I was stirred by the one word in the Collect:
“Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting this campaign [my emphasis] of Christian service, so that, we take up battle against spiritual evils, and we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.”
That one word, “campaign,” became for me the guiding rubric for the service. Christian living is a campaign against sin and a powerful, militant posture for a people on a journey through the wilderness of temptations.
Our “campaign” was ceremonial, ritual (in the best sense of that word), as we began to sing, but could the ceremonial give life to the everyday?
“Let by the Spirit of our God, we go to fast and pray With Christ into the wilderness; we join his paschal way. ‘Rend not your garments, rend your hearts. Turn back your lives to me.’ Thus says our kind and gracious God, whose reign is liberty” (“Led by the Spirit” Bob Hurd, copyright 1960; music traditional English adapted by Ralph Vaughn Williams [1872-1958]).
The ceremonial campaign would now need a personal praxis. Thus, as each in the little chapel moved towards the Table we stood, as we shall each do one day when we stand before the Lamb of God, and each person heard the minister speak to us: “Turn from sin and obey the Gospel.” As I returned to my seat I heard the same words spoken to others. “Turn from sin and obey the Gospel.” Then another. “Turn from sin and obey the Gospel.” Cyclical and yet teleological, the campaign charge was both chastening and comforting, at once terribly present and mystically future.
As we departed from our little gathering I sensed the Holy Spirit speaking to my own heart in a way that I can only articulate as a question: “And shall you now truly enter the campaign? Or shall you retreat into the comfort of peaceful coexistence with sin?”
I carried that thought as I returned to my desk. I read from the Book of Common Prayer:
“That it may please thee to give us true repentance; to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances; and to endue us with the grace of thy Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to thy holy Word;
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.
Son of God, we beseech thee to hear us.
Son of God, we beseech thee to hear us.
O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world;
Grant us thy peace.
O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world;
Have mercy upon us.
O Christ, hear us.
O Christ, hear us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us” (The Litany or General Supplication; The 1928 Book of Common Prayer).
And will mercy inspire fresh green sprigs of faith in this February season?