Covenant, Prayer and the 1979 BCP Collect for the Sunday after Epiphany
The 1979 Book of Common Prayer has some oddities and peculiar relishes here and there. One of them is found in the Collect for the First Sunday after the Epiphany. It goes like this: First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of our Lord Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. Hopefully the “glitch” is obvious for the thoughtful, Bible-shaped reader, whether Calvinist or Arminian; “Grant that all who are baptized into his name may keep the covenant they have made.” The problem is (at the least) two-fold: If it’s a covenant we have made, then it is from our own manufacture, concoction and incentive. That would mean it...