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I was raised in a church that was somewhere on the fundamentalist-evangelical spectrum. I fell in love with the counter-culture and New Left politics and then became a Christian through the ministry of charismatics. I attended house churches, and a Baptist church, and then attended a Salvation Army Citadel. Because God has a sense of humour, I stumbled into an Anglican church and worshipped with the Book of Common Prayer and realized with a shock that God was calling me to become an Anglican.

I regularly struggled with the rampant unbelief and heterodoxy around me in Anglicanism – but the peculiar wisdom of the English reformation continued to draw me in and nourish me. Over time I came to realize that many Canadian Anglicans knew Anglicanism in a sociological sense as it existed in Canada but were ignorant of historic (and worldwide) Anglicanism.

Given how Anglicanism has been practiced in Canada for decades, who would have thought that the English reformers wanted the following to be our daily anthem, the anthem of heaven? “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.”

Believe it or not, in the mid-1500s, the English reformers set up a Bible reading plan, and “method,” for presbyters and laypeople alike. This plan was something each person could do in private or with others. If you entered into this plan/method, you would read the Psalms through once a month, the rest of the Old Testament once a year, and the New Testament through twice a year. You did this by reading the Bible and praying every morning and evening. The services (another name for “method”) were called Morning and Evening Prayer. In each service, you have set prayers, and the Apostles Creed, and key psalms, canticles, or Bible text, to be said between each of the readings.

Where does heaven’s anthem come in?

In each service, depending on the length, you read one to five Psalms. You are instructed to end every Psalm by saying, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.” As well, every psalm, canticle, or bible text, prayed/read between the readings also ends by saying “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.” This means that you are instructed to pray this prayer 5-8 times every morning and 5-8 times every evening.

Yes, to the religious, unbelieving heart these can be mere rote words, dead and lifeless. But surely it is a good thing to try and teach people such a prayer in the hope that it becomes their prayer, the prayer of their heart, that they delight to pray day by day, especially in the context of listening to, and responding to the Bible, God’s word written. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.”

Let me make short three points here.

First, praying this prayer as your own reminds you that you do not worship the god of Canadians, you worship the Triune God. Much of contemporary worship and prayer is not Trinitarian. It is somehow natural for us to focus on God, or the Father, or Jesus, all good and important, but we have “worship amnesia” about the profound truth that the true and living God is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons, one God. We drift in and out of the monism of our culture. This weakens our heart and our witness. The different singular gods of the world’s religions and spiritualities cannot account for our human longings for love, goodness, community, and being known. Only the Triune God who has created and sustains all things makes sense of such yearnings. For the purpose of our witness to the Gospel, we must be clear that we do not worship the god of Canadians, but the One made clear by the Lord Jesus Christ, the Triune God of the Bible.

Second, this prayer reminds you of what is truly true today. Angels and archangels and all the company of Heaven sing this song right now. The wind and waves, mountains and forest, birds and beasts, all sing this song today. When I pray this prayer I am praying the true anthem of both the old and the new creation. I live amidst the noise of the “city of man” I need to know the true anthem of eternity at deeper levels of who I am to live well day by day.

Third, this prayer reminds me of my chief end, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. I am saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Religion does not save me, only the Lord Jesus Christ can save me. He saves me from the hellish ends enjoined upon me by the world, the flesh, and the devil. Jesus saves me into the blessing of entry into my true end. The end the Triune God created me for, to glorify and enjoy him forever. In the context of the Gospel, to bow my mind and will, my heart and soul, in proclaiming the glory of the Triune God is to begin to be unbent and whole. My own words are weak and inadequate. It is a blessing to learn words to pray as my own day by day. Words I can pray with others. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.”

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