This article was originally posted on terrainjournal.com
“Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
–The Collect for the Second Sunday in Lent in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer
For over 300 years, Christians in England have heard these words prayed during Morning Prayer on the second Sunday of Lent, confessing that repentance and transformation come not through spiritual self-sufficiency or individualistic piety, but through the grace of God.
Yet, for so many today, the season of Lent is reduced to a kind of spiritual Pelagianism — a project of self-help, a season where we hope our willpower is strong enough to resist temptation and make us holy. But as the collect says, “we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves.”
In Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung’s book, Glittering Vices, she puts it in this way: “We can’t make ourselves Christlike, no matter how hard we try. Practice, discipline, and all the things we do can’t be the whole story, because human agency isn’t the whole story.”[1]
If this is true, then what is this grace upon which all must rely to be truly transformed and develop virtue?
Scripture gives a simple answer: Jesus. Titus 2:11-12 says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” Grace is not some abstract spiritual force or vague inner feeling we try to stir up within ourselves. Rather, grace is the very person of Christ, freely given to all who believe.
If grace is Christ Himself, then the question becomes: where does God promise to give Christ to us? God has not only appointed the telos of union with Christ, but also the means: primarily through Word, Sacrament, and Prayer. We do not participate more fully in the life of Christ through our own invented pietistic devotion, but through concrete, seemingly ordinary instruments. Christ gives Himself to His Church week by week through the sacred ordinary.
By God’s promise and through the work of the Holy Spirit in ordinary instruments, Christ does not remain distant, but truly draws near to His people within the gathered worship of the Church. How does he do this?
Question 88 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says: “The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption are his ordinances, especially the word (1), sacraments (2) and prayer (3); all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.”[2]
(1) Through the preached Word, the Holy Spirit convinces and convicts sinners of their depravity, creating repentant and penitent hearts, enabling them to turn away from sin and towards Christ for their salvation.
(2) Through mere bread and wine, God increases and strengthens this faith and repentance. In the sacrament, He provides spiritual nourishment and seals all the benefits of Christ’s life to the baptized by feeding them with the very Body and Blood of Christ.
(3) Through corporate prayer, the Church offers her desires towards God while confessing her sins and thanking Him for His mercies. We present our prayers not based on our own worthiness, but only in and through the perpetual intercession of Christ, who, as our High Priest, offers us and our prayers to the Father. According to His will, God fulfills our prayers and graciously grants that which will conform us to Christ. And following the Church’s prayer of confession in the liturgy, God absolves us of all our sins, granting us true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of His Holy Spirit, which assures us of our forgiveness in Christ.
We are always being conformed to something. The question is to what, or to whom, we are being conformed. As we seek to put off the vices which have preoccupied our lives for too long this Lent, let us put on Christ, relying on his ordinary means to bring extraordinary transformation.
[1] DeYoung, Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies, Brazos Press, 2020
[2] The Westminster Shorter Catechism
