. How can a perfectly good God allow great suffering, pain, and evil? Most folks who come into any contact with even the idea of God have or will ask that question. And there is no shortage of theories and answers that the Christian use of theology and philosophy has offered to answer that question. A few of them may even be good and intellectually satisfying.

But all the theories in the world don’t feel worth much when we are actually suffering.

How can we, then, “joyfully accept” (as our Collect says) something as horrible as suffering? How can God ask us to go through a felt evil with joy? I will not attempt an exhaustive answer to these questions, but our Collect offers us at least begins an answer by highlighting two necessities for this to happen: grace, and confidence.

The only way we can begin to suffer joyfully is to have an experience of God’s grace: his new attitude of acceptance toward us in Christ and his supernatural power in us by the Spirit that renovates us from the inside out. Naturally speaking, we will almost always come out of suffering more bitter and angry and hurt than we entered it. But, if we have God’s own supernatural power in us and knowledge that he loves us perfectly, we can begin to see suffering as something that can actually draw us closer to Christ, who suffered in our place and in solidarity with us.

That overarching goal of the Christian life, conformity to and union with Christ, speaks to the other necessity: confidence. If we have confidence that all of our sufferings will be redeemed, that God will never leave us nor forsake us in our suffering, that one day every tear will be wiped from every eye and the joy of heaven will explode over the horizon and swallow up suffering for good, then we can endure anything. Even death.

And all this because Christ suffered and died and rose again for us. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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Leaning Into Holy Week: Monday of Holy Week https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-monday https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-monday#comments Mon, 29 Mar 2021 18:00:00 -0400 https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-monday "Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the Cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

The Way of the Cross is the way of life and peace.

The more we think about that claim, the weirder it should probably sound. The more we dwell on the Cross being the way of real life, the more that claim will probably feel out of step with our cultural currents. It certainly doesn’t feel like our culture operates as if that were true, does it? Maybe I’m conflating politics and culture a bit, but it seems to me that we’ve taken a turn toward a dog-eat-dog-world-mode of cultural conversation and especially of politics. The Cambridge Dictionary defines the idiom “dog-eat-dog” as being “used to describe a situation in which people will do anything to be successful, even if what they do harms other people”.

And sometimes it certainly seems like those people who do anything to get ahead get away with it, doesn’t it? If we see other folks doing evil and getting ahead by doing so, it can be quite tempting to respond in kind for the sake of our own prosperity. In a dog-eat-dog world, survival depends on being a more vicious dog than the next guy.

But the Cross clues us into reality: that’s not the way the world (at least the New World of the Kingdom of God that is here and expanding and still to come) works. In the end, reality will not conform to a fundamentally selfish vision of human relationships or power. In the end, it will be the ones who believe that the way of the Cross, that is, the way of self-sacrificial love for the good of the Other, who will experience true life and peace.

May God grant us more and more a heart to believe that the best life is a cruciform one. Amen.

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"Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the Cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

The Way of the Cross is the way of life and peace.

The more we think about that claim, the weirder it should probably sound. The more we dwell on the Cross being the way of real life, the more that claim will probably feel out of step with our cultural currents. It certainly doesn’t feel like our culture operates as if that were true, does it? Maybe I’m conflating politics and culture a bit, but it seems to me that we’ve taken a turn toward a dog-eat-dog-world-mode of cultural conversation and especially of politics. The Cambridge Dictionary defines the idiom “dog-eat-dog” as being “used to describe a situation in which people will do anything to be successful, even if what they do harms other people”.

And sometimes it certainly seems like those people who do anything to get ahead get away with it, doesn’t it? If we see other folks doing evil and getting ahead by doing so, it can be quite tempting to respond in kind for the sake of our own prosperity. In a dog-eat-dog world, survival depends on being a more vicious dog than the next guy.

But the Cross clues us into reality: that’s not the way the world (at least the New World of the Kingdom of God that is here and expanding and still to come) works. In the end, reality will not conform to a fundamentally selfish vision of human relationships or power. In the end, it will be the ones who believe that the way of the Cross, that is, the way of self-sacrificial love for the good of the Other, who will experience true life and peace.

May God grant us more and more a heart to believe that the best life is a cruciform one. Amen.

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Leaning Into Holy Week: Palm Sunday https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-palm-sunday https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-palm-sunday#comments Sun, 28 Mar 2021 16:00:00 -0400 https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/leaning-into-holy-week-palm-sunday "Almighty and everlasting God, in your tender love for us you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon himself our nature, and to suffer death upon the Cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and come to share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

This morning at the 9 AM service, Gary encouraged us all to "lean into” Holy Week. This blog series will be an attempt to help us all do that in an accessible way. If you can’t make every Holy Week service, or even if you can only make it to next Sunday’s glorious Easter celebration, I hope these short blog posts will help us walk through Holy Week together, “that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby God has given us life and immortality”, as our Palm Sunday Liturgy says.

I like that this service mentioned contemplation. It can be defined as “the action of looking thoughtfully at something for a long time.” And that is what Holy Week is intended to be: a long, slow, thoughtful attention paid to the things that are most important. Our culture has little time for contemplation. But an intentional turn toward engaging in it in this Holy Week may yield more spiritual fruit than you might expect.

Also this morning, Mike offered us a beautiful sermon that praised (among other things) the way our Prayer Book won’t let us forget the point of Holy Week: Christ’s passion (from passio, to suffer) for us. He pointed out that seems to be an intentional strategy of the liturgy, reminding us in advance of the most important moment of the story in case we miss participating in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The collect follows this pattern. Though there are a couple of places in the Liturgy of the Palms that refer to the actual palm branches, the collect for today doesn’t even mention them. Instead, these are front and center: suffering, death, the Cross, and eventually the resurrection. Let's keep them front and center.

I pray we experience at least two things this Holy Week. First, I pray we take some time to slow down, to contemplate these mighty acts of God, whether that be in attending a Holy Week service, or in private and personal time with God. And second, I pray that this intentional contemplation will deepen our experience of the “life and immortality” awaiting us at Easter and that it will be a celebration with more joy than we could have possibly dreamt of. Amen.

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"Almighty and everlasting God, in your tender love for us you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon himself our nature, and to suffer death upon the Cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and come to share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

This morning at the 9 AM service, Gary encouraged us all to "lean into” Holy Week. This blog series will be an attempt to help us all do that in an accessible way. If you can’t make every Holy Week service, or even if you can only make it to next Sunday’s glorious Easter celebration, I hope these short blog posts will help us walk through Holy Week together, “that we may enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby God has given us life and immortality”, as our Palm Sunday Liturgy says.

I like that this service mentioned contemplation. It can be defined as “the action of looking thoughtfully at something for a long time.” And that is what Holy Week is intended to be: a long, slow, thoughtful attention paid to the things that are most important. Our culture has little time for contemplation. But an intentional turn toward engaging in it in this Holy Week may yield more spiritual fruit than you might expect.

Also this morning, Mike offered us a beautiful sermon that praised (among other things) the way our Prayer Book won’t let us forget the point of Holy Week: Christ’s passion (from passio, to suffer) for us. He pointed out that seems to be an intentional strategy of the liturgy, reminding us in advance of the most important moment of the story in case we miss participating in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The collect follows this pattern. Though there are a couple of places in the Liturgy of the Palms that refer to the actual palm branches, the collect for today doesn’t even mention them. Instead, these are front and center: suffering, death, the Cross, and eventually the resurrection. Let's keep them front and center.

I pray we experience at least two things this Holy Week. First, I pray we take some time to slow down, to contemplate these mighty acts of God, whether that be in attending a Holy Week service, or in private and personal time with God. And second, I pray that this intentional contemplation will deepen our experience of the “life and immortality” awaiting us at Easter and that it will be a celebration with more joy than we could have possibly dreamt of. Amen.

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Collect Reflections: Christmas Day https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections-christmas-day https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections-christmas-day#comments Tue, 29 Dec 2020 14:00:00 -0500 https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections-christmas-day “Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born [this day] of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.”

“It is winter in Narnia,” said Mr. Tumnus, “and has been for ever so long…. always winter, but never Christmas.” - C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

These words of Lewis capture what it would feel like for the Advent season to be unending. They give voice to what Israel might have felt during the exile as they lived in a forgien land for nearly 50 years, waiting to return home. Even after their return to the land from exile, the prophetic promises of a Messiah, a renewed priesthood and glorious Temple, and a New Covenant would in reality be a long time coming. The period from Malachi’s prophetic ministry until Christ’s first coming is over 400 years. Now that is a long Advent.

But, of course, Advent is meant to prepare us for something we eventually reach, not be a perpetual pitstop. To take up Lewis’ metaphor, the good news is that the winter of Advent has indeed given way to the glories of Christmas. Christ has come! The eternally begotten Son of the Father took on a human nature, lived a perfect life, died an atoning death, was raised for our salvation, ascended into heaven, reigns at this very moment, and will one day come again in glory! And because of his birth, we can be born again. Because he lived his life as the perfect Son in our place, we can become children of God by adoption and grace.

Our Collect does a good job of balancing the once-for-all aspect of Jesus’ work with the ongoing aspect. We are made God’s children once for all time, never having to fear that God will revoke our adoption and kick us out of his family. And, at the same time, we continue to experience new depths and dimensions of our walk with God as we are “daily...renewed by your Holy Spirit.” We need the Spirit day by day, hour by hour, “more and more” (as our Confirmation service reminds us). This is part of the reason the Church calendar will eventually circle back around to Advent: every season of the church year and of the Christian life offers more depth to be discovered in returning again and again to God’s work in Christ by the Spirit. There is always more to learn during the laborious waiting of Advent. But for right now, the long wait is over: Christmastide is here!

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14)

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“Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born [this day] of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.”

“It is winter in Narnia,” said Mr. Tumnus, “and has been for ever so long…. always winter, but never Christmas.” - C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

These words of Lewis capture what it would feel like for the Advent season to be unending. They give voice to what Israel might have felt during the exile as they lived in a forgien land for nearly 50 years, waiting to return home. Even after their return to the land from exile, the prophetic promises of a Messiah, a renewed priesthood and glorious Temple, and a New Covenant would in reality be a long time coming. The period from Malachi’s prophetic ministry until Christ’s first coming is over 400 years. Now that is a long Advent.

But, of course, Advent is meant to prepare us for something we eventually reach, not be a perpetual pitstop. To take up Lewis’ metaphor, the good news is that the winter of Advent has indeed given way to the glories of Christmas. Christ has come! The eternally begotten Son of the Father took on a human nature, lived a perfect life, died an atoning death, was raised for our salvation, ascended into heaven, reigns at this very moment, and will one day come again in glory! And because of his birth, we can be born again. Because he lived his life as the perfect Son in our place, we can become children of God by adoption and grace.

Our Collect does a good job of balancing the once-for-all aspect of Jesus’ work with the ongoing aspect. We are made God’s children once for all time, never having to fear that God will revoke our adoption and kick us out of his family. And, at the same time, we continue to experience new depths and dimensions of our walk with God as we are “daily...renewed by your Holy Spirit.” We need the Spirit day by day, hour by hour, “more and more” (as our Confirmation service reminds us). This is part of the reason the Church calendar will eventually circle back around to Advent: every season of the church year and of the Christian life offers more depth to be discovered in returning again and again to God’s work in Christ by the Spirit. There is always more to learn during the laborious waiting of Advent. But for right now, the long wait is over: Christmastide is here!

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14)

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Collect Reflections: The Fourth Sunday in Advent https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections#comments Sun, 20 Dec 2020 19:00:00 -0500 https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Annunciation

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and as we are sorely hindered by our sins from running the race that is set before us, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.”

The Fourth Sunday in Advent is subtitled “Annunciation”, because the Gospel passages assigned for this Sunday focus on (in different ways) the announcement of the Messiah’s birth more than the actual birth itself. The Gospel passage we read in church today (Luke 1:26-38) is what you might call the Annunciation proper, because it is the passage that gives the famous and full account of the conversation between the Angel Gabrial and the Virgin Mary commonly called the Annunciation (and depicted in art under that name). This particular Gospel (for Year B in the Sunday Lectionary) has resonances with our Collect that the other Gospel passages assigned for Years A and C don’t quite have. I’d like to focus on those resonances briefly.

Commentators on Scripture down through church history have noticed that as a Gospel writer, Luke gives particular prominence to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes more explicitly identified appearances in Luke than in any other Gospel, and so many students of Scripture and theologians have concluded that Pneumatology (the doctrine of the Holy Spirit) is one of Luke’s theological emphases. It is no surprise, then, that the Holy Spirit makes an appearance in the story of the Annunciation. After hearing the announcement of her miraculous pregnancy and the coming birth of her son, Mary asks a rather natural question: “And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin? And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” (Luke 1:34-35, emphasis mine). The Holy Spirit is the agent of this miracle by his presence and his power, and it is these two features of the Holy Spirit’s work that we find our resonances with the Collect.

We ask in this Collect that God would stir up his power and come among us. We ask, in other words, for the presence and the power of God. We also ask that God’s grace and mercy would help and deliver us. Presence. Power. Grace. Mercy. Help. Deliverance. All of these things have the same source, and they all come to us by the same agency: the Holy Spirit himself. When we ask God for his presence and power, He answers with the Spirit. Or when we request grace and mercy, we receive it through the Holy Spirit’s work. Or when we cry out for help and deliverance, the Spirit himself comes to rescue us. The best answer to all of these prayers is the personal presence and power of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, who is God Himself. When we ask God for the things toward which this Collect directs us, we are not asking for anything less than God, since it is only in, through, and from God that our prayers are answered. And so, let us ask for all these things. But let us also simply pray for more and more of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, since He is the ultimate answer to our prayers anyway. Come, Holy Spirit. Come and have your way. Amen.

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Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

Annunciation

“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and as we are sorely hindered by our sins from running the race that is set before us, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.”

The Fourth Sunday in Advent is subtitled “Annunciation”, because the Gospel passages assigned for this Sunday focus on (in different ways) the announcement of the Messiah’s birth more than the actual birth itself. The Gospel passage we read in church today (Luke 1:26-38) is what you might call the Annunciation proper, because it is the passage that gives the famous and full account of the conversation between the Angel Gabrial and the Virgin Mary commonly called the Annunciation (and depicted in art under that name). This particular Gospel (for Year B in the Sunday Lectionary) has resonances with our Collect that the other Gospel passages assigned for Years A and C don’t quite have. I’d like to focus on those resonances briefly.

Commentators on Scripture down through church history have noticed that as a Gospel writer, Luke gives particular prominence to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes more explicitly identified appearances in Luke than in any other Gospel, and so many students of Scripture and theologians have concluded that Pneumatology (the doctrine of the Holy Spirit) is one of Luke’s theological emphases. It is no surprise, then, that the Holy Spirit makes an appearance in the story of the Annunciation. After hearing the announcement of her miraculous pregnancy and the coming birth of her son, Mary asks a rather natural question: “And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin? And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.” (Luke 1:34-35, emphasis mine). The Holy Spirit is the agent of this miracle by his presence and his power, and it is these two features of the Holy Spirit’s work that we find our resonances with the Collect.

We ask in this Collect that God would stir up his power and come among us. We ask, in other words, for the presence and the power of God. We also ask that God’s grace and mercy would help and deliver us. Presence. Power. Grace. Mercy. Help. Deliverance. All of these things have the same source, and they all come to us by the same agency: the Holy Spirit himself. When we ask God for his presence and power, He answers with the Spirit. Or when we request grace and mercy, we receive it through the Holy Spirit’s work. Or when we cry out for help and deliverance, the Spirit himself comes to rescue us. The best answer to all of these prayers is the personal presence and power of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, who is God Himself. When we ask God for the things toward which this Collect directs us, we are not asking for anything less than God, since it is only in, through, and from God that our prayers are answered. And so, let us ask for all these things. But let us also simply pray for more and more of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, since He is the ultimate answer to our prayers anyway. Come, Holy Spirit. Come and have your way. Amen.

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Collect Reflections: The Third Sunday in Advent https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections-the-third-sunday-in-advent https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections-the-third-sunday-in-advent#comments Sun, 13 Dec 2020 20:00:00 -0500 https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections-the-third-sunday-in-advent “O Lord Jesus Christ, you sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries may likewise make ready your way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient toward the wisdom of the just, that at your second coming to judge the world, we may be found a people acceptable in your sight; for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

Part of the task of the church in the world is to exercise a prophetic office. In a culture where tolerance seems to be the predominant value and the even slightest intolerance is not tolerated, this means that the church must accept a certain level of distance and scorn from the culture around us. The prophets were hardly popular figures. In the book of Kings, which the Men’s Bible Study has been studying since September of last year, the most common response from the kings of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah to the prophets that God sends is to repress, persecute, and sometimes to kill them. When king Ahab of Israel is introduced into the biblical story, this is how it is done: “And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him.” (1 Kings 16:30) And yet, when Ahab meets Elijah, that great prophet of God who confronted Ahab’s sins, without a hint of irony in his mind (it seems), he does so this way: “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” (1 Kings 18:17). Ahab, one of the most infamously evil kings of the Bible, treats Elijah, the God-commission-and-empowered prophet, as if he is the problem.

As our culture secularizes further and further, I think we can expect more of this kind of reception to the message and ministry of the church. The message we proclaim and the truths refuse to give ground on will become ever stranger to those we are speaking to, perhaps almost unintelligible. And it may even become the case that our culture at large believes that Christianity and its teaching are actually the source of the problem. We know the true source of all our troubles: the rebellion of humanity in our Fall into sin. And yet, we should not be surprised if, without irony on its parts, our culture pulls an Ahab and accuses us of being the real problem here. Such is the power of sin to blind the mind to truth. And yet, we know that only the Gospel, or better, God’s wielding of the Gospel through the church, has the power to dispel the darkness of the mind with the light of the truth of God’s love for the world. And so, we preach. We evangelize. We serve both neighbor and enemy. To strengthen ourselves for this task ahead, we need what the prophets had: God’s Word and God’s Spirit.

The biblical texts that we have received as the prophets have their origin in God revealing a message to a human prophet. The common phrasing in Scripture is “the word of the Lord came to _____”, and this usually begins a passage of God’s speech to his people. These messages were written down and collected and given to us by God himself as part of his Word, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. And God wields those same Scriptures in the lives of believers to speak to us, strengthen us, empower us, and ultimately conform to the image of the Word Himself, the Son, the one to whom the prophetic words point: Jesus Christ. If we are to be the prophetic community God intends the church to be in the world, we must give ourselves to continually hearing and rehearing the Word of God, as the prophets did.

We also need more and more (and more and more and…) of God’s Spirit. Here, Elisha is our guide: “When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” Elijah offers Elisha a chance to ask for anything before he passes on his prophetic mantle, and Elisha asks for more of the Spirit. Today was our Confirmation service at church, wherein the Bishop prayed over our Confirmands that they may “daily increase more and more” in the power of the Spirit. May that be a daily prayer of all of God’s people! God, give us more of your Word. Give us more of your Spirit. Give us more of Yourself. Amen.

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“O Lord Jesus Christ, you sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries may likewise make ready your way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient toward the wisdom of the just, that at your second coming to judge the world, we may be found a people acceptable in your sight; for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

Part of the task of the church in the world is to exercise a prophetic office. In a culture where tolerance seems to be the predominant value and the even slightest intolerance is not tolerated, this means that the church must accept a certain level of distance and scorn from the culture around us. The prophets were hardly popular figures. In the book of Kings, which the Men’s Bible Study has been studying since September of last year, the most common response from the kings of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah to the prophets that God sends is to repress, persecute, and sometimes to kill them. When king Ahab of Israel is introduced into the biblical story, this is how it is done: “And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him.” (1 Kings 16:30) And yet, when Ahab meets Elijah, that great prophet of God who confronted Ahab’s sins, without a hint of irony in his mind (it seems), he does so this way: “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” (1 Kings 18:17). Ahab, one of the most infamously evil kings of the Bible, treats Elijah, the God-commission-and-empowered prophet, as if he is the problem.

As our culture secularizes further and further, I think we can expect more of this kind of reception to the message and ministry of the church. The message we proclaim and the truths refuse to give ground on will become ever stranger to those we are speaking to, perhaps almost unintelligible. And it may even become the case that our culture at large believes that Christianity and its teaching are actually the source of the problem. We know the true source of all our troubles: the rebellion of humanity in our Fall into sin. And yet, we should not be surprised if, without irony on its parts, our culture pulls an Ahab and accuses us of being the real problem here. Such is the power of sin to blind the mind to truth. And yet, we know that only the Gospel, or better, God’s wielding of the Gospel through the church, has the power to dispel the darkness of the mind with the light of the truth of God’s love for the world. And so, we preach. We evangelize. We serve both neighbor and enemy. To strengthen ourselves for this task ahead, we need what the prophets had: God’s Word and God’s Spirit.

The biblical texts that we have received as the prophets have their origin in God revealing a message to a human prophet. The common phrasing in Scripture is “the word of the Lord came to _____”, and this usually begins a passage of God’s speech to his people. These messages were written down and collected and given to us by God himself as part of his Word, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. And God wields those same Scriptures in the lives of believers to speak to us, strengthen us, empower us, and ultimately conform to the image of the Word Himself, the Son, the one to whom the prophetic words point: Jesus Christ. If we are to be the prophetic community God intends the church to be in the world, we must give ourselves to continually hearing and rehearing the Word of God, as the prophets did.

We also need more and more (and more and more and…) of God’s Spirit. Here, Elisha is our guide: “When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” Elijah offers Elisha a chance to ask for anything before he passes on his prophetic mantle, and Elisha asks for more of the Spirit. Today was our Confirmation service at church, wherein the Bishop prayed over our Confirmands that they may “daily increase more and more” in the power of the Spirit. May that be a daily prayer of all of God’s people! God, give us more of your Word. Give us more of your Spirit. Give us more of Yourself. Amen.

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Collect Reflections: The Second Sunday in Advent https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections-the-second-sunday-of-advent https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections-the-second-sunday-of-advent#comments Fri, 04 Dec 2020 16:00:00 -0500 https://www.pgwinyah.com/the-cross-and-crown/post/collect-reflections-the-second-sunday-of-advent Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent

“Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Our Advent Collect continues a theme of retraining our attention on weightier matters of life, this time turning our hearts and minds toward Scripture. The value that this Collect places on Scripture is built on the testimony of the Bible about itself. Two Psalms are particularly well known for testifying to how precious Scripture is: Psalms 19 and 119. Psalm 19:10 reads, “More to be desired are they [the Scriptures] than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, than the drippings from the honeycomb.” Psalm 119 echoes this twice, proclaiming, “The law of your mouth is dearer to me than thousands in gold and silver” and “For I love your commandments above all things, more than gold and precious stones.” Love of the Bible as a precious gift from God has been, and should be, at the center of Anglican piety. 

The Preface to the English Standard Version of the Bible demonstrates the value that Anglicans have placed on Scripture: ““This Book [is] the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; this is the royal Law; these are the lively Oracles of God.” With these words the Moderator of the Church of Scotland hands a Bible to the new monarch in Britain’s coronation service. These words echo the King James Bible translators, who wrote in 1611, “God’s sacred Word . . . is that inestimable treasure that excelleth all the riches of the earth.””  The Bible is “the most valuable” thing we could ever own and it excelles “all the riches of the earth.” Why? Because, as our Collect reminds us, God “caused all Holy Scriptures to be written" for us. God himself wrote a book. For us. The Bible is no mere ancient collection of documents. It is God’s living and active Word, by which he speaks to his people, converting them, ruling them, and transforming them.

What should we do with such a precious gift? Our Collect has the answer. First, we should “hear” the Holy Scriptures, primarily through regular participation in the church’s worship. It is in our service of Holy Communion that God’s Word it read aloud and preached from. Second, we should “read”, “mark”, and “learn” them. The daily reading of Scripture is one of the foundational practices of the Christian life. The Bible does us no good left on a shelf. Take up and read! “Marking” Scripture refers to a diligent study of it. Some of our reading of the Bible should be done at a deeper level than merely glancing over the words to get through our daily devotions. We should slow down, seek out resources, and try to dig into Scripture to come to a deeper understanding of it. Our goal in this is “learning” Scripture: having a functional literacy in the Bible’s parts and its message as a whole. And this all should lead to “inwardly digesting” Scripture: letting God’s Word sink from our heads into our hearts, transforming us from the inside out, inflaming and enlarging our love of God and love of neighbor. This is the power that Scripture has when it is wielded by the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian. To neglect Scripture is to neglect one of God’s greatest gifts to us, and one of the most powerful means of grace that God uses to transform us into the image of his Son. Because that is where Scripture should ultimately lead us, and therefore where our Collect leads us: it is in Scripture that we come into contact with “the blessed hope of everlasting life” which is ours in Jesus, who is the sum and substance of all the Holy Scriptures. 

The Person we encounter when we read the Bible is none other than Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God and Lord of all the universe. And when we encounter him in Scripture, we are drawn deeper into everlasting life he has given to us. So, this Advent, let us renew our commitment to engaging with Scripture. Let us pray that we would value it as much as God does. And let us seek to encounter God Himself in its pages, for his glory. Amen.

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Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent

“Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

Our Advent Collect continues a theme of retraining our attention on weightier matters of life, this time turning our hearts and minds toward Scripture. The value that this Collect places on Scripture is built on the testimony of the Bible about itself. Two Psalms are particularly well known for testifying to how precious Scripture is: Psalms 19 and 119. Psalm 19:10 reads, “More to be desired are they [the Scriptures] than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, than the drippings from the honeycomb.” Psalm 119 echoes this twice, proclaiming, “The law of your mouth is dearer to me than thousands in gold and silver” and “For I love your commandments above all things, more than gold and precious stones.” Love of the Bible as a precious gift from God has been, and should be, at the center of Anglican piety. 

The Preface to the English Standard Version of the Bible demonstrates the value that Anglicans have placed on Scripture: ““This Book [is] the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; this is the royal Law; these are the lively Oracles of God.” With these words the Moderator of the Church of Scotland hands a Bible to the new monarch in Britain’s coronation service. These words echo the King James Bible translators, who wrote in 1611, “God’s sacred Word . . . is that inestimable treasure that excelleth all the riches of the earth.””  The Bible is “the most valuable” thing we could ever own and it excelles “all the riches of the earth.” Why? Because, as our Collect reminds us, God “caused all Holy Scriptures to be written" for us. God himself wrote a book. For us. The Bible is no mere ancient collection of documents. It is God’s living and active Word, by which he speaks to his people, converting them, ruling them, and transforming them.

What should we do with such a precious gift? Our Collect has the answer. First, we should “hear” the Holy Scriptures, primarily through regular participation in the church’s worship. It is in our service of Holy Communion that God’s Word it read aloud and preached from. Second, we should “read”, “mark”, and “learn” them. The daily reading of Scripture is one of the foundational practices of the Christian life. The Bible does us no good left on a shelf. Take up and read! “Marking” Scripture refers to a diligent study of it. Some of our reading of the Bible should be done at a deeper level than merely glancing over the words to get through our daily devotions. We should slow down, seek out resources, and try to dig into Scripture to come to a deeper understanding of it. Our goal in this is “learning” Scripture: having a functional literacy in the Bible’s parts and its message as a whole. And this all should lead to “inwardly digesting” Scripture: letting God’s Word sink from our heads into our hearts, transforming us from the inside out, inflaming and enlarging our love of God and love of neighbor. This is the power that Scripture has when it is wielded by the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian. To neglect Scripture is to neglect one of God’s greatest gifts to us, and one of the most powerful means of grace that God uses to transform us into the image of his Son. Because that is where Scripture should ultimately lead us, and therefore where our Collect leads us: it is in Scripture that we come into contact with “the blessed hope of everlasting life” which is ours in Jesus, who is the sum and substance of all the Holy Scriptures. 

The Person we encounter when we read the Bible is none other than Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God and Lord of all the universe. And when we encounter him in Scripture, we are drawn deeper into everlasting life he has given to us. So, this Advent, let us renew our commitment to engaging with Scripture. Let us pray that we would value it as much as God does. And let us seek to encounter God Himself in its pages, for his glory. Amen.

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