When the Spirit Will Re-Mold Resistant Hearts - Daily Devotions with the Dean (Copy)

Friday • 8/12/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; Judges 14:20–15:20; Acts 7:17-29; John 4:43-54

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6-11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Chapters 15 and 16 of the book of Judges complete Samson’s story (the OT readings for today, tomorrow, and the next day). I’ll make a few summary observations, and leave it to you to read the chapters as time and opportunity permit. 

Samuel’s story is narrated at more length than any of the other judges, and he is one of the most puzzling figures in all of Israel’s history. Ironically, he mirrors the enigma of Israel itself. The book of Judges offers its own conclusion of the woeful period it describes: “every man did what was good in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25 RSV). And if it were ever true of any person, it is true of self-willed Samson: “I did it my way.” 

Samson the Nazirite. Nazirite vows are voluntary (Numbers 6)—but not for Samson; he is called to it while in the womb. In the same way, Israel is chosen by God: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; it is you the Lord has chosen out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 14:2). And Samson and Israel both handle their calling equally badly. 

Samson cavalierly and repeatedly violates his Nazirite vow. He touches a carcass (Judges 14:5-9; 15:15), he drinks wine (14:10), and he allows his hair to be cut (16:16). His vow-breaking is a mirror of Israel’s serial covenant violations. 

Caught between “eros” and “charisma.” Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke poignantly describes Samson’s spirituality: “The spirit of I AM overwhelms him four times (13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14), more than any other warlord (3:10; 5:34; 11:29), marking him as the most charismatic but not as the most in tune with God’s Spirit” (An Old Testament Theology, p. 612). His birth is as auspicious and promising as Moses’s and Samuel’s. He is spiritually cheered on by a godly woman, his mother. But Samson’s heart is captured by three self-serving pagan women: his wife (Judges 14), a prostitute (Judges 16:1-3), and his infamous lover Delilah (Judges 16:4-20). “He flounders in the great conflict between eros and charisma,” summarizes Gerhard von Rad (Old Testament Theology, Vol. 1, p, 334). Likewise, Israel constantly seesaws between loyalty to the invisible and holy Yahweh and prostration before the earthy Baals and Asherahs of storm and fertility. 

Samson’s rebellion against God’s call on his life results in his being captured, blinded, and cast into a dark prison. Israel’s refusal to love God and keep covenant with him will result in her spiritual blindness (“Stupefy yourselves and be in a stupor, blind yourselves and be blind!” — Isaiah 29:9), and in her being sent into the darkness of Assyrian and Babylonian exiles.  

Samson’s prayer. When Samson comes to the end of himself, he prays. First, he prays for life (Judges 15:18-19), and at the end he prays for death (Judges 16:30). Israel’s story is a continual cycle of rebellion, repentance, restoration. Her great prophets will long for and look to a final restoration when the Spirit will not just temporarily come upon people (as with Samson), but will permanently take up abode within them—when the Spirit will not merely steer stubborn wills, but remold resistant hearts to will God’s will: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:26:27). 

Samson as deliverer. In the end, Samson, despite himself, fulfills his calling to “begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (Judges 13:5). He is permitted to prefigure—if in a diminished way—One who will give his life for the rescue of his people. Samson stretches out his arms to pull down the pillars of the pagan temple (Judges 16:29), anticipating Christ stretching out his arms on the Cross (Colossians 2:14-15, for example). But the difference in their prayers is telling. Samson prays, “Strengthen me only this once, O God, so that with this one act of revenge I may pay back the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judges 16:28). Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). 

I pray you may rejoice in that forgiveness. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Lovis Corinth , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

God Uses Flawed Messengers - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 8/11/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105:1-22; Judges 14:1-19; Acts 6:15–7:16; John 4:27-42

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Samson

One of my favorite things about baseball is the way quirky unofficial traditions become a part of the game. For example, “walk-up music” appears nowhere in the baseball rule book. But these days, when a batter walks up to the plate, his journey is accompanied by music selected that describes him, and is designed to inspire him or to intimidate his opponents. In our reading today we are introduced to Samson, and the title of his walk-up song could be, “If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don’t Want to Be Right.” 

“Get her for me, because she pleases me.” — Judges 14:3. Rather than choose a wife from among his fellow Israelites, Samson desires a Philistine woman. He is a personification of the saying, “The heart wants what the heart wants.” As a result, a world of grief awaits him.

However, the story of Samson does not lend itself easily to the drawing of moral lessons. It portrays an ambiguous savior-figure, yet it is governed by a theology of God’s control: “for [Yahweh] was seeking a pretext to act against the Philistines” (Judges 14:4). The Lord has his own purposes, and he works despite—or through—humans’ ungodly motives (Judges 14:4).  In today’s reading, Samson’s wrongly placed anger causes him to kill thirty men. He slaughters the men simply to honor a bet he has made with Philistines who were present at his wedding festivities, but who were not his friends. Samson is strong and clever—a lion-slayer and a riddle-maker. But he is also subject to manipulation and he is vengeful, and his vengefulness will become a weapon in the hands of the Lord.

The reading or chanting or singing of Canticle 8 (from Exodus 15) feels especially timely this Thursday: “The Lord is a mighty warrior; Yahweh is his Name.” When it comes to battling for his people, he can do so by hurling chariots into the sea, and by sending a flawed warrior like Samson. 

These are good things to keep in mind when the world seems so out of control, and when there seem to be no adults on the playground of human affairs. God is in control. 

The Woman at the Well

John’s “Woman at the Well” is another example of God using a flawed messenger. It’s intriguing the way this five-times “married” woman who remains nameless to us (but who had to have been well known in Sychar) becomes herald of the good news. John’s expression is rich and elegant. After her life-altering conversation with Jesus, she goes back into town and tells the people there, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” That would have included some, ahem, interesting information, one would think. Then her phrasing is wonderful: “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 

The result is that many come and listen for themselves. They conclude, “This is truly the Savior of the world.” The whole story is a remarkable first step in the healing of the rift between Jews and Samaritans, between the Southern Kingdom and the Northern Kingdom. Jesus’s ministry to the Samaritans is a signal that God’s promises are to all people, not just the Jews. The phrase “Savior of the world” has deep roots. In Genesis 12, God calls Abram to leave Ur of the Chaldees, promising that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Shechem was the first place Abram came to in the land of promise. Here at Shechem, at the oak of Mamre, God had said, “To your seed I will give this land.” Shechem represents Israel’s destiny to bless the nations. 

In Jesus’s conversation with the Woman at the Well, that promise is renewed. Shechem is the site of Jacob—“the Usurper’s”—well, of his burial site and that of his son Joseph (delivered from his own exile in Egypt—see Acts 7:15-16). Shechem stands between Mt. Gerizim of the covenant blessings and Mt. Ebal of the covenant curses. Shechem is home to Gideon’s son Abimelech, and witness to his sad tale. Good news comes through broken individuals to a broken people with broken lives, who have lost the vision for what God has called them to be. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth—full of restoration and healing!

All this, and more, was what Jesus had in mind when he talks to his disciples about sower and reaper sharing the same joy, and of reaping what others have sown. The disciples are entering into a story that has been building and intensifying toward an amazing climax—a climax of which they themselves will play no small part. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Lucas Cranach the Elder , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A Divine Appointment - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 8/10/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109; Judges 13:15-24; Acts 6:1-15; John 4:1-26

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

One good reason for staying in the biblical story is its power to inject wonder into life’s downward spiraling. God shows up when things seem most out of control, and says, “I’ve got this. I’ve got you!” Right now, for us, perhaps it’s global pandemic, destructive rage in the streets, self-serving public servants, a generation that may or may not get a decent education. But we are a people of God’s Book, and therefore a people of hope, because this Book recounts situations like ours in which God inserts himself in a saving way. 

Wonder for Samson’s parents. For forty years, Israelites have “been given into the hand of the Philistines” (Judges 13:1). Out of nowhere Manoah and his barren wife receive word from on high that they will have a son whom they are to dedicate to the Lord, and who “shall begin to deliver Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (Judges 13:5). Their wonder is palpable. The appearance of the angel of Yahweh is “most awe-inspiring” (Judges 13:6), his name is “too wonderful” (Judges 13:18). The instruction for the child’s prenatal care and “rule of life” are extraordinary: their son is to be a lifelong Nazirite. His name is Samson. Under his parents’ care, we are told, Samson grows, is blessed of the Lord, and the Spirit begins to stir in him (Judges 13:24-25). In the midst of Israel’s desperate state, God has come to bring relief. 

If we’ve heard or read Samson’s story before, we know that tragedy and heartbreak lie ahead. Samson will prove to be, arguably, the least worthy of all the judges—but deliverance will indeed come through him. Meanwhile, we take heart knowing that in the worst of times, God does not forget. And even if he must use the crudest and oddest of means, the Lord redeems. 

Wonder at Jacob’s well. A woman’s life is in tatters. She is surrounded by profound reminders of God’s faithfulness: Jacob’s well is the source of her drinking water; her town, Sychar, is built on the site of ancient Shechem, standing in the shadow of Mt. Gerizim, where the first Israelites in the land had recited God’s covenantal blessings. But Israel’s united faith had long ago disintegrated, thus the divide between Samaritans and Jews: (“…Jews do not associate with Samaritans,” v.9). The woman’s five previous “marriages” have also fallen apart. As deep as the religious divide between Samaritans and Jews, so is the moral divide between this woman and her neighbors. That is why she comes to the well with her water jar alone, in the heat of the middle of the day, instead of communally with the other women of Sychar in the cool of the morning. 

It turns out that a “divine appointment” awaits the celebrated “Woman at the Well,” because Jesus “had to go through Samaria” (John 4:4) to return to Galilee. And what has brought the two of them together on this day at Jacob’s well is this wonder-bringing conversation. He starts the conversation as though it’s simply about obtaining drinking-water for himself. Quickly, though, he turns the topic to “living water” for her instead. When the conversation gets too personal (“You have no husband…”), she attempts to dodge that discussion by bringing up the topic of religion. While she’s done that to keep the conversation safely at arm’s length, Jesus zeroes in on her true need and directs her to the seeking Father and the worship-renewing Spirit. He discloses to her that he, this weary traveler, the one she is talking with, is at one and the same time, the Messiah she awaits (John 4:6). He is the great “I AM” (John 4:26). She drops her water jar, and runs off to share the good news with everybody in Sychar. 

With the coming of the Holy Spirit and studying the Scriptures, we have access to the mind of God and to his heart. We are told over and over in the Bible that he desires to bring those he loves into relationship with him. No one is too “bad” for him to love. That is as true today as it was the day the Samaritan woman encountered Jesus. As my friend Steve Brown says, “being bad isn’t bad enough” to prevent God from loving us. Praise be!

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

RobyBS89, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

"...But If It Is from God..." - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 8/9/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Judges 13:1-15; Acts 5:27-42; John 3:22-36

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

I’m fascinated by the response to Jesus of Gamaliel in Acts and of John the Baptist in John 3.  

Gamaliel. “We must obey God rather than men…” and …they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name. — Acts 5:29, 41. Surprisingly, perhaps, the book of Acts does not portray Peter and John as being filled with missionary zeal. They are not raising funds so they can obey Jesus’s command to go to the nations, baptizing, discipling, and teaching as they go. The mission to the nations begins only after persecution forces Jerusalem believers to leave Jerusalem—and even then, the apostles stay behind (Acts 8:2). What drives the Jerusalem apostles is the imperative they feel simply to tell the truth about what they have seen and heard. They tell their fellow Jews the truth about who Jesus Christ is, and what God has done to make him, as today’s passage puts it, “Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). 

The Lord calls some of us to go. He calls some of us to stay. He calls all of us to obey, and to be willing to suffer, if need be, for doing so—in fact, to rejoice at the privilege of suffering. As Paul will put it in one of his letters: “For [God] has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well” (Philippians 1:29). Gulp!

“…but if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God!” — Acts 5:39. Here is an instance of the truth of Jesus’s saying: “Whoever is not against us is for us” (Luke 9:50). Rabbi Gamaliel, this powerful member of the Sanhedrin, argues for tolerance for the Jerusalem followers of Jesus. Like Nicodemus from John’s Gospel, he is part of a tiny minority of Pharisees in the Sanhedrin. Gamaliel is grandson to Hillel the Great, founder of a school of Torah-interpretation that emphasized love over rigor: “Do not judge your fellow until you are in his place” (Pirke Avot 2.4). Later in Acts, we find out that Paul had been “brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel” (Acts 22:3). That, in particular, is an intriguing fact, because the tolerance that Gamaliel advocates here is opposite to the zealotry that Paul originally adopts against the Christians.  

The current climate in which we live is characterized by anything but Gamaliel’s philosophy of taking the long view. We can choose the specific cable news network that confirms us in views we already have about current events. It’s easy enough to find blogs and podcasts that endorse our fears about just who the “bad guys” are who are bringing disaster on us right now! 

Gamaliel speaks with two kinds of wisdom: 1) historical perspective, and 2) theological humility. 

As to historical perspective, Gamaliel draws upon the precedents of two figures, Theuddas and Judas the Galilean, who promised revolutionary change, and who gathered followers to try to make that transformation happen. Both men, however, perished. Their followers sort of trickled away and any threat dissipated. Gamaliel’s counsel: let’s see if the Christians are a similar type of short-lived “flash in the pan.” 

As to theological humility, Gamaliel has enough faith in and fear of God that he would rather see things play out than risk fighting against God. Of course, it’s not always right or good to let things ride. But wisdom—especially humble wisdom—looks to Ecclesiastes 3, and asks, patiently and before God, whether it’s “a time to break down” or “a time to build up,” “a time to keep silence” or “a time to speak,” “a time to love” or “a time to hate,” or “a time for war” or a “time for peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:3, 7-8). May God grant us more of a spirit of patient discernment in our day.  

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” — John 5:30. Speaking of humility, despite the understandable anxiety John the Baptist later expresses following after his arrest, the basic heartbeat of John the Baptist lies here, in these seven words: “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

John the Baptist. We saw in John 1 that John the Baptist believes that Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Here in John 5, we see that John the Baptist believes Jesus is the fulfillment of Hosea’s promise: “On that day, says the Lord, you will call me “My husband” (Hosea 2:16), a fact that Jesus prefigures by turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. In Jesus Christ, God himself has come to take to himself a bride -- the church. And John the Baptist finds his joy in his Master’s joy. In the lovely rendering of the NIV, John explains his own role to his disciples: “The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.” (John 3:29 NIV). John the Baptist knows Jesus is the Groom, and he is the Best Man. John knows his purpose is to “attend” his Master and make much of him and little of himself. 

The irony is that by becoming less, John becomes more. Accepting a “lesser” role at the appearance of Jesus, John joyfully inhabits the perfect purpose for which he was made. The more our lives become about magnifying the Lord’s glory, the more we become transformed into that same glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). Much joy to you as you become transformed into the glory of the Son. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

His People's Shepherd - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 8/8/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89; Judges 12:1-7; Acts 5:12-26; John 3:1-21

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2-6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

“You like ‘to-MAY-to,’ I like ‘to-MAH-to,’” sings Fred Astaire to Ginger Rogers in the 1937 movie Shall We Dance. Romantic comedy that the film is, the newly, but secretly, married couple does not, despite the song’s title, “call the whole thing off.” 

You like ‘sibboleth,’ I like ‘shibboleth,’ isn’t so innocent. The difference in pronunciation means life and death in the blood feud between Ephraim, Manasseh, and Gilead—the descendants of Joseph (Judges 12:5-6). It’s a sad tag line for that tribe’s internecine war, and its resultant loss of its lead role in Israel. The Gileadites had reached out to the Ephraimites, their fellow offspring of Joseph, for help in the battle against a common enemy, the marauding Ammonites, but were rebuffed. After defeating the Ammonites on their own, the Gileadites use the difference in dialect to “out” Ephraimites, and make them pay with their lives. And then, as Psalm 78 was later to say: 

The people of Ephraim, armed with the bow, turned back in the day of battle; They did not keep the covenant of God,and refused to walk in his law;…

[The Lord] rejected the tent of Joseph and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim;He chose instead the tribe of Judah and Mount Zion, which he loved…He chose David his servant… (Psalm 78:9-10, 67, 68, 70a BCP).

Today’s reading in Judges lays the groundwork for the establishment of monarchy in Israel, and in particular of the establishment of the Davidic monarchy, as celebrated both in Psalm 78 (above) and in today’s Psalm 89: 

Your love, O Lord, forever will I sing; from age to age my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness.For I am persuaded that your love is established for ever;you have set your faithfulness firmly in the heavens.“I have made a covenant with my chosen one;I have sworn an oath to David my servant:‘I will establish your line for ever,and preserve your throne for all generations.’” (Psalm 89:1-4 BCP).

Then again, even David’s line proves faulty. The kingdom divides after Solomon, and falls into idolatry again and becomes subject to exile. No mere earthly king can rule as wisely and perfectly as Yahweh himself can rule. The prophet Ezekiel says that eventually Yahweh—the great I AM—will indeed come himself to shepherd his people: “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God.  I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy” (Ezekiel 34:15-16).  

In John’s gospel, Jesus will reveal himself as that great I AM—as his people’s shepherd: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). With last Friday’s reading about Jesus’s “first sign” at the wedding at Cana, and with Saturday’s reading about Jesus’s cleansing of the Temple, we see the kickoff of the Good Shepherd’s campaign to bring back the strayed, bind up the injured, and strengthen the weak.

Today Jesus comes for Nicodemus, “the teacher of Israel” (John 3:10—there’s a very important definite article in the Greek that the NRSV fails to render) who reveals his need for a lesson in what the Bible—and thus, Israel’s story—is really all about. Nicodemus is a “shepherd” who is, himself, a strayed sheep. Having come to quiz Jesus, he winds up sitting quietly, as his Good Shepherd opens up the Scriptures in a new way:  

• “You must be born again (or from above).” — John 3:7. We need a new, and heaven-sent birth: a new start, a life given by God’s very Spirit. Just as Adam was simply a lump of clay until God breathed life into him in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:7), so we have no spiritual life in us until God breathes his life-giving Spirit into us—until we are “born again” by the Spirit. This is exactly what Ezekiel had said must happen: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
  

• “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” — John 3:14-15. The new birth by the Spirit lies on the far side of Jesus’s substitutionary, atoning, death-destroying death on the cross. The Lamb of God will take away the sin of the world, by taking the soul-sickness of sin all the way into himself, and then all the way into the grave—indeed, all the way into the bowels of hell itself; so that he can emerge triumphant, as Christus Victor. As the Philip Bliss hymn puts it:
  
  Lifted up was He to die;
  “It is finished!” was His cry;
  Now in Heav’n exalted high.
  Hallelujah! What a Savior!
  

• “God so loved the world… — John 3:16. The Spirit will give life because the Son will be lifted up on the cross. And the Son has arrived because the Father loves. The Father loves! There is no greater summary of what the Bible is all about. Here is the ultimate lesson for Nicodemus, and for all the sheep that have strayed: “God so loved [insert your name here] that he gave his only begotten Son that [insert your name] should believe in him and not perish but have everlasting life.” 

I pray you know the Father’s love for you. I pray you believe the Son’s work for you. I pray you breathe deeply the new life of the Spirit. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Image: Pixabay

"There Are Only Two Religions in the World" - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 8/5/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Judges 9:1-21; Acts 4:13-31; John 2:1-12 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6-11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Abimelech. Abimelech’s story stretches over two days of reading in the Daily Office. It is a sad tale of just retribution. Abandoning the redeeming, covenant-making God of grace, Yahweh, to worship a false god of covenant, Baal-berith, Israel is, consequently, at the mercy of the iron law of retribution. Gideon had seventy sons.  One of them, the son of a concubine, Abimelech, conspires with the leaders of his hometown Shechem to become Israel’s sole ruler. Following this, he murders all but one of his seventy half-brothers (who likely have a stronger claim to rule Israel). His half-brother Jotham hides and survives this massacre. Jotham tells a fable of faithless trees that select as their ruler a bramble that will rain down fire that will destroy both the faithless trees and the bramble itself. 

The fable, which is actually a curse, plays itself out (in tomorrow’s reading) in ruthless precision. “This happened so that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbaal might be avenged and their blood be laid on their brother Abimelech, who killed them, and on the lords of Shechem, who strengthened his hands to kill his brothers” (Judges 9:24).  God sends an evil spirit which turns the lords of Shechem against Abimelech. This hostility results in the ruin of both Shechem and Abimelech. Abimelech burns the Shechemites’ stronghold by fire. As he is doing so, a woman throws down a mill stone crushing Abimelech’s head, recalling the fact that it had been on a certain stone that Abimelech had murdered his half-brothers (Judges 9:5, 53).

Scriptures observes, “Thus God repaid Abimelech for the crime he committed against his father in killing his seventy brothers; and God also made all the wickedness of the people of Shechem fall back on their heads, and on them came the curse of Jotham son of Jerubbaal” (Judges 9:56-57).

During Midday Eucharist one day at the Cathedral Church of St Luke, Father Peter Tepper reminded us of U2 singer Bono’s remark that there are only two religions in the world, one of grace, and one of karma. Bono says, “the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma. You see, at the centre of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you … And yet, along comes the idea called Grace to upend all that… Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed….” 

Abimelech’s story is a perfect illustration of “what you put out com[ing] back to you.” It’s a picture of the whole age that Paul will much later describe as life “under the law.”

Wedding in Cana. With the coming of Christ, however, grace walks into the world. The wedding scene at Cana is one of the most beautiful demonstrations of the difference that God’s grace in Christ makes.

• Despite the fact that his “hour” has not yet come, Jesus graciously assents to the “first sign” of his “glory.” 

• Water set aside in jars for purification turns to wine that will fill goblets of celebration.  Because the Lamb of God has come to take away the sin of the world (as announced at Jesus’ baptism in the previous chapter of John), our baptism will not only purify, it will lead to the Eucharist of joy. 

• In John’s meta-narrative, Jesus’s blessing of this wedding in 1st century Galilee forecasts his invitation to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb at the end of time (Revelation 19).  

• The Lord of History shows himself as the ultimate host who has saved the best wine (his Son) for last (John 2:10). 

The Acts of the Apostles and the triumph of grace. In today’s passage in Acts, we find the ultimate transformation of Bono’s “karma” into “grace.” Actually, let’s put it in more biblical terms: “The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). After Peter and John are released from prison, their friends gather and raise their voices in worship and thanksgiving—they praise God for transforming the violence done to Christ into grace for the healing of the nations.  In a kind of mini-Pentecost, they are “filled with the Holy Spirit and [speak] the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31). 

Citing Psalm 2, the community recalls the evil that had been brought against Christ, God’s Anointed: “Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel” taking the part of Psalm 2’s Gentiles raging, of peoples imagining vain things, of kings of the earth taking their stand, and of rulers gathering together “against the Lord and against his Messiah” (Acts 4:26-27, quoting Psalm 2:2). 

While the psalm addressed the revolt of earthly powers with God’s wrathful and derisive laughter (Psalm 2:4-5—which would be the legitimate response of pure justice), the church sees something different, by virtue of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. The violence that Herod, et al., have perpetrated against the Lord’s anointed turns out to have been, instead, a boomerang—this is God’s predestined means to bring liberation from sin, and freedom from death’s power. If there is laughing now, it’s God’s laugh of victory, as he “stretch[es] out [his] hand to heal,” and his people’s laugh of joy. 

Grace has triumphed—may you walk in the knowledge and the confidence that His grace is for you!

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Power of God's Re-Creative Life-Giving Spirit - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 8/4/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 83; Psalm 145; Judges 8:22-35; Acts 4:1-12; John 1:43-51

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

We’ll wrap up Gideon’s story today, contrasting his experience of God’s Spirit with that of Peter in Acts. Then we’ll note the strong initiating love of Jesus in his approach to Nathaniel in John’s Gospel. 

Gideon’s end. After the victory over their enemies, the Israelites ask Gideon to establish a royal dynasty. Piously, he demurs: “The Lord will rule over you” (Judges 8:23). Despite the appearance of humility, however, Gideon takes on the trappings of a king. He demands tribute from his fellow Israelites: “let each of you give me an earring he has taken as booty.” He takes to himself many wives—exactly what Moses had warned the people a king would do (Deuteronomy 17:17). Perhaps the most revealing thing as to what’s going on deep in his heart is the fact that Gideon names the son of his concubine “Abimelech,” which means “My father is king.” 

Gideon is no longer the humble, overly timid man who initially responded to God’s call to be a “mighty warrior” with: “But, sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (Judges 6:12, 15). 

And yet, our friend Gideon is quite the mixed bag. The book of Judges does recognize “all the good that [Gideon] had done to Israel.” And in fact, Israel enjoys forty years of “rest … in the days of Gideon.” However, he does not keep the faith. Despite his protestations of loyalty to the Lord, and despite the fact that it was the Spirit of the Lord that had empowered his victories, Gideon forges an “ephod” from the gold of the earrings; in this context, an image or idol of some sort (Judges 8:27). When he sets it up in his town, in Ophrah, the ephod becomes an object of worship: “And all Israel prostituted themselves to it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his family.” After his death, there is a widespread lapse of faith in Israel, and the people convert to the worship of Baal-berith, “Baal of the covenant” (Judges 8:33). And, as we will see in tomorrow’s reading, if you name a son “My father is king,” it’s altogether possible you are bequeathing a sense of entitlement with unfortunate consequences. 

Gideon’s life offers sober lessons about how easily external obedience and piety can mask ungodly motives and insecurities. His life also demonstrates how it’s possible for someone to yield to the work of the Spirit just enough to manifest God’s power in the world, without yielding to God’s power in one’s own life. It’s as though what Gideon opens himself to is more like a temporary possession by the Spirit, rather than a deep and personal indwelling. 

Peter as Gideon’s opposite. Post-Pentecost Peter is a man in process of experiencing the deep, transformative work of God’s re-creative, life-giving Spirit. In today’s reading from Acts, Peter is given courage by the Holy Spirit to stand before the resurrection-denying leadership of the Temple and insist not only that the Jesus whom they crucified had risen from the dead, but that his name is the only one “under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Pentecost is remaking the coward who wouldn’t even admit to knowing Jesus around the fire in the temple courtyard the night of Jesus’s arrest. 

The word becomes flesh and grabs a non-seeker. Some of us are seekers. Some are not. Andrew (from yesterday’s reading in John) is a seeker. Nathaniel (in today’s reading) is not—at least he’s not looking for anything from Jesus. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” is his retort to claims that Jesus might be the Messiah. (Jesus and Nathaniel are from different towns in Galilee.) Reluctantly, though, Nathaniel agrees to go with his brother Philip to check things out. 

Jesus seizes the initiative. And what an initiative it is: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile” (John 1:47 RSV). Nathaniel is surprised: “How do you know me?” Surely with the most generous laugh, Jesus responds: “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you” (John 1:48). As enigmatic as that sounds, it has to mean something like: “Look, I know you’ve simply been trying to be a faithful Israelite—learning your Torah, saying your prayers, going to synagogue, giving alms. All that time, I’ve had my eye on you.” (Now, we, the readers, have already been told that it’s the Eternal Word who has said to Nathaniel, “When you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” We may be forgiven for wondering if this isn’t a “seeing” that extends back into eternity.)

It’s enough for Nathaniel. The lights come on. Here’s God’s Son, he realizes, Israel’s King. Quite a leap, but just because Nathaniel has been living in as much of the light as has been available to him, he “gets it.” And Jesus promises (I paraphrase): “You figured all that out on the basis of how little I showed I already know about you? Just wait” (see John 1:50-51). 

I’m struck, first, by how “from out of nowhere” it is that Jesus shows up in Nathaniel’s life, second, by how affirming Jesus’s expressed purposes are, and third by how much Nathaniel’s future has been prepared for simply by his staying “under the fig tree.” 

Be blessed this day

Reggie Kidd+

Image: 

Byzantine Institute staff, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

More Than He Dared Ask For - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 8/3/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97-120; Judges 7:19–8:12; Acts 3:12-26; John 1:29-42
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

For the Lord and for Gideon! Gideon wins—well, the Lord wins—a glorious victory over the Midianites. Gideon participates in a mopping up exercise. He proves to be sage and conciliatory with the Ephraimites, but petty and vengeful with the residents of Succoth. 

Peter and the man lame from birth. In yesterday’s reading from Acts, Peter had healed “a man lame from birth” in the Temple precincts. What the man had hoped for was “alms” (Gk = eleēmosynē), but what he received was God’s saving “mercy” (Gk = eleēmosunē). Not “silver and gold,” but, as the prophet Isaiah had put it: “So he [the Lord] defended them with his own arm, and with his mercy (eleēmosunē) he upheld them” — Isaiah 59:16 LXX, my translation). The man got so much more than he had dared to ask for. Praise be. 

In today’s reading from Acts, Peter explains to the crowd what has just happened. 

…why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? — Acts 3:12. Can you imagine Peter shouting, in Gideon-like fashion: “I did this for Jesus … and for Peter!”? No, you can’t. In fact, I think Peter and the other apostles with him in heaven are embarrassed to this day that the church named this book the Acts of the Apostles. This book is the Acts of Jesus by the Holy Spirit through the Apostles—it’s the continuation, says its writer, of what Jesus “began” to do in Luke’s Gospel: “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach…” (Acts 1:1 RSV). 

To make it clear that it is not the dazzling spirituality of the apostles that has accomplished this miracle, Peter lists Jesus’s qualifications to be the actual healer:

• God’s Servant (3:13, 26) 

• The Holy and Righteous One (3:14)

• The Author of Life (3:15)

• The Messiah (3:18, 20)

• The Lord (3:19)

• The Prophet (3:22)

The response called for is twofold.  The first part of that response is repentance: turning from the wrong path of rejection of Jesus as Messiah, so that his cross can work its sin-forgiving and life-giving power in their lives: “Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19-20). 

The second part of the response is faith: “And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you” (Acts 3:16). In brief compass, Peter notes three remarkable features of faith:

• It is faith in Jesus. 

• It is faith that comes from Jesus. 

• In this case, it is faith that has come with healing power. 

Jesus and Andrew. “What are you looking for?” — John 1:38. One of the Bible’s most beautiful pictures of faith—if maybe its simplest—is the account of Andrew’s coming to Jesus, in today’s reading from John. When Jesus senses that Andrew and a friend are following him, he turns, and asks point-blank: “What are you looking for?” (John 1:38). 

What a profound question. What a probing question. Jesus wants to know our agenda, what aspirations we’re projecting onto him. Surely John the Baptist’s teaching about Jesus being “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” had prompted a myriad of questions for Andrew. So, Jesus puts the question to the seeker, and the seeker has to decide whether it’s a “what” or a “who” that he is after. 

Instead of pulling out a list of questions, Andrew simply asks in return, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” In other words, “I don’t know the answers to all my questions. But I realize I need to know the One who has those answers. Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be.”

Time and again, I sense Jesus putting the same question to me: “Just what is it you are looking for in me?”, all the while waiting for me to set aside my “next topic for discussion,” and to be satisfied simply to be where he is.  

I love this story—I love (and am challenged by) imagining Jesus asking: “What are you looking for?”

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Wally Gobetz, https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/

              https://www.flickr.com/photos/70323761@N00/5091018688

He is There Now, Just as Much as in the Past - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 8/2/2022 • y2p13tuu

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78:1-39; Judges 7:1-18; Acts 3:1-11; John 1:19-28
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

One of the “historical” Psalms, today’s Psalm, 78, reviews Israel’s history, emphasizing that Israel continually forgot Yahweh’s achievements. God’s people became oblivious to his saving hand time and again: “They had forgotten his achievements, the marvels he had shown them” (Psalm 78:11 Jerusalem Bible). Yahweh is aware. In today’s passage from Judges, Yahweh makes it clear that the glory for a victory in battle over Israel’s enemies, the Midianites, is to belong to him alone.

The troops with you are too many … Israel would only take the credit away from me. — Judges 7:2. To press home the point that the Lord himself is the only ruler and protector his people need, the Lord trims Gideon’s army from over 30,000 to a meager 300. These are Israelites who have been living and hiding in the mountains from the Midianites. These are not—the 300 included—some sort of highly trained elite fighting force. After Gideon sends home the 22,000 who admit that they are “fearful and trembling,” God instructs Gideon to have the remaining 10,000 drink water from the spring where they are camped. While they drink, nine thousand, seven hundred men remain on the alert, kneeling down and “putting their hands to their mouths.” Three-hundred are less cautious, “lap[ping] the water with their tongues, as a dog laps.” The Lord tells Gideon to send the larger group home, leaving a small force of 300 men.  With the 300, the Lord says, I will deliver you. 

Whenever we feel under-resourced, it’s good to be reminded, “Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few” (1 Samuel 14:6). 

… and afterwards your hands shall be strengthened to attack the camp. — Judges 7:11. The Lord knows Gideon well, and his graciousness is on abundant display when he anticipates Gideon’s fear: the Midianites are so numerous they fill the valley “like locusts.” Yahweh calls for a nighttime attack. However, in advance, he provides a sign, unasked for, that Gideon and his forces will be successful. Gideon and his servant make a secret foray into the Midianite camps and hear a man recounting a fearful dream of a Midianite tent being rolled over by an Israelite loaf of bread. The man’s comrade declares the dream is a portent of an Israelite victory. 

“For the Lord and for Gideon!” — Judges 7:18. Confident, Gideon arms his company with horns and torches hidden in pitchers. Perhaps a bit … overconfident? arrogant?... Gideon tells them that during the attack they are to shout that they are fighting, not just for the Lord, but for Gideon. To this point, Gideon has been timid, but humble. Assurance of victory, however, has affected Gideon profoundly. The moment he displays courage, he also betrays pride. 

One reason we have historical Psalms, like the 78th, is to remind Israel (and also our forgetful selves) of God’s power to save. They are there to keep us mindful of his redeeming love: “…so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their ancestors, a stubborn and rebellious generation…” (Psalm 78:7-8 NRSV). We have in the Psalms, Israel’s songs, the stories of the failure of his people to appreciate him, thank him, and praise him for delivering them multiple times from enemies, famine, death, and destruction. We ourselves are not unlike the Israelites, which is why we have our own reminders through our worship, tradition, and rituals. Someone (I wish I could remember who!) once said, “Good rituals…condition all of us to take the proper attitude toward different aspects of our lives.” 

My prayer for you today is that God reminds you of his saving hand in your own personal past: healings, deliverances, answers to prayers—whatever it may be that reminds you he is there and that he cares about YOU as much now as he has in the past.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Hult, Adolf, 1869-1943; Augustana synod. [from old catalog], No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

About Trusting God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 8/1/2022 • y2p13m

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; Judges 6:25-40; Acts 2:37-47; John 1:1-18
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2-6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube\

Today we draw lessons from Judges on trusting God and from Acts on caring for one another. In addition, we’ll take a quick look at the themes and perspectives that lie before us as we begin reading John’s amazing account of Jesus’s life. 

Judges. Leading up to today’s Old Testament passage we learn that because of disobedience, Israel was being oppressed by the Midianites. Nevertheless, Yahweh mercifully determines to rescue them through his appointed “valiant warrior,” Gideon. He sends an angel to break this news to Gideon.

It’s instructive at this point to consider how different people in the Bible respond to angels sent from God, and what it reveals about character. When the angel tells Gideon he will rescue Israel from the Midianites, he asks, “How can I do this?” When an angel approaches Mary and tells her she will bear a child, she asks, “How can this be?” Gideon requests proof, “Give me a sign that it is you.” Mary’s response is, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.”

Thus, we are not surprised, in today’s passage, that, when he obeys a command from God to destroy the Israel’s sacred Baal worship altar, cowardly Gideon does this furtively, under cover of night. When his deed is discovered anyway, it is Gideon’s father who must defend him from the townspeople, who want to put him to death. We see that God’s “valiant warrior” has much to learn about trusting God. In fact, following this incident, Gideon again asks for proof that he is to lead Israel against the Midianites. He asks for a sign, involving placing a fleece on the ground and having it remain dry while the ground around it is wet with dew. When God provides the sign he asks for, Gideon changes up the terms and asks for the same sign, but with the results reversed. God again confirms the truth of his word to Gideon (we can imagine God doing this with a kind of celestial, but somewhat patient, eye-roll). 

Acts: Today’s Acts reading follows Peter’s eloquent proclamation of Jesus as the One foretold in Scripture, most specifically recounting his resurrection in Psalm 16. Peter declares that David knew when he composed the Psalm, that he was writing, not about himself, but of a promised descendant who would be enthroned forever (Psalm 132). Peter concludes that his listeners can be certain that “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ” (v. 36).

Peter’s listeners, believing, ask how they might properly respond (Acts 2:37). They are told to repent and be baptized, and we see the beginnings of Christian worship and community taking shape. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” There developed a communal life—believers meeting together daily, worshipping, praying, and generous sharing with those in need.

John. We begin the study of the book of John with an eye to John’s purpose in writing, themes he discloses, and his declaration that he is an authentic and trustworthy eyewitness to the events he describes. 

John makes his purpose clear at the outset of his gospel, and he will reiterate his purpose at its conclusion. Thus, today’s reading in John 1 begins with the first words of the book of Genesis, “In the beginning….” John wants us to know that Jesus is God: “the Word was with God and the word was God.” Not only that, but John tells us that Jesus was present, and participated in, the creation of the world (v.2-3). Jesus became a human being, and John attests to having personally seen him, and to having seen him in his transfigured state “we saw his glory” (v.14). John further wants us to believe: “that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

The Gospel of John has themes to watch for as we study this book. One of the main themes is the concept of light and dark, which we observe even in these first poetic verses: 

in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.                                                     

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 

Keep an eye out for “light and dark,” “day and night,” as we read further.

John also wants us to understand that the miracles Jesus performed were much more than amazing incidents. John calls them “signs,” that is, they signal something greater than the events themselves. They point to Jesus’s identity and mission, and to his control over the created world, from healing the lame to raising dead people to life. (Who is able to do this but God?)

John directs us to observe that there exists a preordained time for the accomplishment of God’s plans. “An hour is coming,” Jesus says at various times (John 4, 5, 16). Further, there will be occasions when John tells us that Jesus’s “hour had not yet come,” and later, that “his hour had come.” 

And of course, look for the wonderful “I am” sayings contained in this beautifully written book: 

• “I am the bread of life … the bread which came down from heaven” — 6:35,41,48

• “I am the light of the world” — 8:12; 9:5

• “I am the door of the sheep” — 10:7

• “I am the good shepherd” — 10:11,14

• “I am the resurrection and the life” — 11:25

• “I am the way, the truth, and the life” — 14:6

• “I am the true vine” — 15:1,5

In these early verses in chapter 1, the eyewitness John states: “and the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…” John will conclude his book with this attestation:  “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” That John is not only an eyewitness, but likely a member of a Jesus’s closest circle—Peter, James, and John—gives his gospel a unique and pricelessly “up close and personal” perspective. 

In sum. When we read of Gideon’s lack of trust in God, and when we note God’s kind patience with him, we can, with confidence, ask God for his own patience with us. The early church in Acts developed an identity and a communal life that may be difficult for us to imitate in exactly the same way. However, I pray we may be able to find ways to express a similar glad and greathearted love and care for one another despite the distance and any difficulties.  Finally, in these opening verses of John’s gospel I pray you may find assurance of God’s gracious love through Jesus Christ. John shows us Jesus, bringing light and life to the world, come to make the Father known to us, willing to go to hell, and back, for us.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Maerten van Heemskerck , CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

A Song for Deliverance - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 7/29/2022 • y2p12f

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 69; Judges 5:1-18; Acts 2:1-21; Matthew 28:1-10
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6-11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9-10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Psalm 69 & a song for deliverance from drowning waters. With raw honesty in Psalm 69, David confesses his sinfulness, while asking that the Lord’s honor nonetheless not be besmirched at the hands of those who are endangering his life. Despite his own faults, he protests the injustice of the accusations of his enemies, and he laments the shame of his abandonment by friends and family. In doing all this, he anticipates specific features of Christ’s experience 1,000 years later: zeal for his Father’s house (Psalm 69:9; John 2:15), the bearing of insult on God’s behalf (Psalm 69:9; Romans 15:3), and being offered sour wine for his thirst (Psalm 69:21; Matthew 27:34, 48). 

In all of this, David thinks of himself being threatened by drowning waters:

1 Save me, O God, *for the waters have risen up to my neck.2 I am sinking in deep mire, *and there is no firm ground for my feet.3 I have come into deep waters, *and the torrent washes over me.

16 Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; *let me be rescued from those who hate meand out of the deep waters.17 Let not the torrent of waters wash over me,neither let the deep swallow me up; *do not let the Pit shut its mouth upon me.

It’s hard to imagine a better setup to Jesus’s dramatic question, in anticipation of the Cross: “Are you able to … be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38). 

Judges 5 & a song of celebration for rescuing waters. Deborah’s song in Judges 5 recalls the way God enabled Israel’s victory over the Canaanite chariots (per yesterday’s narrative in Joshua 4) by a tremendous storm: 

…the heavens poured,the clouds indeed poured water. …

The torrent Kishon swept them away,    the onrushing torrent, the torrent Kishon (Judges 5:4 ,21).

It would appear that one of the reasons that the Canaanites’ mighty chariots of iron were so easily defeated by Deborah and Barak’s infantry was that Yahweh sent a mighty storm that so swelled the banks of the Kishon that the chariots had to be abandoned. As it had at the Red Sea, water proved to be a means by which the Lord brought deliverance to his people. 

Thus, Deborah’s song anticipates the other half of Jesus’s baptism on the Cross: his rising to life and victory. In the waters of the River Jordan, Jesus had identified with his people’s sins, so that in his rising from those waters he could receive power from on high to minister life and healing to them. That’s why the Holy Spirit descends upon him like a dove. That’s why he immediately journeys into the wilderness for his victorious contest with Satan. 

Baptism portrays both dying and rising. The deluge drowns evil and empowers life. The (metaphorical) waters of (literal) death that swept over Jesus were simultaneously waters that washed away the power of evil and Satan and sin and death. Drowning waters prove simultaneously to be delivering waters, for Jesus rises to restore life. Just so, Jesus’s baptism of death destroys sin, and his rising from death confers life. 

Matthew 28 and Jesus’s resurrection as baptism unto life. Here is the far side of “the baptism with which I am to be baptized”—Jesus rises unto life and strength and authority and healing presence.  With the triumphant angel at the tomb, and Matthew’s brief resurrection account, the stage is set for Jesus’s final instructions to his disciples.  Jesus announces that “all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to me,” and he commissions his followers to bring good news to all the nations of the earth. And he promises to be with them “to the end of the age.” 

Acts 2 & the baptism of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost, the church receives its own version of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus: indeed, the Holy Spirit as Jesus’s very presence and power. Just as Jesus received the Spirit from heaven for his ministry at his baptism, so now the church receives the Spirit from heaven for her ministry at Pentecost: that “their sons and daughters may prophesy” (Acts 2:17). Now, by virtue of Jesus’s real and authoritative presence in the Holy Spirit, the nations (represented in the gathering of people from Parthia to Rome, and parts in between, in Jerusalem at Pentecost) may be discipled and baptized “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:20). 

Prayers at Baptism (Book of Common Prayer, pp. 305-306):

Deliver us, O Lord, from the way of sin and death. Lord, hear our prayer. 

Open our hearts to your grace and truth. Lord, hear our prayer.

Fill us with your holy and life-giving Spirit. Lord, hear our prayer.

Keep us in the faith and communion of your holy Church. Lord, hear our prayer. 

Teach us to love others in the power of the Spirit. Lord, hear our prayer. 

Send us into the world in witness to your love. Lord, hear our prayer. 

Bring us to the fullness of your peace and glory. Lord, hear our prayer. … Amen.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: pcstratman, OT0704.Deborah, Bible drawings by Otto Semler and others, many based on the engravings by Carolsfeld, all in the public domain.