Page 28 - AECA.org.uk ¦ Koinonia 66

Spirit as the presence of the Kingdom among the assembly, which also includes
the extent to which the new life in the risen Jesus is connected to the Holy
Spirit. Secondly, the Anglican rite makes a firm connection between the death
of Jesus as the way to his resurrection and so new life and consequently, new
life for those who believe. The link made between death and resurrection and
new life is certainly eschatological, for it includes a necessary end that leads to
a new beginning. Yet, the locus of this ‘new life’ is very much within the
believer in the earthly realm. Of course, baptism is also implied here, in the
dying and rising with Christ. Certainly, the Anglican rite, as regards the
gathered assembly, shares something of its character with what we can only
imagine a feature of the first Christians: the sense of an intimate group who
gather together to affirm their faith and the new life they have received
through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Interestingly, the confidence that
God raised Jesus from the dead is also another way the Anglican liturgy shares
something with the eschatological hope of the first Christians. The expectant
joy and intensity of the eschatological hope of early Church, in the Anglican
liturgy, is expressed as a trust in God’s promises, witnessed throughout the
Bible, and in the fact the God raised Jesus from the dead, and thus is the
foundation of our hope that Christ will come again. As to what the liturgy
might suggest the ‘end of ends’ looks like, apart from generally operating
within the background of the New Testament view on this point, the liturgy
itself is quite vague here.

26