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Andrew C. Thompson

Category Archives: Liturgical Year

Palm Sunday: A Prayer

29 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by admin in Lent, Liturgical Year, Palm Sunday, Prayers

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Palm Sunday_Jesus Enters Jerusalem_Giotto_14th century

Entry into Jerusalem, by Giotto (14th century)

 

Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer)

Angels: God's messengers, Our guardians

22 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by admin in Angels, Arkansas Conference, John Wesley, Liturgical Year, United Methodist Church

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Cosimo_Fancelli-Angel_bearing_Veronica’s_Veil-Ponte_Sant_AngeloWe’re in a season of angels.

It all began with Advent. One of Advent’s most beloved Scripture passages is the angel Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin Mary. Joseph had his own angelic encounter, of course. An angel visited him to assure him that Mary’s child was from the Holy Spirit.

So it was through angels that news of Jesus Christ’s coming into the world was first revealed.

Then after Advent, on the holy day of Christmas itself, angels were everywhere around the birth of Jesus. An entire host of them visited the shepherds in the fields outside of Bethlehem. They sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace amongst those whom he favors!” (Luke 2:14).

Around the time of the Epiphany, an angel shows up again. Joseph is visited by an angel in a dream. The angel warns him to take Mary and the baby Jesus to Egypt following the visit of the Wise Men.
We don’t talk that much about angels these days. Perhaps we should.

In the Bible, the presence of angels in our world is a given. Angels are God’s messengers. Hebrews 1:14 speaks of angels as “spirits in the divine service” that are “sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.”

Hope for spiritual revival
One of the chief hopes of Bishop Gary Mueller is that the United Methodist Church in Arkansas would experience a great spiritual revival. I share that hope as well. I also believe that one thing that needs to be in place in order for spiritual revival to happen is a deep awareness on our part that we live in a profoundly spiritual world.

A feature of modern life very damaging to Christian spirituality is the tendency we have to artificially segment our lives into different parts. We think spiritual things when we go to church. When we’re out in the world, we are much more likely to act as if the material world is all that exists. Our faith can become something like a hat we wear when we are expected to act in Christian ways. Otherwise, we’re happy doing our own thing. How might we think about ourselves and our world differently?
A mentor who has had a great impact on me is Richard P. Heitzenrater, one of the leading historians of John Wesley and early Methodism. I once heard Dr. Heitzenrater describe what it was about Wesley that he found so fascinating.

Here’s what he said: Among all historical figures he has ever come across, John Wesley had a greater sense of God’s abiding presence in the world than anyone else. Wesley was keenly aware that he was living in a Spirit-drenched world and that God was literally everywhere. He didn’t just know this in his mind, of course. Wesley felt it deeply in his soul, and it directed everything about how he lived his life.

That Wesleyan awareness of the world as a Spirit-drenched place is exactly what we need in order to be prepared for the Spirit’s work of revival among us.

Angels in our midst
Angels are spiritual beings, of course, so it should not surprise us that Wesley was deeply interested in them. His interest began at a young age. One of the very first sermons that we have from his hand was written in 1726. Its title: “On Guardian Angels.”

In the sermon he cites Psalm 91, which reads, “For he will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways” (verse 11). Wesley sees this biblical promise as meant by God for all faithful Christians—evidence of the “peculiar care he hath taken for their protection.”

In a later sermon, “Of Good Angels,” Wesley gets very specific about the ways that he believes angels minister to human beings. He says that they surely enlighten our understanding and warn us subtly against danger. Wesley believes that angels also come to us in our dreams and reveal things to us that we need to know. He even believes that they intercede in the physical world to protect us from harm and to heal diseases. Because he sees the world we live in as so deeply spiritual, Wesley even thinks that good angels regularly do battle against evil angels that would seek to harm us.

These views might make a modern Methodist blush. Should we put stock in such things that seem so unsophisticated or unscientific?

That all depends on how seriously you take the biblical worldview of how God interacts with the world. Does God use angels for divine purposes? Wesley had no doubts, and I think there is a great deal to learn from that.

I yearn for a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon our church. Lately, I’ve been wondering if there are angels beckoning us to prepare for that. If you wonder the same thing, you might from time to time pray this prayer that was important to Wesley himself:

“Everlasting God, you have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of angels and mortals: mercifully grant that, as your holy angels always serve and worship you in heaven, so by your appointment they may help and defend us here on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen” (Collect for Saint Michael and all Angels, Book of Common Prayer).

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This article originally appeared in the Arkansas United Methodist newspaper’s January 2, 2015 edition. Reprinted with permission. You can read the article in its original form at this link.

The Light Has Dawned

20 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by admin in Early Church Fathers, Easter, Liturgical Year, Salvation

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Carl Heinrich Bloch_The Resurrection_1873O Splendor of the Father’s light
That makes our daylight lucid, bright;
O Light of light and sun of day,
Now shine on us your brightest ray.

True Sun, break out on earth and shine
In radiance with your light divine;
By dazzling of your Spirit’s might,
Oh, give our jaded senses light.

The Father sends his Son, our Lord,
To be his bright and shining Word;
Come, Lord, ride out your gleaming course
And be our dawn, our light’s true source.

—St. Ambrose, 4th century

O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done?

18 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by admin in Charles Wesley, Good Friday, Lent, Liturgical Year

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The Crucified Christ_Peter Paul Rubens_c1610O Love divine, what has thou done!
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father’s co-eternal Son
bore all my sins upon the tree.
Th’immortal God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Is crucified for me and you,
to bring us rebels back to God.
Believe, believe the record true,
ye all are bought with Jesus’ blood.
Pardon for all flows from his side:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Behold him, all ye that pass by,
the bleeding Prince of life and peace!
Come, sinners, see your Savior die,
and say, “Was ever grief like his?”
Come, feel with me his blood applied:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

—Charles Wesley, 1742

Good Friday: Athanasius on the Crucifixion

18 Friday Apr 2014

Posted by admin in Good Friday, Lent, Liturgical Year

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In On the Incarnation of the Word, St. Athanasius describes the creation’s response to the crucifixion in the gospels:

“For the sun hid his face, and the earth quaked and the mountains were rent; all men were awed. Now these things showed that Christ on the cross was God, while all creation was his slave, and was witnessing by its fear to its master’s presence.”

Each time we celebrate the Eucharist, we proclaim the death that occurred for us on this day. It is a death that forgives, because in it Christ takes all the sin of the creation into his own body. Thus, the death suffered by the incarnate Word is not just his own death, but ultimately ours as well. Athanasius continues,

“And so it was that two marvels came to pass at once, that the death of all was accomplished in the Lord’s body, and that death and corruption were wholly done away by reason of the Word that was united with it.”

May we all gather together this evening at the foot of the cross and bear witness to the crucifixion of our Lord. And may we keep the Easter vigil together.

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A Message for Maundy Thursday

17 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by admin in Jesus Christ, Lent, Liturgical Year, Maundy Thursday

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On this Maundy Thursday, Christians all over the world will be celebrating Holy Communion to remember Jesus Christ’s gift of himself in the sacrament at the Last Supper. My daughter Alice wanted to share a message to remind people of Jesus’ love for all people:
 


Worship Resources for Holy Week (2014)

06 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by admin in Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Lent, Liturgical Year, Maundy Thursday, Palm Sunday

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Cross before Chapel DoorsHoly Week is still a week away. Since many pastors and church staffs will be putting together their Holy Week services in the next few days, though, I thought it might be helpful to provide links to some prayers, hymns, reflections, and acts of worship for the high holy days that are upon us.

The links  are to items posted on this website & elsewhere. The hymns included are here because I think of them as prayers as much as hymns, given the way they describe the significance of what happened during the final week of Jesus’ ministry.

Palm Sunday:

  1. A Prayer for Palm Sunday
  2. Another Prayer for Palm Sunday
  3. The Palm Branches & The Triumphal Entry: Images in Scripture, Prayer, and Song
  4. Palm Sunday worship resources connected w/ the Lectionary and UM Book of Worship (courtesy of the GBOD)

Monday-Wednesday of Holy Week:

  1. A Prayer for the Monday of Holy Week
  2. A Prayer for the Tuesday of Holy Week
  3. A Prayer for the Wednesday of Holy Week

Maundy Thursday:

  1. A reflection on the meaning of Maundy Thursday
  2. A Prayer for Maundy Thursday
  3. John Wesley on the central significance of the Lord’s Supper
  4. Story of Maundy Thursday from Christian History
  5. Maundy Thursday Worship Resources connected w/ the Lectionary and UM Book of Worship (courtesy of the GBOD)

Good Friday:

  1. A Prayer for Good Friday, and a Scripture passage from the prophet Isaiah
  2. Hymn: “Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle” (w/ link to the hymn’s background)
  3. Good Friday worship resources connected w/ the Lectionary and UM Book of Worship (courtesy of the GBOD)
  4. St. Athanasius on Good Friday
  5. John Calvin on the Crucifixion and Atonement
  6. Good Friday as the ‘Fulcrum of History’
  7. An explanation of the term “Good Friday” by Dan Benedict

Holy Saturday:

  1. Hymn: “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”
  2. Order of Worship for Holy Saturday, by Nancy C. Townley
  3. Ministry Matters’ suggestions for Holy Saturday Spiritual Themes

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On Ash Wednesday, a call to repentance

05 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by admin in Church History, Early Church Fathers, Jesus Christ, Lent, Liturgical Year

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St. Augustine of Hippo

St. Augustine of Hippo

“Why…will you wander farther and farther in these difficult and toilsome ways? There is no rest where you seek it. Seek what you seek; but it is not where you are seeking. You seek a blessed life in the land of death. It is not there. For how could a blessed life be where life itself is not?

“But our very Life came down to earth and bore our death, and slew it with the very abundance of his own life. And thundering, he called us to return to him into that secret place from which he came forth to us—coming first into the virginal womb, where the human creature, our mortal flesh, was married to him that it might not be forever mortal—and came “as a bridegroom coming out his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race.” For he did not delay, but ran through the world, crying out by words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascension—crying aloud to us to return to him. He departed from our sight, that we might return to our hearts and find him there. For he left us, and behold, he is here. He could not be with us long, yet he did not leave us. He went back to the place that he had never left, for ‘the world was made by him.’ And in this world he was, and into this world he came to save sinners.

“To him my soul does confess, that he may heal it, for it has sinned against him. O sons of men, how long will you be so slow of heart? Even now after Life itself has come down to you, will you not ascend and live? But where will you climb if you are already on a pinnacle and have set your mouth against the heavens? First come down that you may climb up, climb up to God.”

—St. Augustine, Confessions, Book IV, Chapter XII

Meditation for Baptism of the Lord Sunday

12 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by admin in Baptism, Charles Wesley, Jesus Christ, Liturgical Year

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Today we celebrate and remember the baptism of Jesus Christ. It is a time when we can remember the significance of our own baptisms and recommit to the covenant established with us by God therein. Charles Wesley assists us with that in his hymn for covenant renewal:

“Come, let us use the grace divine, and all with one accord, in a perpetual covenant join ourselves to Christ the Lord; give up ourselves thru Jesus’ power, his name to glorify; and promise, in this sacred hour, for God to live and die.

“The covenant we this moment make be ever kept in mind; we will no more our God forsake, or cast these words behind. We never will throw off the fear of God who hears our vow; and if thou art well please to hear, come down and meet us now.

“Thee, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, let all our hearts receive, present with thy celestial host the peaceful answer give; to each covenant the blood apply which takes our sins away, and register our names on high and keep us to that day!”

(Charles Wesley, “Come, Let us Use the Grace Divine”)

We can also meditate on these Scripture passages:

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”                                                                                                                                                                   

– Romans 6:3-5

“For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”          

– Galatians 3:26-29

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come!”                                                                                                                                        

 – 2 Corinthians 5:16-17

[See also: Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition at this link.]

Prayer for the Epiphany

06 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by admin in Epiphany, Liturgical Year

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Adoration of the Magi_Murillo

O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(Collect for the Epiphany, Book of Common Prayer)

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