The Great Thanksgiving with commentary



The Great Thanksgiving with Commentary Notes

Prepared by Lester Ruth

|The Great Thanksgiving, UMH pp. 9-10 |Commentaries |

| The Lord be with you. |Historical: This dialog between the presider and |

|And also with you. |congregation is found in Communion prayers from |

|Lift up your hearts. |the earliest centuries. |

|We lift them up to the Lord. | |

|Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. |Theological: The dialog accents one of the |

|It is right to give our thanks and praise. |recurring motifs of the prayer (our participation |

| |in heavenly worship; cf. Col. 3:1) while also |

|It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to|affirming the truest truth there is: that God |

|you, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. You formed us in your image |rightly is to be worshiped. |

|and breathed into us the breath of life. When we turned away, and our love | |

|failed, your love remained steadfast. You delivered us from captivity, made | |

|covenant to be our sovereign God, and spoke to us from your prophets. | |

| |Structural: Both the Trinitarian structure and |

| |content of the prayer is on quick display. For |

| |one thing, the prayer is addressed to the 1st |

| |Person through Jesus Christ. For another, the |

| |prayer assumes, as the New Testament often |

| |portrays, that the 1st Person has acted through |

| |Jesus Christ. |

| | |

| |Historical: The prayer likewise follows ancient |

| |patterns of prayer—both Jewish and Christian, in |

| |both within and beyond the Lord’s Supper—by |

| |filling the prayer with commemoration of God’s |

| |activity. Compare I Kings 8:15-21, Acts 4:24-30, |

| |or Ephesians 1:3-18, among many possible examples.|

| |In special feasts and seasons, variations of the |

| |prayer will pick up the appropriate tone and |

| |themes of the church calendar. The part of the |

| |prayer is called the preface, not because it is an|

| |“introduction” but because the Latin root of |

| |preface means “proclamation,” i.e., the prayer is |

| |prayed proclamation because it recites the |

| |activity of God. |

| | |

| |Theological: Notice the dynamic, playful sense of|

| |time: God did those mighty acts in the Bible with|

| |us. The prayer thus highlights our participation |

| |in the biblical story of God’s activity. |

| | |

| | |

| And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we |Structural: Caught up in the ecstasy of reciting |

|praise your name and join their unending hymn: |God’s mighty acts, the prayer slips into a cosmic |

|Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your |song of praise. |

|glory. | |

|Hosanna in the highest. |Historical: This “unending hymn” is perhaps one |

|Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. |of the most enduring, ancient “praise choruses.” |

|Hosanna in the highest. |It is a synthesis of materials echoing a breadth |

| |of Scripture. (See Isaiah 6:3, Revelation 4:8, |

| |Matthew 21:9, Psalm 118:26.) Called the “Sanctus”|

| |(Sanctus=Holy in Latin), it was a standard feature|

|Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ. Your Spirit anointed him to |of Communion prayers from the ancient church. |

|preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captive and recovering | |

|of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and announce |Theological: The Sanctus highlights the prayer’s |

|that the time had come when you would save your people. He healed the sick, fed |participation-in-heaven motif again. The message |

|the hungry, and ate with sinners. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and |is that worshiping God is not only right (and |

|resurrection you gave birth to your church, delivered us from slavery to sin and |“good and joyful”) but it also is the main |

|death, and made with us a new covenant by water and the Spirit. When the Lord |occupation of heaven and the true destiny of |

|Jesus ascended, he promised to be with us always, in the power of your Word and |redeemed humanity. |

|Holy Spirit. | |

| |Structural: The prayer goes back to the practice |

| |of honoring God by reciting “God’s greatest hits.”|

| |Using the triggers of the 1st Person’s holiness |

|On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to |and the 2nd’s blessedness (see the Sanctus), the |

|you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: “Take, eat; this is my|prayer proceeds to sharpen the commemorative focus|

|body which is given to you. Do this in remembrance of me.” When the supper was |by highlighting God’s work in and through Jesus |

|over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: |Christ. This prayer also notes the Holy Spirit’s |

|“Drink from this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, poured out |role in the joint enterprise of the 1st Person’s |

|for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink|and Christ’s for our salvation. The particular |

|it, in remembrance of me.” |emphases in this section of the prayer will adjust|

| |as the church calendar progresses through the |

| |year. |

| | |

| |Theological: Note how scriptural the language is.|

| |The assumption seems to be that the Bible itself |

| |is a primary source for finding the language to |

| |worship God. Indeed, among the various United |

| |Methodist versions of the Great Thanksgiving, this|

|And so, in remembrance of this your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer |section tends to be the Gospel in condensed form. |

|ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union | |

|with Christ’s offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of faith: | |

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| |Structural: This part of the prayer is known as |

|Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. |the Words of Institution. It culminates the |

| |recitation of salvation history. |

| | |

| |Historical: Churches derived from western Europe |

| |have often emphasized this part of the prayer as |

|Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and |the most critical. Some of these churches—all |

|wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ that we may be for the |Protestant—have even divorced the Words of |

|world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. By your Spirit make us one with|Institution from their prayer setting and turn |

|Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world until Christ |them into an exhortation aimed at the people. In |

|comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet. |contrast, this prayer includes the institution |

| |narrative as part of the prayer (thus addressed to|

| |God) and assumes that it is the entirety of the |

| |prayer that is crucial in Communion |

| | |

| |Theological: The institution of the Lord’s Supper|

| |is not a distinct activity, separate from all of |

| |God’s other activity just commemorated, but a |

| |climatic one: Jesus Christ as God Incarnate takes|

| |food and offers it as a gracious gift of himself |

| |to his disciples. As seen elsewhere in the |

| |prayer, what is being remembered is not simply the|

| |Last Supper or even Christ’s passion and death but|

| |the whole of the scriptural story, which is |

| |embodied in Jesus, the Savior that God has sent. |

| | |

| | |

| |Structural: The prayer makes a shift from |

| |thanking God for mighty acts to a statement by |

| |which we offer ourselves to God in praise and |

|Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy church, all |thanksgiving. |

|honor and glory is yours, almighty Father now and forever. | |

| |Theological: Communion is not simply something we|

| |receive but something we offer, namely, ourselves |

| |in union with Jesus Christ. This act showcases |

| |the priestly nature of the whole church in lifting|

| |up a sacrifice of praise and ties Communion into |

| |the language of worship as offering found in the |

| |New Testament. The sense of union with Christ |

| |could not be more profound as John Wesley once |

| |noted: “Christ never designed to make a |

| |self-offering for the people, without the people.”|

|Amen. |By this act, we state our desire to share in |

| |Christ’s worship of the 1st Person of the Trinity.|

| | |

| |Theological: The breadth of this remembrance of |

| |Jesus is summarized by this congregational |

| |acclamation. The three aspects, Christ’s death, |

| |resurrection, and return, are the foundations upon|

| |which all other aspects of the Gospel are built. |

| | |

| | |

| | |

| |Structural: The Great Thanksgiving continues with|

| |another line of praying which, like the previous |

| |gesture of offering, builds upon the earlier |

| |commemorative heart of the prayer. This time it |

| |is in a petition for the Holy Spirit to be poured |

| |out. This section ends by noting what the purpose|

| |of Communion is, both now and in the future. |

| | |

| |Historical: Unlike most Western churches, Eastern|

| |churches have often placed the emphasis on this |

| |part of the Communion prayer. The emphasis is not|

| |foreign to our Wesleyan tradition, however, as |

| |This Holy Mystery makes clear in citing a Wesley |

| |hymn to the same effect. |

| | |

| |Theological: Simply put, this petitioning for the|

| |Holy Spirit is critical in that there is no body |

| |of Christ without the coming of the Holy Spirit. |

| |Christ’s conception, his being resurrected, the |

| |church’s assembling as the body of Christ, and our|

| |enjoyment of Communion as his body are all |

| |dependent upon the Spirit’s activity. This |

| |section also rounds out the Trinitarian character |

| |of the prayer. |

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| |Structural: The Great Thanksgiving ends in a |

| |burst of praise with a Trinitarian doxology. |

| | |

| |Historical: The general influence of prayers from|

| |the early church upon the United Methodist Great |

| |Thanksgivings can be seen in some of the wording |

| |here: “…with the Holy Spirit in your holy |

| |church…” which in this case is language drawn from|

| |the 3rd century. |

| | |

| |Theological: This doxology underscores the |

| |Trinitarian “grammar” built into the whole prayer:|

| |worship is offered to the 1st Person through the |

| |2nd Person with (or in) the empowerment of the |

| |3rd. Similarly, salvation is thought of as being |

| |a cooperative effort of the whole Trinity. |

| | |

| | |

| |Structural: The prayer is not over when the |

| |presider says her or his last word. This |

| |concluding word from the congregation is crucial. |

| | |

| |Theological: The prayer is not simply the |

| |presider’s prayer although he or she may have said|

| |most of the words. As The Holy Mystery puts it, |

| |“the whole assembly actively celebrates Holy |

| |Communion.” Why is the congregation’s “amen” so |

| |important? Because the prayer is a condensed form|

| |of the church’s faith. Just as we hope that |

| |congregations say “amen” to a faithful preaching |

| |of the Gospel, we hope that congregations affirm a|

| |faithful praying of the Gospel. Indeed, the |

| |prayer is a “Reader’s Digest version” of what it |

| |means for people to share in the dynamics of |

| |salvation achieved by a Triune God. The prayer |

| |succinctly speaks the church’s faith as an act of |

| |worship. |

| | |

| |Historical: Because of this nature of the prayer,|

| |it has normally been seen as the pinnacle of the |

| |church’s prayer life. United Methodist versions |

| |of the Great Thanksgiving have sought to draw upon|

| |ancient models of the prayer to give the church |

| |today a way to pray the scriptural story of |

| |salvation. |

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