Maundy Thursday, March 28, 2024

Echoes of Gethsemane

Read: Mark 14:32-36

On the first Sunday of this new year, the congregation joined in A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition (UMH 607) as part of our worship service. It’s an amazing prayer that deserves to be better known than it seemed to be. At coffee hour that morning, Fred told Rev. Eardley and me that he had never read it before.

I affected outrage, noting that I had used it in a worship service at some point in the past; but it did get me to do a bit of research on the prayer. John Wesley adapted the prayer from some Puritan writings, and intended that all Methodist societies would use it at least at the opening of each year.

Frankly, as much as I like this prayer, I find it just as difficult to pray as the Lord’s Prayer. There we pray to be forgiven in the same way we forgive, and that’s really hard – I want more forgiveness than that! In this prayer, we’re basically asking to be used as God wills, not as we will – echoes of Christ in Gethsemane. It’s hard to give in to God – to give up my illusion of self-control – but that’s just what we’re called to do, and it’s just what we promise in this prayer:

I am no longer my own, but Thine.
Put me to what Thou wilt, rank me with whom Thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by Thee or laid aside for Thee,
exalted for Thee or brought low for Thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to Thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Thou art mine, and I am Thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on Earth,
let it be ratified in Heaven. Amen.

Prayer: I am Thine, O Lord, I have heard Thy voice, and it told Thy love to me; but I long to rise in the arms of faith and be closer drawn to Thee. Consecrate me now to Thy service, Lord, by the power of grace divine; let my soul look up with a steadfast hope, and my will be lost in Thine. Amen. (Fannie J. Crosby, UMH 419)

Charlie van Becelaere