Corona Light-Walkers

Almighty God, 

through the waters of baptism 

your Son has made us children of light. 

May we ever walk in his light 

and show forth your glory in the world; 

through Jesus Christ our Lord, 

who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 

one God, now and for ever. (BAS p291)

…the Collect (or prayer of the day/week) for the Fourth Sunday of Lent in most Canadian Anglican Churches. It is one of the Collects featured in “A Collection of Disciplines for Lent,” a “devotional” I prepared for the current issue of Taste and See…, Anglican Renewal Ministries Canada’s quarterly magazine (to subscribe go to www.armcanada.org). 

Having written it, I feel obliged to follow it. Following it forces me to ask myself some demanding questions about how I am living my life. When I do these things certain phrases light up for me. For example, “May we ever walk in his light” brought the idea of being a Light-Walker into my mind. Which, in turn, conjured up a bit of a jumble of rather grandiose Star Wars and Lord of the Rings imagery and with that, of course, St Paul: 

For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. (1Thes5.5)

We are Light-Walkers all: illumined by, bathed in, refracting and reflecting the lovely Light of Jesus, the LIght of the World and bravely showing forth his glory all around. 

When I wrote the “Collection of Disciplines” the coronavirus was not the thing that it has become. As I pondered Light-Walking I remembered that a corona is much more than just a virus. A corona is the glowing envelope of light which surrounds the sun, the moon and the stars but which is only visible during an eclipse. We Light-Walkers are to be the glowing corona-like light of Jesus enveloping and warming all who live in fear and are suffering because of the viral, crepuscular eclipse of normal life and freedom visited on us in the pandemic. 

And not only that, a corona is also a crown. Not only are we Light-Walkers showing forth the glories of the life-giving corona light of Jesus, but we are to worship and proclaim him as our heaven crowned King of kings and LORD of Lords (Rev19.16) before whom no mere virus, or anything else, can stand. 

Love in Jesus,

Gene+