coronavirus - Jeremiah's Vow

The focus for today’s devotion is “sent.”

I find today’s focus a little ironic considering the fact that mass population quarantines are being recommended or enforced. And yet, in the world we live in, we can still find ways to live as people on mission.

What I find most interesting about this moment in history for the church, is that it is redefining (not in the sense of a new meaning, but in that of returning to the original sense) what it means to be sent. Being sent is not about location. It is about mindset.

Because of our new birth, we have been made Ambassadors for Christ. We have been given a mission to which we must all submit. Our jobs are not an impediment to being sent, it is the place we have been sent to. Our recreation is not a distraction to being sent, it is an opportunity to demonstrate the normalcy of our “sent-ness.” Our families are not hindrances to being sent, they are the first recipients of who we have become in Christ.

What the pandemic has done, what it is doing is reacquainting us with who we, those who claim membership in Christ’s body, were always bent to be and what we were always meant to be doing. This is quite remarkable.

I don’t know why we must live thru these days. I don’t know what life in this world will look like after it’s all over. But, I am growing in my sense of this, we will not be able to look at ourselves the same. We will have changed. My hope is that it will be for the better. I pray that we will take advantage of the time we are being given.

The urgency of the situation requires an equally urgent response. The world needs to know that God has spoken and when we who have responded to his call respond, we will respond like Jesus who was sent into the world. We will say, “I am ready. Send me.”

Even when the darkness seems great, a small flicker can become a beacon of hope.

This is what I have felt in the last few days as the world has had to face the Coronavirus pandemic.

There are so many questions and not enough answers. There are seem to be an insurmountable number of obstacles and not enough avenues of escape. If we are not careful, we can turn our backs on the only source of hope available to us because there seems to be so much darkness around.

I have often wondered what it means that Jesus is the light of the world. And by extension, that we are the Church, a city on a hill. These metaphors are related. They share the same purpose but have different functions. As the city, we reflect the light that emanates from the source, Jesus the Messiah. We do not possess light of our own. It is a borrowed splendor. Something that we should never confuse, but many times end up doing.

The apostle Paul offered one of the most remarkable descriptions of Jesus every captured in the Scripture. He said to the Corinthians, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Two questions emerge here. When did God say this? He said it when the earth was formless and void. In the beginning, there was nothing in all of creation that reflected his goodness, but he said, “Let there be light,” and out of himself, light shone forth.

But the wondrous mystery is this. What was the nature of that light? It was Jesus himself. Jesus is the light that God sent into the world at creation. And he is the light that entered into the world at his incarnation. This is what light does. It changes the very definitions we use to describe the work of God. God sends forth light and we look upon Jesus’ face.

In this light, there is the knowledge that transforms our minds and glory that inspires worship. But in order to see both of these there needed to be light.

Light is what reminds us that darkness is not a thing with its own substance. It is merely the absence of something. For when the light shines, darkness flees.

In this season of Lent, let us look toward the light. Let us remember that the darkness does not linger when the light shines. Let hold fast to the promise that in God, “the Father of light,” there is no shadow of turning, and from Son shines a light that removes the fear of the night.

Tag: coronavirus

Lent 2020 | Day 19: “Sent”

Lent 2020 | Day 18: “Light”