Faith Fact- "The Gift of Joy and Wonder" Baptismal Prayer

 


After a new member of the church has been baptized, there is a prayer in The Book of Common Prayer we pray over the baptized:

Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon these your servants the forgiveness of sin, and have raised them to the new life of grace. Sustain them, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen.

This prayer has a long history in the church as a prayer for the gifts of the Holy Spirit on the newly baptized. At one point in time, this prayer was moved to the Confirmation service, where it continued to be in Prayer Books dating back to Thomas Cranmer until the 1979 Prayer Book revision in The Episcopal Church where it was redrafted and moved back to the Baptism service.

The prayer is based on Isaiah 11:2, presented here from the RSV:

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. 

Looking at the prayer and the passage from Isaiah, we notice the direct correlations, albeit in different words. The main difference is between "the gift of joy and wonder in all your works" and "his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord."

In Isaiah, "fear" is a translation of ירא or yare'. This word can also be translated as "to be in awe of" or "to hold in deference". This is how "fear" becomes "the gift of joy and wonder" in all God's works.

What we get is a retranslated version of an old prayer derived from Scripture. As a result, we can see our deference towards God in a new light. Our reverence is one that marvels at God and enjoys life for the sake of the one who made it for us.


For Further Reading: