Christ Church

“For this cause he is the Mediator of the new covenant”

For what cause? Meaning for what reason or on account of what? The reason or cause is redemption or atonement which can only be accomplished by a Mediator; indeed, as Hebrews insists, “the Mediator.” The Christian understanding of redemption hangs on the idea of Christ as the Mediator between God and Man.

Passion Sunday marks the beginning of deep Lent, a time of great seriousness and contemplation about the human condition of sin, suffering, and death, on the one hand, and about how that condition is addressed and dealt with by God, on the other hand. We are thrown into the deep waters of theology.

The lesson from Hebrews lays out the Scriptural doctrine of human redemption. “Christ is the High Priest of good things to come,” the Epistle reading begins, hinting at something greater and better and more efficacious than the sacrificial “blood of goats and calves,” and yet it is by blood, “by his own blood,” that this is accomplished. That “blood” belongs to the truth of Christ’s humanity as derived from Mary whose Annunciation fell just this week past, marking the conception of Christ in her womb without which this greater sacrifice would not be possible. He is “immensity cloistered in thy dear womb,” by which “salvation to all that will is nigh,” as John Donne’s sonnet, ‘Annunciation’, so beautifully puts it.

“By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place.” The references to “High Priest” and “the holy place” speak to the sacrificial rituals of the Temple in Jerusalem that recapitulate the forms of Israel’s deliverance and dedication to God, but the point of Hebrews is about something greater. It is signified by Christ “enter[ing] in once,” and once for all, we might add, “having obtained eternal redemption for us.” The contrast is between the Old or First Covenant and the New or Second Covenant; the turning point is the nature of the Mediator who gathers our humanity into the life of God.

The word redemption is used twice in this passage. Christ “enter[ing] in once into the holy place” obtains “eternal redemption for us.” “He is the Mediator of the new covenant, that by means of death for the redemptionof the transgressions that were under the first covenant,” meaning the Old Covenant of the Torah, the Law, “they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” The end or purpose of our humanity is to be found in God and not simply in our own projects and designs.

For our own projects and designs are invariably but “the devices and desires of our own hearts,” as the General Confession so clearly puts it (BCP, p. 4), such things, which we admit, “we have followed too much.” For “we have offended against thy holy laws.” ”We have left undone, the things which we ought to have done.” “We have done the things which we ought not to have done.” Would we really want to protest this? Is there any wonder, then, about acknowledging that “there is no health in us”? The phrase in the context of this honest appraisal of the human condition is that “we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves” (Collect for Lent II). We are not self-complete nor are we self-sufficient, as the events of our world more than amply suggest.

Read the rest of this entry »

The collect for today, the Fifth Sunday in Lent, commonly called Passion Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

WE beseech thee, Almighty God, mercifully to look upon thy people; that by thy great goodness they may be governed and preserved evermore, both in body and soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Hebrews 9:11-15
The Gospel: St. Matthew 20:20-28

Artwork: Lorenzo Lotto, Christ, giving his blood, 1543. Oil on panel, Kunthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

This is the third address in this series. The first is posted here and the second here.

“Give us this day our daily bread”

Who are we asking? Our Father. Not our Lord. It is perhaps important to remember that all of the seven petitions of the Lord’s Prayer are addressed to God as “Our Father.” As with the first three petitions, so too with the last four petitions. What we ask for we ask “Our Father.”

Origen already remarked on this unique and special feature of the Lord’s Prayer. Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures do we find any prayer addressed to God as Father. Augustine several centuries later also calls attention to this as does Aquinas in the thirteenth century.

The opening words of the “Our Father” carry over into all of the petitions and serve to ground our prayers in a kind of praise and wonder about God himself that acts as a counter to the ways in which we invariably seek to make God subject to ourselves. That, of course, is how we lose ourselves because we lose sight of God. “For many things are said in praise of God,” Augustine notes, “which, being scattered variously and widely over all the Holy Scriptures, everyone will be able to consider when he reads them; yet nowhere is there found a precept for the people of Israel, that they should say ‘Our Father,’ or that they should pray to God as a Father; but as Lord He was made known to them.” It suggests something intimate and important about the “Our Father” as belonging to the essential understanding of the Christian faith.

The seventeenth century Anglican Divine, Lancelot Andrewes, in his Holy Devotions, notes that the Lord’s Prayer begins with “a Father, not a Lord/ One being a name of love./ The other of dignity … One being, a name of Goodness, Comfortable … the other of Power, Terrible … Who then durst be so bold as to call the Father, but that Christ did command it?” The Lord’s Prayer is grounded in the Son’s love of the Father; his Father is “Our Father” at his bidding and command. We are bold to say, “Our Father.”

Jesus provides instruction about prayer and about persevering in prayer in many places such as in Matthew 7.9. “What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?” Christ’s first temptation, too, was about the manipulation of the world, about turning stones into bread. The image of “Our Father” reminds us of the essential goodness of God and about what he seeks for us, namely, not stones but bread. Why? Out of the love of the Father for the Son and in the power of the Son’s love for the Father; out of the bond of their mutual and indwelling love, we learn the deep love of God for us. Thus this fourth petition, which marks the beginning of the second set of petitions, concerns what we seek from God in terms of our lives here and now but only as grounded in the deep love of God himself and that love as turned towards us; in short, God’s love for us.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Be it unto me according to thy word”

Is this a kind of fatalism? An acquiescence to ‘the way things are’ or are ‘going to be’? That might be how we feel in a time of isolation and virtual lock-down. It might seem that all and every kind of agency that belongs to human dignity is being taken away and we are trapped.

And while there are many, many uncertainties, and no end of fears and worries that are part of our current experience in the face of the Covid-19 outbreak, including how authorities deal or don’t deal with it, Mary’s words are not about a lack of agency or a kind of fatalism. They are more about an active willing of God’s will or Providence and as such belong to human freedom, agency, and accountability. They belong, in other words to what it properly means to be human which is not about manipulation, not about being reduced to machines, to automatons and bots, but about responsibility and agency. Mary’s words define our humanity and remind us that without God we are radically incomplete.

Mary’s Annunciation falls this year within the range of mid-Lent, a complement at once to the week following ‘Mothering Sunday,’ ‘Laetare’ or Rejoicing Sunday, as the Fourth Sunday in Lent is often called, as well as belonging to the essential orientation of the Lenten Journey that brings us to the Passion of Christ. Simply put, her fiat mihi, her “be it unto me according to thy word” anticipates and participates in what will be Christ’s great word of prayer in Gethsemane and his prayers to the Father on the Cross. “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine be  done.” “I have come,” Jesus says, “to do the will of him who sent me.” He is defined by his eternal and essential orientation to the Father. As Mary shows, that orientation also belongs to the essential meaning of the truth of our humanity. In other words, Mary shows us exactly what it means to be truly and purely human. “Thy will be done.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The collect for today, The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canada, 1962):

WE beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that, as we have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Isaiah 7:10-15
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:26-38

Artwork: Tintoretto, The Annunciation, 1583-87. Oil on canvas, Scuola Grande di San Rocco, Venice.

“Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.”

“He himself knew what he would do,” John tells us about Jesus in a parenthetical remark. It signals a providential sense of purpose. Jesus is in a mountain wilderness with his disciples. But  “lifting up his eyes,” he sees “a great company come unto him.” His first question to Philip is about how to provide for them, how to care for us, we might say. Yet, as John immediately states, “he himself knew what he would do.” It is a profound lesson about what God seeks for us.

In the ancient and biblical understanding, the wilderness is a place of contemplation, a place of prayer, the place of communion between God and man. There is a great good to be found for us in the wilderness where we are removed from all of the busyness and distractions, all of the confusions and fears of our lives. There are, to be sure, many different senses to the word wilderness but here the focus is on what is learned in the wilderness of our lives itself when we take time to think and pray.

In our current distresses about Covid-19, it may seem that we are all in a kind of wilderness. My hope and prayer is that something good may be learned that is the counter to our fears and worries, our fears about ourselves and our fears about one another, especially our fear of others. For in this powerful Gospel story, we learn about what God seeks for us. We learn not only about being fed and provided for; we learn about thanksgiving. That is especially important. Why? Because it gathers us into the very life of God.

The sixth chapter of John’s Gospel is traditionally known as ‘the bread of life discourse.’ It is intentionally sacramental. It shows that the essential life of Jesus is eucharistical; in short, it is thanksgiving. What is enacted visibly goes to the inner reality of the Son’s relation to the Father. He gives thanks. To whom? To the Father. How? Through the breaking of the bread. “Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down.” This all becomes part and parcel of the Church’s sacramental life which is nothing less and nothing more than our participation in the life of God in Christ. It is about “letting Jesus pray in us,” live in us, as Archbishop Rowan Williams observes. “The whole of our life says Our Father,” Origen says. We are gathered to God in prayer by word and sacrament. The mountain wilderness becomes a place of refreshment, a place of comfort and strength. We are fortified spiritually.

Read the rest of this entry »

The collect for today, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of thy grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: Galatians 4:26-5:1
The Gospel: St. John 6:5-14

Artwork: Vasili Nesterenko, The Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, 2001. Oil on canvas, Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Moscow.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-550), Abbot of Monte Cassino, Father of Western Monasticism (source):

O eternal God,
who made Benedict a wise master
in the school of thy service,
and a guide to many called into the common life
to follow the rule of Christ:
grant that we may put thy love above all things,
and seek with joy the way of thy commandments;
through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Proverbs 2:1-9
The Gospel: St. Luke 14:27-33

Artwork: Il Sodoma (Giovanni Antonio Bazzi), Stories of St. Benedict: Scene 13: Benedict Frees a Monk, 1505-08. Fresco, Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Tuscany.

The collect for today, the commemoration of Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), Archbishop of Canterbury, Reformation Martyr (source):

Father of all mercies,
who through the work of thy servant Thomas Cranmer
didst renew the worship of thy Church
and through his death
didst reveal thy strength in human weakness:
strengthen us by thy grace so to worship thee in spirit and in truth
that we may come to the joys of thine everlasting kingdom;
through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Advocate,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 3:9-14
The Gospel: St. John 15:20-16:1

Artwork: Thomas Cranmer, stained glass, Hensley Memorial Chapel, King’s-Edgehill School, Windsor, N.S.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Cuthbert (c. 634-87), Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary (source):

Almighty God,
who didst call thy servant Cuthbert from following the flock
to follow thy Son and to be a shepherd of thy people:
in thy mercy, grant that we may so follow his example
that we may bring those who are lost home to thy fold;
through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
The Gospel: St. Matthew 6:24-33

Artwork: St. Cuthbert, stained glass, St. Philip’s Anglican Church, Vancouver.