THE PRAYER OF HUMBLE ACCESS AND THE LORD'S SUPPER
Dear friends,
There is an old prayer that Anglicans have been praying since the mid-1500’s. We pray a modified version of it at the 10AM service. We pray the original 1552 version at the 8AM service. It has been a much hated prayer by many in the Anglican Church for the last forty years, but it is a wise, deep, and biblical prayer that we can both pray and learn from. The prayer is called The Prayer of Humble Access.
The prayer is primarily based on two stories in Matthew. In both cases the Lord praises the person’s great and remarkable faith. The first story is from Matthew 8:5-13. It is the story of a pagan centurion from Rome, who asks Jesus to heal his servant. When Jesus says he will come to heal the servant, the centurion says, “Lord I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word and my servant will be healed.” Jesus later says that, “… with no one in Israel have I found such faith.” The second story which forms the prayer of Humble Access is our sermon text for today. It is the story of the Canaanite woman who asks Jesus to heal her demon possessed daughter. It is found in Matthew 15:21-28. As part of their conversation the woman says to Jesus, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters table.” Jesus responds, “O woman, great is your faith.” For more on these words, listen to my sermon on the text.
One more thing before I share the prayer. You need to appreciate where it is in the Communion service, and that it is part of the Communion service. This part of the service is influenced by the structure of Isaiah 6:1-7. In Isaiah 6, we move from seeing the glory of the Lord and the high praises of the seraphim, to an acknowledgement of our sin, to the Lord’s provision for our sin. So it is in the 1552 Communion service as it moves towards Holy Communion. There is a time of praise culminating with all the congregation saying, “therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name; evermore praising You and saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of Your glory: Glory be to You, O Lord most high. Amen.” Immediately after this is the Prayer of Humble Access. Then we speak the biblical theology and the words of institution for the Lord’s Supper, then we receive Holy Communion. As you now read the Prayer of Humble Access, you will see how Isaiah 6:1-7 is formative.
“We do not presume to come to this Your Table, O Merciful Lord, Trusting in our own righteousness, But in Your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under Your table. But You are the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of Your Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us. Amen.”
Note, the rest of the service makes clear that we feed on Him by faith, in our heart. The prayer preserves the biblical “physical” language while the service as a whole preserves the notion of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice which we receive by faith alone. The prayer emphasizes that we are all fallen in body and in soul, and we are made right with God, body and soul, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Paraphrasing the prayer book, the body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten only in a heavenly and spiritual manner. The means whereby the body and blood of Christ is received and eaten in the Lord’s Supper is by faith.
George+