Almighty God,
who gave your only Son to be for us both a sacrifice for sin,
and an example of godly life,
grant us grace to receive with thankfulness his saving death,
and also to endeavour daily to follow in the steps of his most holy life, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
In session one of the Christianity Explored course, participants are asked the question, “If you could ask God one question, and you knew it could be answered, what would it be?” There is then a supplementary question to ask. “Think about the god you are asking that question to. What is that god like?” Today’s collect is a wonderful reminder that when we pray, it is of great comfort and importance to pray in the light of what we know of our God.
Our prayer begins with an invocation — we are calling upon God. But what quality do we know of him that we might call on him in confidence? He is the God who would not spare his own Son to be the propitiation for sin (1 John 2:2). Our God planned salvation, for our benefit but at his cost, from eternity. Yet, he is also an immanent God, not just a transcendent sovereign. He is a God pleased to be knowable; and through Jesus Christ we have the perfect example of what it truly looks like to live a holy and God-honouring life. So, we pray to the saving, immanent God.
The prayer then moves to petition. We pray, “grant us grace to receive with thankfulness his saving death…” Here we are asking that God would grant us the grace not to be indifferent to the cost of our sin; that we would not approach the cross with indifference or carelessly, but with thankfulness. Even days after fixing our eyes on the cross and the empty grave of Christ, we must hear the call to never waste our opportunity to be amazed at the cross of Christ.
The petition turns into one of aspiration as we pray, “…and also to endeavour daily to follow in the steps of his most holy life…” We pray that, since Christ has shown us what godliness looks like, we would follow his example to be distinctive for God in this world. We do well to remember this as we consider how we must walk in godliness in the current climate of the Church of England and global Anglicanism.
Jesus demonstrated that godliness means having a high view of Scripture (consider Jesus’s temptation by the devil in Luke 4:1-13); it means prayerfulness (consider Jesus fuelling up for ministry by early morning rising and prayer in Mark 1:35); it means steadfastness and loyalty to God in a hostile world (consider Jesus’s prayer for his disciples in John 17:16); it means love for the sinner whilst calling out sin (consider Jesus’s interaction with the Samaritan woman in John 4:1-26); and it means trusting God that he will see his good and wise plans through to completion, even when it is painful (consider Jesus’s trust in God’s will as he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane in Mark 14:36).
We can pray these things with confidence because we know the God we pray to — the saving, immanent God.
So pray this with me:
Almighty God,
who gave your only Son to be for us both a sacrifice for sin,
and an example of godly life,
grant us grace to receive with thankfulness his saving death,
and also to endeavour daily to follow in the steps of his most holy life, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.