By the Rev. Reggie Kidd
I have become less impressed with my own prayers, and more reliant on the Church’s. One that is sustaining me now is a prayer that is at least 1,500 years old but which seems to me fresher than tomorrow. It is a prayer that my church prays every Good Friday and at every ordination service:
O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever, Amen.
SACRED MYSTERY
Sometime during the middle of the first millennium, this prayer appeared. After only 500 or so years of existence, the Church had been through a lot – and must have seemed to many people to be tired, enfeebled, old, and ready to fade away. There were early persecutions by hostile Roman emperors, the almost fatal befriending of the Church by a converted emperor, the battle over defining the oneness and threeness of deity and ditto the humanness and deity of Jesus, the disappointment that the adoption of the faith as “civil religion” failed to protect Roman society from invading armies, the emergence of a rift between Western and Eastern theological and liturgical sensibilities that was as much about “turf” as anything.
Even so, through this anonymous prayer, our forebears acknowledged that the Church wasn’t their invention, but God’s. That she was a Bride beloved of a Divine Groom. She is what the apostle Paul described as “a mystery” (Eph. 5:32) planted in the world as a picture of Divine Love. Because she is God’s creation, not ours, our heresies haven’t killed her, nor have our schisms. Yes, it’s our responsibility to respond well to Jesus’ question “When the Son of Man appears, will he find faith on the earth?” Nonetheless, He is so much at work among us that, one way or another, He will make sure the question is answered in the affirmative.
GOD’S GOT THIS
The human story is that God is working to make all things new. If history seems to be going the wrong way, we don’t have to worry that God has either forgotten or lost his punch. The resurrection of his Son is his promise that all will one day rise – it can’t not happen. If we don’t see the Church rising to the task to which she is called, it’s because we’re not looking hard enough. If the candle goes out here (say, Turkey after the rise of Islam, or Europe since the so-called Enlightenment), the light will get lit elsewhere (say, Russia way back when, or Africa more recently). If the gospel becomes just another “product” in the U.S., it will become a transformative engine in Korea or China.
REVERSING THE OUTCOME
At the very moment demons howled at Jesus on the cross, the earth shook with what the ancient Church took to be the breaking of the power of death and hell and Satan himself. At the Cross, Divine Justice and Mercy embraced – and the beginning of the renewal of all things set in, As Paul would write: “He brought life and immortality to light” (2 Tim 1:10). “Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had [has] a God who knew the way out of the grave,” borrowing from G. K. Chesterton.
When turmoil reigned in the ancient Church, God raised up Augustine to articulate a philosophy of the City of God, a Gregory to teach the Church a “new song,” a Cyril to contribute liturgical coherence. When medieval Christendom was sliding into decadence and either indifference or moralism, God called a Francis to rebuild a broken-down countryside church building- and Francis realized God meant to rebuild his whole Church through repentance and love and care for the poor. While the 20th century American church was selling its soul for “relevance” and market share and while the European church was shuttering cathedrals or selling them as skate parks or shopping malls, God was sending a nun to find Jesus in the slums of India.
We have yet to see what miracles God will do through other Augustines, Gregories, Francises, and Theresas. Meanwhile, I’m grateful for words bigger than my own to ask God what I know he wants to – and surely will do: raise up “things which were cast down” and renew “things which had become old.” This article was originally published in the March/April issue of Worship Leader magazine. Visit worshipleader.com for more information.
This article was originally published in the March/April issue of Worship Leader magazine. Visit worshipleader.com for more information.