THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT commonly called PASSION SUNDAY

Adelphoi,

Below is a brief meditation on the Collect for Passion Sunday and the text of a Collect for this day composed in 1689 with the purpose of being "more affecting" - raising the affections to God - than the ancient one from the Sarum Missal and in the Cranmerian BCP.

Lent 5 (Passion Sunday)


THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT commonly called PASSION SUNDAY

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 John 8: 46-59

The Church has arrived in her Christian Year at the point when she is only 14 days from Easter. In the Jewish Year there was/is 14 days of preparation before the Passover when on the 14th Day of Abib the Passover lamb was slain. So this Sunday is called Passion Sunday as the suffering and death of Jesus as the Lamb of God is much in view - see the Epistle which makes mention of the shedding of Christ's blood.

Human kings that do their duty take care of the governing according to righteousness and preserving in peace of their subjects. The King of kings, Almighty God, the Omnipotent One, also takes care of his people and preserves them unto everlasting peace. And he does do in their total being, for the Christian hope is not merely of the immortality of the soul but also the resurrection of the body to life everlasting in the courts of heaven. The reason he cares for the whole person, soul and body, is because of "thy great goodness"

As the worst that the world can do to the Son of God incarnate - reject and crucify him - is to be the theme of some of the Church's reading and meditation until Good Friday, it is good and right that on this day the Church asks her King in his mercy and grace, and by his great goodness, to hear her prayer and to govern and preserve his Church in this particular time. God's people in this part of the Christian Year especially need to know that despite all the evidence to the contrary in a world of sin God is still not only the LORD but the bountifully good Lord.

In 1689, in the proposed revisions to The Book of Common Prayer, it was decided to replace the present Collect with another written by the Bishop of Chichester. Though this revision scheme failed, the Collect is worth remembering and praying for it does fit neatly into the theme of the latter part of Lent.

"O Almighty God, who hast sent thy Son Jesus Christ to be an High Priest of good things to come, and by his own blood to enter in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us; mercifully look upon thy people, that by the same blood of our Saviour, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to thee, our consciences may be purged from dead works, to serve thee, the living God, that we may receive the promise of eternal inheritance; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

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The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon