The Call to Ministry

Zechariah 1:7. On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berechiah son of Iddo.

On the tenth day of the twelfth month of the year 1966 of the Gregorian calendar in Truro Cathedral, Cornwall England, the bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev. Maurice Key, laid his hands on my head, confirming me and empowering me for service to God*, praying that God would sustain me all the days of my life. The next day I took my first communion at Canterbury Cathedral, and Bishop Key's prayer has sustained me ever since. The word of the Lord came to me a year before that in a WW II quonset hut converted to a Roman Catholic chapel on an abandoned WWII air base where I first saw a perpetual light of Christ and as a ten year old felt a stirring which I later come to know as the calling of the Holy Spirit.

The words above from the book of Zechariah appointed for today reminded me of my calling, how it came about and how strong it has been ever since. In Pray as you Go today, the prayers led us to think back to where we were invited to trust the quiet authority of Jesus, and for me those days in Cornwall were where the holy trusting first happened. I have since learned that neither human nor institution can silence or impair that calling. God makes up for what man and institution deny. Unlike Zechariah, I did not see a man on a red horse, but instead I saw the Light of Christ.

In this holy season of Advent as we await and prepare for the coming of Christ, reconnecting with the humble, Spirit-filled authority of Jesus and remembering from whence it came might be an appropriate way to remind ourselves of when our journey with the wee babe about to be born began.

Glean for yourself some quiet stillness and reflect on how Jesus' authority shapes your interactions, pondering how, in the new year, you might manifest those interactions... how your interactions might reflect the Light of Christ. And always be reminded of the words of Paul in the Letter to the Romans that:

nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.

High Altar at Truro CathedraL

*Thanks to Bishop Dorothy Sanders Wells whose meditation in Forward Day by Day today prompted me to write about my calling.