Bishop Eric Menees
O
Lord, we beseech thee, make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy
Name, for thou never failest to help and govern those whom thou hast set upon
the sure foundation of thy loving-kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who
liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
This
week we begin "ordinary" time - having entered the Season of
Pentecost and celebrated Trinity Sunday. The Season of Pentecost spans about
half of the year, and during this time we focus on the life and teaching of
Jesus as they are lived out in the Church. As such, most of the collects will
focus on how we should be living our lives as individual Christians within the
Body of Christ, which is the Church.
This
week's collect begins in a unique way, asking God to grant us "...perpetual
fear and love of thy holy Name…." What does it mean to have both
fear and love? Those seem to be competing ideas - do we really want to fear and
love God? The answer for me is YES!
King
David thought it fitting to fear the Lord when he wrote: "...the
fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring
forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether," (Psalm
19:9) and King Solomon wrote: "The fear of the LORD is the beginning
of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction." (Proverbs
1:7)
Seems
to me that anyone who does not fear the Lord does not believe in God. To fear
the Lord is to recognize who we are in relation to who God is. I grew up in
Southern California. Each year as storms brewed out in the Pacific Ocean
they would spawn large waves, sometimes growing to 20 feet or higher. When
these waves would rise up on the sand bar approaching the shore, they would crest
with huge curls and, when they crashed down, they would send water spray up two
to three times the height of the original waves. In high school I would, from
time to time, play hooky and go to the beach to see these waves, and sometimes
I was foolish enough to go body surfing or boogie boarding. Just seeing these
waves would raise a deep fear within me - fear of the awesome power that they
contained and the destruction that could be wrought by that power. To fear
these waves is the appropriate response toward them. Fear was not the only
thing that would capture me - I was captured by their beauty and depth, their
colors, and their uniqueness as each wave was different. I especially
marveled at the porpoises that would, illuminated from the back by the sun,
surf the translucent waves.
I
fear The Lord because I know, or at least have some idea, who he is and -
especially - who I am not. I fear The Lord and his awesome power, who not only
created the waves but ALL things in heaven and on hearth. I fear The Lord because
I know that sometime in the next 60 seconds to 60 years I will meet him face to
face, who is both my redeemer and my judge.
The
fear I have for The Lord is balanced by the love I have for him, and so I find
myself living in a beautiful dance of Grace and Fear, Faith and Hope - all
grounded in the knowledge that God is always faithful, always loving, and
always overflowing in love. And to that I say...AMEN
I
pray you all a blessed Lord's Day!
Note: These articles are written by Bishop Menees for the
Diocese of San Joaquin. I have posted them on Soundings with his permission for
a wider audience. This is also the case for his "Why I am an
Anglican" series. Dale+
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