Praying for the church in isolation. Part one.
Augustus Montague Toplady (1740-78), as well as having a splendid name, is best known for writing the hymn ‘Rock of Ages’. He served as Vicar of Broad Hembury, Devon and wrote extensively, including a set of prayers for use by families for each day of the week. The prayer for Sunday morning asks for God to help the family and God’s people more general to observe the Sabbath well. Toplady prays, for example, for Gospel ministers to preach faithfully on this day. But he also asks God to:
“Have mercy on those who shall be unwillingly detained from thy house, by sickness or any other providential impediment; comfort them in secret, sanctify their absence by granting them much of thy inward presence. Let them that tarry [i.e. wait] at home divide the spoil; and as they are excluded from the stream, give them to drink the deeper at the fountain head. ”
Photo taken by Doug Robar
Not being able to go to Church concerns Toplady and people who want to come to Church and can’t deserve our prayers.
Toplady’s prayer grapples with the fact that God has ordained gathering in Church as the normal way by which God grow us. Church doesn’t make us holy, but it is one place where God has promised to meet us with his particular presence (as when praying, reading the Bible, or receiving the sacraments).
So, not getting to Church is a problem!
Toplady’s prayer amount to a request for a miracle: He asks God to bypass the normal order of things but to achieve their same purpose. That’s what he means by the phrase ‘in secret’, as opposed to the visible act of being at Church. In the same way, Toplady emphasises God’s inward presence. After all, this is the reason why God wants us to go to Church, to experience joy in His presence. Toplady describes this flourishing with the Biblical image of ‘spoil’, the treasure divided by ancient warriors after a victory, and asks that those at home would get their share anyway.
It’s important that Toplady specifically asks for comfort. This is especially relevant if people are confined by illness. But I suspect Toplady also realises that feeling cut off from Church family will hurt. His assurance rests in the fact that God can comfort and sanctify just as well as home as in a church building.
That’s why Toplady uses the imagery of a river, flowing from a mountain stream. If we need water – the joy of God’s presence – it doesn’t matter where along the water course we plunge our buckets.
Toplady’s prayer should remind us of the importance of physically gathering at Church: this is how God has chosen to grow us. But his prayer also assures us that God’s purposes are not thwarted by the impediments His providence has permitted. It simply isn’t part of God’s plan to allow COVID, governments, restrictions, and hardship to stall our walk with Christ. Our task is to pray – earnestly and urgently – that God would stick to His plan.