Run the race with grace
Holy Lord,
come among us in your power,
and with your great might strengthen us,
so that we who are unable, through our sins and wickedness,
to run the race that is set before us,
your bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver,
through the work of your Son,
Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen.
This collect is one to be approached with humility. It is the prayer of one who knows the reality of sin and its crippling effect on the Christian life. It is a prayer of one who is realistic about the fallen, limping state of human nature. It carries with it a shadow of lament for stumbling discipleship and disappointment. The old comic author P. G. Wodehouse captured it well: “Many a man who has seen the light is apt to switch it off when the Old Adam comes to life in him”.
Yet this is not a prayer without hope. As is so often the case, it is when life seems darkest that the grace of God shines brightest. This collect, coming as it does on the final Sunday before Christmas, reminds us that Christ’s coming into the world was not limited to Bethlehem alone. Jesus himself promised, on the eve of his execution, that his strengthening presence would endure by his Spirit. This collect is a prayer for help from the “helper” who “dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17). We are not abandoned, nor are we left without help. Sinfulness remains, but so does the transforming presence of God. Our reconciliation with God has been won, but the work of sanctification, of being made more Christlike, continues.
As this collect is prayed, we touch upon some important principles in the Christian life. The first is simply this: the power for the Christian life comes from God. Echoing the great prayer of Isaiah 64:1, we pray that God would come to us. We pray that his might would strengthen feeble knees and weak hearts. We acknowledge that without God we are nothing. We are, simply put, unable.
Far from a cry of despair, this is a call of hope. As the patient needs to acknowledge all that is not right before seeking the help of a doctor, a profound acceptance of our sinful condition is needed before we come before the divine physician. We know the race that is before us, we know the calling upon our lives, but we acknowledge that it is not a path we can run unaided. Oh the bountiful grace of God! Oh, the merciful strengthening of our Saviour! God, in his tender mercy, meets us as we are and leads us gently on. The good shepherd looks for even the weakest lamb in the Kingdom of God. Rather than a reward for good work done, God strengthens us by sheer grace. The shepherd will help and deliver his sheep, his rod and his staff will protect.
The prayer then closes by reminding us for the basis of our hope. It is the completed, accomplished, finished work of Christ. We depend not upon what we might do, but upon what Jesus has already done. Our salvation and hope is in the past tense, it has a solid, enduring place in the history of the world. It is a completed and established reality.
Oh what a God we have! What an event Christmas was. God came among us at Bethlehem, and he continues with us today.
So pray this with me:
Holy Lord,
come among us in your power,
and with your great might strengthen us,
so that we who are unable, through our sins and wickedness,
to run the race that is set before us,
your bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver,
through the work of your Son,
Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen.