Enjoy the peace of God
Almighty and eternal God,
ruler of all things in heaven and on earth,
mercifully hear the prayers of your people,
and grant us your peace all the days of our life,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich in 1938 famously declaring that he had secured ‘peace in our time’. The unravelling of that peace ought to make us careful about how we pray for peace in this present age. This collect is helpful in getting our biblical bearings right when we pray for peace.
The British Prime Minister’s phraseology came from the Morning and Evening Prayer services of the 1662 Prayer Book. The minister says ‘Give peace in our time, O Lord’, and the response is ‘Because there is none other that fighteth for us, but only thou, O God.’ This is relevant to the prayer for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany because the same Latin phrase which is translated as ‘peace in our time’ in Morning Prayer is translated as ‘peace all the days of our life’ in this collect. Thus the context of the phrase within Morning Prayer helps us see that peace here is linked with God’s power and desire to defend his people. This is further reflected in the Collect for Peace which then follows.
In the Second Sunday after Epiphany collect, we are reminded of God’s Almighty and Eternal nature. This is brought to a particular focus in the reality that he is the ruler of all things in heaven and earth. This is the God from whom we are seeking mercy in our prayers. This ground of mercy for our prayers is effectively illustrated in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). Here we find the tax collector simply praying ‘God have mercy on me, a sinner’. He recognises that his only ground for hope is God’s mercy, and so must we. Later in Luke’s Gospel, we find that the hope of mercy which the Temple system inspired is given definitive expression in the Lord Jesus Christ’s death. Thus this collect and other prayers finish with the phrase ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord’.
Finally, we turn to this collect’s aspiration which is found in the phrase ‘grant us your peace all the days of our life’. Since God is the ruler of all things we can pray like this. John’s Gospel tells us that Christ’s peace is not like that of the world (John 14:27) and that disciples can have peace through listening to Jesus’ teaching while living in a troubled world (John 16:33).
In Philippians 4:7, Paul notes the security of “the peace of God” for those who are in Christ Jesus. This church faces external opposition which threatens to create divisions within the congregation (see Philippians 1:27-30, 2:14-15, 4:2-3). Paul wishes us to have peace and security through confidence in God’s power and rule, so that we may be a distinct community offering light and hope to a dark world. Knowing the pressures today which bear down on Church of England congregations and beyond, this prayer to know ‘peace all the days of our life’ is one to treasure.
So pray this with me:
Almighty and eternal God,
ruler of all things in heaven and on earth,
mercifully hear the prayers of your people,
and grant us your peace all the days of our life,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.