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+

Advent Anticipation

So here we are. Black Friday o’er. It’s Advent Sunday and we enter our annual spiritual and liturgical waiting room—in which we’re encouraged to pause and be reminded that, not only did Jesus come to save us the first time, he is also coming again and for keeps one day. So, stay awake, Jesus says, be ready. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted. For example, since it’s Advent, make sure all your waiting room “magazines” are appropriate and up to date. 

Waiting isn’t easy but when what is coming is as good as what the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is offering in the power of the Holy Spirit, it’s worth it. I always think of the old Heinz Ketchup television commercial at this time of year—so thick and good that it takes a long, long time to come out of the bottle. We see the bottle poised over the plate full of promise as we hear Carly Simon singing her song, Anticipation. The first verse goes: 

We can never know about the days to come

But we think about them anyway

And I wonder if I'm really with you now

Or just chasin' after some finer day.

She wasn’t singing about Jesus, of course, or ketchup, for that matter. We can never know about the days to come, either, except that Holy Scripture has given us some solid hints. Enough to think and pray about—to anticipate and prepare ourselves and stay awake as we wait. And another difference is that we don’t have to wonder if we’re really with Jesus now. He has promised that he is with us now in our Advent waiting rooms and not just on some “finer day” in the future—now, for ever and always. And whenever Jesus is present things taste better. 

So here we are: faithfully anticipating, hoping, waiting and expecting by observing an holy Advent and, in the meantime, as we wait for another Christmas. 

This an extract from from the Winter issue of Taste and See…, Anglican Renewal Ministries (ARM) Canada’s quarterly magazine. You can subscribe here. 

Come, Holy Spirit! You Are Welcome Here!

This image was captured while driving though the Siksika community on our way home from Okotoks a few days ago. It has stirred up this Anglican’s charismatic heart. What a wonderful sight it was! I wonder if the Anglicans there had anything to do with it. I hope so. He is welcome where I live and in my church, too. Some praying along these lines would be appropriate, methinks, so I thought I’d share my latest Holy Spirit in the prayer books piece from the latest issue of ARM Canada’s magazine, Taste and See…

Did you know that there is a whole litany dedicated to invoking the presence of the Holy Spirit in The Book of Alternative Services? It’s on page 123. As I look at it again, I wonder why, if I take being charismatic seriously, I wouldn’t be praying this daily—perhaps even hourly! It would be as easy as 1-2-3, wouldn’t it? 

“Come, Holy Spirit” it says. Repeatedly. Ten times! Amen to that. 

In each petition, it describes one of the Holy Spirit’s activities or properties: creator (Gen1.2), counsellor or helper (John14.16, 26, 15.26, 16.7), power from on high (Lk1.35, 24.49, Acts1.8), breath of God (Job33.4, John20.22), wisdom and truth (Eph1.17, John14.17, 26, 15.26, 16.7 & 13). Come, Holy Spirit, with all those attributes, indeed!

Here are the five petitions associated with these:

1. Renew the face of the earth

When I pray this I think of revival and all the great awakenings The LORD has wrought through the ages—of hearts strangely warmed, repentance, lives lived in Scriptural holiness, justice in the marketplace and full churches. Thoroughly prayer-worthy. 

2. Touch our lips that we may proclaim your word

Most of us Anglicans need to be a little touched in this way—considerably more than we are, actually. I know, I know; St Francis said share the gospel always and in every way—if necessary, use words. Well, words, I suspect, are necessary more often than we would like (Ro10.14). Try this prayer and as the Holy Spirit touches your lips write down and memorize a simple, Christian-ese free statement of why Jesus and your church is important to you then pray and watch for opportunities to share it (1Pet3.15) with the people in your life who have not yet tasted and seen how good The LORD is. It doesn’t have to be theological or literary. Just something honest and in your own words, using the word “Jesus” at least once, describing how you have been blessed and the hope you enjoy because of his presence in your life. 

3. Make us agents of peace and ministers of wholeness

Being Spirit-filled certainly helps with this (Gal5.22-23). Agents of peace and ministers of wholeness are agents of reconciliation (2Cor5.18-20). By the way they behave, they encourage and help people to be reconciled with God and with one another. 

4. Give life to the dry bones of this exiled age, and make us a living people, holy and free

The truth is, “this fragile earth, our island home” (Eucharistic Prayer 4, BAS, p201) is a temporary one. We are away from The LORD (2Cor5.6-10), exiled for now and so our bones dry out and we die. But resurrection is coming—a home-coming (John14.1-6, Heb11.14-16) and a new city (Heb11.10). There is Holy “sauce” for these dry bones of ours that enliven us, sanctify us and set us free from sin and death. Only Jesus has the recipe. 

5. Strengthen us in the risk of faith

R-I-S-K is how faith is spelled someone said. R-I-S-K Is the only way to experience any assurance of things hoped for and to be convinced of things I haven’t yet seen with my own eyes. 

Goethe, the 18th century German writer, once wrote: “The dangers of life are many and safety is one of them.” This prayer will help us to avoid playing it safe. Aslan, wrote CS Lewis, is good, but he is not safe. Neither should we be. Ours is to step out in faith and let the Holy Spirited winds of God blow through our hair. 

In his book, Seeking Spirituality: Guidelines for Christian Spirituality for the Twenty-First Century (Hodder & Stoughton: 1998), Fr Ronald Rolheiser wrote about how Paul, after he had been knocked over and heard the voice of Jesus on the road to Damascus,

Got up off the ground and walked into his ecclesial future “with his eyes open, seeing nothing” (Acts9.8)—which is a marvelous description of all of us on the day when we made our commitments in marriage, parenthood, priesthood, religious life, or any other deep vocation, we stared ahead into the future with our eyes wide open, seeing nothing, and walked, probably with some enthusiasm, into that future. (pp118-119)

And May The LORD so strengthen me and you that we may forgo mere safety and set out on the R-I-S-K-y road with our eyes front, wide open and looking for adventure. 

O, and one more thing. I’d add the following petition: 

Come, Holy Spirit, gift giver, may we earnestly desire the manifestation of your Spirit in all your spiritual gifts, especially that we may prophesy. 

Come, Holy Spirit, come. 

R-I-S-K. Easy as 1-2-3. Amen and amen!

Gene+

PRAYERS AND THANKSGIVINGS UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS

The latest in The Holy Spirit in the Prayer Books series for Taste and See… magazine. 

There is a rich selection of PRAYERS AND THANKSGIVINGS UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS in The Book of Common Prayer beginning on page 37. Praying through them one a day is a good way to familiarize yourself with them. You’ll find prayers and phrases which will help and inform your daily prayers and you’ll pray for things you might not have thought to pray as you go. We continue our survey of references to the Holy Spirit in our prayer books in this section of the BCP. 

6. For Missionary Societies

When was the last time you prayed for a Missionary Society, or for a Synod, or Theological Students? Have you ever prayed for any of them in your personal prayers? I’ve prayed for Synods because I’ve been involved in many of them. But I have to confess, I haven’t prayed for Missionary Societies since the last time I worked through the PRAYERS AND THANKSGIVINGS UPON SEVERAL OCCASIONS in The Book of Common Prayer (BCP), p37. Which is one of the good things about using a prayer bookt in ten  to pray. One is led to pray for things one might neglect otherwise. Things like Missionary Societies in prayer number six on page 42: 

Send down the grace of thy Holy Spirit upon thy people, and grant that they may give cheerfully of their substance for the evangelizing of the world.

What is the grace of the Holy Spirit? The grace He sends is in all He provides—the Gifts, the Fruits and always the Truth in Jesus. Although the Holy Spirit is The Comforter, His grace brings more than just comfort. As James Ryle says, grace is God’s empowering presence to be who He made us to be, and to do what He calls us to do. Dallas Willard describes grace as that which empowers us to be able to do what we are unable to do on our own. 

And what will this grace empower us to do in particular? “Give cheerfully of my substance for the evangelizing of the world.” Give cheerfully? Oh. A great prayer for “they” who are not me. But in praying it, I am forced to face up to the fact that “they” includes me. Sigh. So having the Holy Spirit sent down upon me is not just about speaking in tongues and prophesying and falling over and all that fun stuff. It’s also about giving cheerfully of my substance—who I am and what holds me together and makes me me, what I earn and have been given. Things easily thought of as mine. That doesn’t sound very charismatic!

And here’s another disturbing thought. This Holy Spirit prompted cheerful giving is from my substance, not God’s. In other words, the way the Holy Spirit has convicted me, is that my tithe is God’s in the first place. Not mine, His. So the giving in this prayer must come from my substance after the tithe and cheerfully! It is an offering over and above my tithe “for the evangelizing of the world”! As I pray through this prayer and write I realize that, at the moment, none of my regular offerings go specifically to missionary societies and evangelization. Things that make me go, “Hmmm!?!?”

7. For General, Provincial or Diocesan Synods

We have most significant Synod coming up in July next year. General Synod 2019 will include second reading of the resolution to change the Anglican Church of Canada’s doctrine on marriage. Prayer number seven, which also begins on page 42, For General, Provincial or Diocesan Synods is another excellent BCP Holy Ghost prayer for such a gathering. 

Save its members from all error, ignorance, pride, and prejudice; and of thy great mercy vouchsafe so to direct, govern, and sanctify them in their deliberations by thy Holy Spirit, that through thy blessing the Gospel of Christ may be faithfully preached and obeyed, the order and discipline of thy Church maintained, and the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour enlarged and extended.

If ever there was a time when our Church needed to be directed, governed and sanctified by the Holy Spirit as synod members deliberate, it will be in Vancouver in July 2019. 

As you pray this prayer, consider how and where the Holy Spirit always directs God’s people—always to the Truth that is found in Jesus (John 14.17, 15.26, 16.13, 17.17, Eph 4.21) and never away from Jesus, his teaching and example. Ask the Holy Spirit to direct synod members ever and only to Jesus and his teaching on marriage and all other matters before General Synod 2019. 

Pray that the Holy Spirit will also govern us all—the synod members in their deliberation and all of us in our behavior and response to their decisions. Examples of the Holy Spirit’s governance are the commandments Jesus made through the Holy Spirit (Acts 1.2) and Paul being prevented from doing certain things by the Holy Spirit. For example, he was forbidden to speak in Asia and not allowed to go to Bithynia (Acts 16.6-7) and he was “constrained by the Spirit” to go to Jerusalem even when he was anxious as to what might happen to him there (Acts 20.22-23). The Holy Spirit guides and governs by saying go ahead, go here or go there and by saying don’t go. 

Pray also that the Holy Spirit will sanctify—set apart as holy—the synod members for their task. That their motives and decisions will be holy and pure and “sanctified in the truth” of God’s word (John 17.17) which is, of course, the work of “the Spirit of truth” (John14.17, 15.26, 16.13) and that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we do not “ordain” in our “Rites or Ceremonies” any thing that is “contrary to God’s Word written” (Article XX. Of the Authority of the Church, BCP p706). 

A Note on Praying Out of Books

I have heard some say that praying “in The Spirit” can’t be done from books. I used to think it myself. I am now convinced that praying “in The Spirit” can be done with and without books. I also believe there is a fair amount of praying with and without books which is not “in the Spirit.” It is a matter of the heart and of The LORD’s leading. Sometimes one of my spontaneous prayers for someone or something is enriched by a phrase or an idea which comes from a Prayer Book prayer I use regularly. For example, I will often pray that The LORD will “visit their homes and drive from them all the snares of the enemy” and “preserve us in peace” (from COMPLINE, BCP 726) and that The LORD “will give thine angels charge over them, and defend them from all dangers of body and soul” (from a Prayer for Home and Loved Ones, BCP 633). I don’t see how I could improve on those Intercessory sentiments. It’s exactly what I would like The LORD to do from the heart and earnestly. 

Using the Prayer Books systematically in as tools for prayer will have praying for things you wouldn’t necessarily have thought of on your own and will improve your prayer vocabulary. 

Gene+

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