The God of Mercy

One of the great themes running through Anglican worship is the theme of MERCY. Someone has said that whereas John Calvin focussed on the Sovereignty of God which is an important theme of the Scriptures, Martin Luther could never forget the mercy of God particularly as shown in the Incarnation and in Christ's Redemption.

For Luther, God's coming to the creation in the Person of His Son and our Lord's dying on the cross was the greatest act of mercy that the universe has ever beheld. (Cranmer was heavily influenced by Martin Luther as is evident in the former's liturgy and preaching. He even married his first wife while in holy orders even though on arriving back in England he was forced to give up holy orders because of this decision!)

In a letter to Philipp Melanchthon his closest friend, Martin Luther with characteristic vigour said:

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world.

We will see how the theme of mercy is heralded in the following last subsections of the first Section of the Liturgy (Gathering in God's Name).

§8. 'Lord Have Mercy' [which follows the Absolution]

§9. Gloria in excelsis

[§10. Trisagion] Used especially during Advent and Lent which are penitential seasons of the Church's calendar

§11. The Collect of the Day

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§8. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy (known as The Kyrie, Lord)
In many services I've been in, the congregation will sing 'Lord have mercy X3, Christ have mercy X3, Lord have mercy X3'. Usually during Advent and Lent (penitential seasons), the Greek form is often used: 'Kyrie eleison' X3, 'Christe eleison' X3, 'Kyrie eleison' X3.

We are never in such a place that we do not need the mercy of God! Mercy not only in the forgiving of our sins but also in the continuance of our lives. Our whole existence is upheld only by the mercy of God. And mercy is the kindness and compassion of God.

§9. After the Kyrie, the Gloria is sung or said.

Glory to God in the highest

and peace to his people on earth.

Lord God, heavenly King,

Almighty God and Father,

we worship you, we give you thanks,

we praise you for your glory.

Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father,

Lord God, Lamb of God,

you take away the sin of the world:

have mercy on us;

You are seated at the right hand of the Father:

receive our prayer.

For you alone are the Holy One,

you alone are the Lord,

you alone are the Most High,

Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit,

in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

This is a beautiful anthem thoroughly Trinitarian (as all of Anglican worship is) and when sung well it is a high point in the Gathering in God's Name section.

§10. The Trisagion is typically used during Advent and Lent. The Trisagion looks a strange word until you realise it's Greek for Trice Holy (tris-agion). Pronunciation here. (tree'-sion.)

Holy God,

holy and mighty,

holy and immortal

have mercy on us.

It's a very old prayer--perhaps 1500+ years old from the Eastern Christian tradition--and only more recently included in the Anglican Prayer Book Service. May also be related to the Trice Holy song of the angels in Isaiah 6.

§11. The Collect of the Day is said by the priest (but for some odd 'democratic' [?] reason is often said by the congregation these days).

A Collect is set down for each 'Ordinary' Sunday. An Ordinary Sunday does not mean it is 'run of the mill' or commonplace in Anglican parlance. Ordinary means in ordinal order 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. 34 Sundays are in an ordinal sequence lying between holy Sundays such as Easter, Pentecost, Trinity, Christ the King, and other holy days remembering episodes in Jesus' life and remembering the 12 apostles which fall on Sunday for any particular year.

Thomas Cranmer was a great master of the Collect (prayer form) and composed many Collects which are still used today. 

Here is one of those Collects of Cranmer albeit not from the modern prayer books! Given the level of concern about the Muslims of the time and their conquests the Collect shows remarkable charity towards these four groups who were the enemies of the Church. Again we observe the Anglican focus on mercy.

Merciful God, who has made all men, and hatest nothing that thou has made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels and heretics, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word: and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and forever. Amen.

We are now through a third of the subsections of the service. It's important to add that priests/lay readers are not compelled to do every one of these subsections exactly as I've given them. Anglican tradition from the beginning allowed for regional variety (as opposed to the Roman Church's uniformity of Reformation times).

Although these 11 subsections might appear to take up extended time, it actually doesn't because congregations know the prayer book well and are not scrambling to find the place.

Next time, we shall look at the first critical and probably central section of the Prayer Book service, The Ministry of the Word.