Collect for Wednesday before Easter (1928 BCP)

Collect for Wednesday before Easter (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for Wednesday in Holy Week. It is a 1928 American addition placed with Hebrews 9:16-end and St. Luke 22:1-end. The prayer asks God to assist the Church's meditation on the Passion, so that the "mighty acts" of Christ are received as the gift of life and immortality.

Text of the Collect

ASSIST us mercifully with thy help, O Lord God of our salvation; that we may enter with joy upon the meditation of those mighty acts, whereby thou hast given unto us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The collect begins with dependence: "Assist us mercifully with thy help." Its subject is not private speculation about the Passion, but the Church's entrance into the meditation of Christ's saving acts. The address, "O Lord God of our salvation," names God by the salvation accomplished in those acts. The petition asks for joy because the Passion is not only suffering remembered; it is the means by which God has given "life and immortality."

1928 Holy Week Proper

The Society of Archbishop Justus transcription preserves the 1928 editorial apparatus for the day:

Collect added in 1928.

This addition did not invent a new Holy Week lectionary. It gave a collect to a day already carrying the inherited Passion sequence. Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere describe the older Prayer Book arrangement:

The whole week was observed with greater strictness and solemnity than the rest of Lent.

They then explain the ordered reading of the Passion narratives:

These are taken in an orderly course: the history of S. Matthew is read on Palm Sunday, in the second Lesson, and continued in the Gospel; S. Mark's history is read in the Gospels on Monday and Tuesday; S. Luke's on. Wednesday and Thursday; and S. John's on Good Friday.

John Henry Blunt gives a parallel nineteenth-century account of the older English and Western Passion arrangement:

On this day the Church has always begun to set before God and men the Gospel account of the Passion of our Lord.

The 1662 Church of England online text still shows the inherited Wednesday before Easter proper with Hebrews 9:16-end and St. Luke 22:1-end, but without the later American collect. The 1928 collect therefore functions as an interpretive entrance into long-standing Holy Week readings.

Clause-by-Clause Reading

"Assist us mercifully with thy help" makes divine aid the condition of faithful contemplation. The Church asks not merely to remember but to enter. The adverb "mercifully" is important because the appointed Epistle will speak of blood, testament, remission, and Christ's heavenly intercession.

"O Lord God of our salvation" locates that help in God's saving act. The collect's phrase "those mighty acts" gathers the whole Passion narrative: the Passover meal, betrayal, institution of the Supper, Gethsemane, arrest, Peter's denial, mockery, and the council's hearing of Jesus' own testimony. The prayer does not detach one scene from another. It receives the Passion as the connected work by which God gives life.

"That we may enter with joy upon the meditation" is a disciplined Holy Week petition. Joy is possible because the events contemplated are saving acts. The prayer therefore differs from detached historical interest or sentimental sorrow. It asks for a liturgical and theological entrance into Christ's Passion.

"Whereby thou hast given unto us life and immortality" echoes the apostolic confession that grace is manifested in Christ:

our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel

The collect's final phrase, "through Jesus Christ our Lord," shows that the same Christ who performs the mighty acts is also the mediator through whom the Church prays.

Appointed Epistle

The Epistle, Hebrews 9:16-end, gives the collect its theology of testament, blood, sacrifice, intercession, and final salvation. It begins by setting death inside the making-effective of a testament:

WHERE a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.

The Epistle then interprets blood as the sign of covenant purification and remission:

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

The collect's "mighty acts" are therefore not merely moving examples. Hebrews identifies Christ's Passion as sacrifice and priestly mediation:

but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

The end of the Epistle explains the collect's "life and immortality" in eschatological terms:

so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

Thus Wednesday before Easter places the Passion under the theology of Christ's once-for-all offering. The collect's joy is grounded in remission, intercession, and promised salvation.

Appointed Gospel

The Gospel is St. Luke 22:1-end. Luke opens Wednesday's Passion Gospel at Passover and betrayal:

Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him; for they feared the people.

The same Gospel contains the institution of the Supper in the midst of the Passion:

This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

This is why Hebrews and Luke belong together in the 1928 proper. Hebrews speaks of testament, blood, sacrifice, and remission; Luke gives Christ's own words over the bread and cup before his suffering. The collect's "meditation of those mighty acts" is therefore eucharistic as well as historical: the Passion Gospel includes Christ's command to remember him.

Luke also presents the obedience of Christ in Gethsemane:

Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.

The Church can ask to "enter with joy" only because the Son enters willingly into the Father's saving will. The Gospel does not hide the agony:

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Luke's account also exposes the weakness of discipleship apart from sustaining mercy. Peter's denial is not omitted:

And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.

The Gospel closes the day's reading with Jesus' own testimony before the council:

Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God. Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am.

The collect's joy is therefore not shallow. It is joy before the confessed Son of God, who goes through betrayal, agony, denial, mockery, and judgment to accomplish salvation.

Theological Interpretation

E. J. Rowland's Anglican explanation of Holy Week and Easter gives a concise theological frame for the Wednesday collect:

the first five days of Holy Week are the preparation of the Lamb of God for his Passover

Wednesday before Easter is one of those preparation days, and the collect teaches the Church how to prepare: not by passing over the Passion too quickly, but by entering its meditation with mercy-assisted joy. Rowland also explains why the biblical range of Holy Week matters:

Nowhere is the unity of the Bible better seen: one is left in no doubt that the one Testament without the other has no meaning.

That observation fits the 1928 Wednesday proper. Hebrews interprets the Passion through covenant, priesthood, sacrifice, and salvation, while Luke narrates the Passover, Supper, agony, betrayal, denial, mockery, and confession. The collect holds interpretation and narrative together under one act of prayer.

Rowland then states the participatory character of Holy Week liturgy:

The Liturgy is much more than a dramatic representation: it is the means whereby the Church unites us to the mysteries of Christ.

The Wednesday collect says the same thing in prayer. The Church asks to enter, not only to observe. Its meditation is not an exercise in religious imagination alone, but a liturgical participation in the mighty acts by which Christ gives life and immortality.

Anglican Use

In 1928 BCP worship, Wednesday before Easter may be observed at Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Holy Communion when the proper is appointed. Its collect is particularly suited to catechesis because it names the posture of Holy Week: merciful help, joyful entrance, disciplined meditation, and thanksgiving for salvation.

For preaching and teaching, the collect can be read in three movements. First, Hebrews gives the doctrine: Christ's death is the once-for-all sacrifice that brings remission and salvation. Second, Luke gives the history: Passover, Supper, agony, betrayal, denial, mockery, and testimony before the council. Third, the collect turns doctrine and history into common prayer, asking God to help the faithful enter the Passion as the gift of life and immortality.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Lent in the 1928 BCP
• Holy Week in the 1928 BCP
• Collect for Monday before Easter (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Tuesday before Easter (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Good Friday (1928 BCP)

External Links

• 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels
• Church of England: Wednesday before Easter
• Procter and Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
• John Henry Blunt, ed., The Annotated Book of Common Prayer
• E. J. Rowland, Holy Week and Easter: The Services Explained