Friends of Jesus - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 4/13/2023 •
Easter Week  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 146; Psalm 147; Ezekiel 37:1–14; Acts 3:11–26; John 15:12–27 

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. This is Thursday of Easter Week, and I’m grateful to be with you. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

… but I have called you friends. (John 15:15).   

It’s a spectacular thing to know that Jesus calls you “friend.” To be befriended by him is amazing. It’s better than winning the world’s richest lottery. He is, after all, the Author of Life, and the King of kings and Lord of lords (Acts 3:15; Revelation 19:16). He has broken through the boundary of death, and he holds all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). To have him call you friend?! Serious bragging rights … if he were anybody else.  

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. … You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:12,14). But curiously, because of who Jesus is, his friendship doesn’t create a sense of entitlement or presumption. It doesn’t mean you get to the front of the line, or to the head table. To be his friend means something entirely different. It means you go to the end of the line. To be his friend is to cease striving to be noticed. To be his friend is to notice those whom nobody else notices. To be his friend is to quit trying to make other people think you are important. To be his friend is to make other people important to you.  

What a great — if brief and simple — reminder this first week of Easter.  

Collect for Thursday in Easter Week. Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  

Be blessed … and be a blessing … this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Life From the Vine - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 4/12/2023 •
Easter Week 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Micah 7:7–15; Acts 3:1–10; John 15:1–11 

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Wednesday of Easter Week. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

John 15:1–11 may be the most important words Jesus ever utters about the dynamic of the Christian life. 

The Father is an expert vinedresser. God intends Israel to be the means by which he re-Edenizes the world. That’s why, going back to the prophets and the psalms, God uses the metaphor of Israel as a vine (Isaiah 5; Jeremiah 2; Psalm 80). The Heavenly Vinedresser wants to produce grapes that will make great wine with which he can bless the world. Thus, he is absolutely committed to providing the best care for his vine.  

Jesus is the True Vine, Israel’s true Son and Seed. And we are branches of that one True Vine. Thus, we receive our life from the vine, not vice versa. A secular Israel is an oxymoron. The church as a self-sustaining institution is a self-contradiction. Editing the Bible into a mere manual for autonomous, moral self-improvement is a non-starter.  In Jesus we live. Apart from Jesus we die. Full stop.  

Image:  "I Saw it through the Grapevine" by Vainsang is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

Our job is simple, if not easy. All we “branches” need to do is “abide” (menein is a very simple Greek word that means essentially “remain” or “stay”) in the vine—that is, stay connected to our life source.  

“He lifts up every branch in me that bears no fruit” — John 15:2a, my translation. When we are unfruitful but “abiding,” the good Vinedresser (the Father) will “lift us up” so we can get better sunlight and rainfall (the NRSV’s translation of the first half of verse 2’s airein as “remove” is terribly misleading, making it appear as though unfruitful branches get cut off). No. A skilled vinedresser looks for vine branches that trail along the ground, cut off from rain and sun. He carefully “lifts them up” and finds them a place on the arbor where they will thrive. Here, Jesus uses a metaphor for the Father drawing us closer to himself—creating in us a desire for deeper and more intimate fellowship with him, putting us in closer contact with other believers who can encourage and instruct, drawing us to church for the ministry of Word and Sacrament, of praise and worship. That’s what your Heavenly Father does for you!  

“Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit” — John 15:2b. When we are growing, we get pruned. The Greek word is kathairein. It means “cleanse,” and it is a lovely word play on the previous verb airein (“lift up”). The “cleansing” of branches means, of course, cutting away unproductive growth. But it also involves pulling away insects, and protecting branches from diseases and fungi. Our Heavenly Vinedresser may very well do some healthy meddling: calling upon us to reorder priorities and to reorient values; he may even change tempting circumstances and comfortable but harmful associates. He may cut away things so that lesser fruitfulness in the present can lead to greater fruitfulness in the future.  

James Montgomery Boice provides two important cautionary notes. First, the sequence of the Father’s work is important. Before he eliminates the negative (the pruning), our Father builds the positive (the lifting up). He draws us to himself first, then takes away the extraneous or the harmful. We are like a girl who finds she no longer wants to play with dolls after she becomes interested in a young man. If we reverse things, we risk becoming proud of ourselves and judgmental of others.*  

Second, Boice cautions, the pruning takes place by the Word of God, not by human-made rules and standards. “It is always the Word that must cleanse us, otherwise our ideas of purity are man-made and not of God’s origin at all.” When we make up our own criteria of righteousness for everyone—what movies to watch, what to eat or drink, for whom to vote, how to dress, how to educate our kids—we substitute our own standards for God’s and we further divide the Body of Christ over non-essential matters. And the world rightly says, “See, they really are a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites.”  

“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” — John 15:6. It’s always possible to contemplate the possibility of cutting ourselves off, of “not abiding.” That’s the scenario envisioned in verse 6. And Jesus asks us to consider that terrible “what if?”, only to remind us that by remaining “in him,” we find a profound sense of God’s responsiveness to our heart’s best desires, “love” and “joy” (verses 7-11). Ultimately, the Heavenly Vinedresser’s goal for us is that we participate in the eternal love that has always flowed between Father and Son, and that now has been extended to us: “Just as the Father has loved me, I have loved you; remain in my love. If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be made complete” (John 15:10–11).  

Collect for Wednesday in Easter Week. O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

* James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John, Volume 4 (Zondervan, 1978), pp. 229–230. 

A Mutually Shared Love - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 4/11/2023 •
Easter Week  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 103; Isaiah 30:18–21; Acts 2:36–41(42–47); John 14:15–31  

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83);  following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Tuesday of Easter Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

In the ancient church, Easter was considered to be the most desirable day to receive baptism. Candidates had been told that baptism would introduce them to an adventurous and arduous life—a new existence of knowing God and being known by him. And so, the days right after baptism became a time for learning how to live out the baptized life. It was a season for instruction on the basics of the Christian life.  

Humility. It so happens that our Gospel readings for the next two weeks (John 14–17) present Jesus’s most thorough teaching about the essence of the Christian life. The hallmark of that life is a loving humility, a picture of which Jesus paints by washing the disciples’ feet in John 13. He closes the section in John 17, by praying what is called his High Priestly Prayer to fortify them for such a life. Between those chapters, in John 14–16, Jesus outlines what life will look like for his followers after his death, resurrection, and ascension, and before his final return in glory.  

Image: Icon of the Holy Trinity, Andrew Rublev, 1425. Adaptation by Sayaka Kamakari. Used with permission. 

Commandment keeping. Jesus tells us that if we love him, we will keep his commandments (John 14:15). In these chapters in particular, he emphasizes that we are to love one another (John 13:34–35; 15:12,17). Elsewhere, Jesus commands us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the imprisoned (Matthew 25:35). And he tells us, directly or through his apostles, to purify our hearts, live chastely, pray without ceasing, renounce idolatry, give proportionately and generously, expose error, and flee temptation (note this splendid string of verses: Matthew 5:8; 1 Timothy 5:2; Hebrews 13:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Matthew 23:23; 2 Corinthians 8–9; Ephesians 5:11; 1 Corinthians 6:18; 2 Timothy 2:22). However, this is not a cafeteria menu. It’s a full diet. All of it is necessary for health and well-being. Without any of it, we die.  

Mutual indwelling. Jesus also tells us we are not left to our own devices in these endeavors. We do not keep the commandments by our own devices, through our own resources. We do not pull ourselves up by the bootstraps. We enjoy the onboard presence of the fullness of God.  

Jesus tells his disciples he is going away after this night, but that he is only doing so in order that he may return to them in another way—in the way of the Spirit. To this point, the Holy Spirit has been present “alongside” Jesus’s disciples, because the Spirit that came to “abide” upon Jesus at his baptism (John 1:32) has been working through Jesus: “You know [the Spirit of Truth], because he abides alongside (para) you… (John 14:17, my translation). But in the future, when Jesus has departed bodily, the Spirit of Truth will enable Jesus himself to be not just “alongside” them, but “in” them: “and he will be in you” (John 14:17, my translation). Thus, says, Jesus, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you” (John 14:19b). In fact, both the Father and the Son will take up residence in the disciples when the Spirit comes to them: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14:23).  

Christian thinkers refer to a “coinherence”—a mutual indwelling—within the life of the persons of the Trinity: the Father dwelling in the Son and in the Holy Spirit, the Son dwelling in the Father and in the Spirit, the Spirit dwelling in the Father and in the Son. A divine, shared, mutually deferential life of love. We will come to share in that same life: “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14:20).  

The love that Jesus calls forth from us is his own love within us, and flowing out from us.  

And so … peace, not anxiety. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27). The result is that the physical absence of Jesus will create, not anxiety and distress, but peace and contentment. Not discouragement, but encouragement. Not cowardice, but courageousness. A great day is yet to come when, as John later writes, “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Though that day is “not yet,” there is nonetheless peace for us in the “now,” because the Spirit of the resurrected Jesus already lives within us.  

Collect for Tuesday in Holy Week. O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that we, who have been raised with him, may abide in his presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be dominion and praise for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Conquering King - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 4/10/2023 •
Easter Week  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 93; Psalm 98; Jonah 2:1–9; Acts 2:22–32; John 14:1–14  

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This is Monday of Easter Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

Here we are on Easter Monday, and Psalm 98 invites us to, “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things” (Psalm 98:1). For me, the memory of Good Friday’s reading of Psalm 22 is still fresh, with its forecast of Jesus’s lament upon the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1). 

On that first Good Friday, I don’t suppose there was anybody on the scene who could have anticipated that day would be remembered as “good”— except perhaps the soldiers who won a scrap of clothing, or Barabbas who was spared the gibbet. On that first Good Friday, I doubt that Psalm 98’s “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things,” could possibly have come to anybody’s mind either.  

Image: Stained glass, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida 

Except for one person. The person who began the lament, “My God, my God….” As a practicing Jew, Jesus would have known that psalm turns a corner: “You have answered Me. I will declare Your name to My brothers and sisters; In the midst of the assembly I will sing a hymn to You” (Psalm 22:21c–22, my edit of NKJV). Even as he resigned himself to taking the curse of sin and death to himself, Jesus knew things would not end in abandonment, but in vindication. Not in curse, but in blessing. He would go away as condemned criminal, only to return as conquering King. He could sing the lament of abandonment because he knew he would rise to sing the chant of victory.  

And so, Psalm 98 is altogether fitting for us to read and sing and chant this Easter Monday.  

Jesus’s resurrection brings God’s victory over sin and death and error. “With his right hand and his holy arm has he won for himself the victory” (Psalm 98:2). At the exodus, Yahweh’s mighty and victorious arm cast Pharaoh’s army into the sea. Similarly, the power of Christ’s resurrection has “brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life” (BCP, p. 368).  

Jesus’s resurrection means God’s righteousness for the nations and his mercy and faithfulness to Israel. “…[H]is righteousness has he openly shown in 
the sight of the nations. He remembers his mercy and faithfulness to the house of Israel…” (Psalm 98:3b–4a). Christ rises as (to use Paul’s language) “the Last Adam” or “the Second Man” (1 Corinthians 15:45,47). With Christ’s resurrection, God reasserts his righteous and just claim over all humanity, not just over one chosen nation. At the same time, Christ’s resurrection as Israel’s one true and faithful Son, means mercy for Israel, the rebellious people of Yahweh’s favor.  

Jesus’s resurrection means joy. “Shout with joy to the Lord,” enjoins Psalm 98:5. The Easter Vigil’s centerpiece song “The Exsultet” radiates such joy: “Rejoice now, heavenly hosts and choirs of angels … Rejoice and sing now, all the round earth … Rejoice and be glad now, Mother Church.” That joy is rooted in Jesus’s resurrection, where “wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away.” There is restoration of “innocence to the fallen, and joy to those who mourn” (BCP, pp. 286,287). There is no sadness we carry that has not been shared by the Man of Sorrows. Likewise, by virtue of his rising, there’s no gloom his presence cannot dispel.  

Jesus’ resurrection prompts the engagement of all creation in full-throated praise of God. “Sing to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the voice of song. With trumpets and the sound of the horn … Let the sea make a noise and all that dwell in it…” (Psalm 98:6,7,8). As Psalm 98’s sister psalms put it, there is a beauty to God’s holiness, and there’s an adorning of that holiness to which we are called (Psalm 96:9; 93:6). Whether we sing beautifully or off-pitch, whether we play a musical instrument or just hum with the radio—regardless, we orchestrate creation’s praise. It is a glorious calling. I pray we know much joy and wonder, pleasure and awe, in its pursuit throughout this Eastertide. 

Collect for Monday in Easter Week. Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that we who celebrate with awe the Paschal feast may be found worthy to attain to everlasting joys; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Look For God's Easter Eggs - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 4/7/2023 •
Good Friday 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 22; Genesis 22:1–14; 1 Peter 2:10–20; John 13:36–38 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Good Friday.   

Genesis 22. There’s something unthinkable about the story of Abraham’s nearly sacrificing Isaac — unless its significance is to point beyond itself. Yahweh commands something that, on the face of it, is both inherently evil and abortive of his promise to his servant Abraham of “a seed.”  

And yet, on Mt. Moriah an angel speaks and stays the executioner’s hand. By contrast, on Mt. Calvary, the angels are mute as heaven’s lights go out and the executioners complete their grim work. On Mt. Moriah, a ram is offered as substitute for the favored son. On Mt. Calvary, the substitute is the favored Son. As the apostle Paul says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?” (Romans 8:32).  

It turns out that Genesis 22 is one of the many “Easter eggs” (see below) that God plants in his Bible to prepare us for the mystery of Good Friday. The evil miscarriage of justice committed against God’s Son that first Good Friday turns out to be the salvation of the world.  

Image: From the 14th century Icelandic manuscript AM 277 fol., now in the care of the Árni Magnússon Institute in Iceland. Public Domain. 

Similarly, Psalm 22 anticipates, by a thousand years, Jesus descending into the abyss of abandonment to death (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”), so he can rise to lead the praise of the God who rescues those “that fear him … the poor in their poverty … those who worship him … all the families of the earth … all who go down to the dust … [and] … a people yet unborn” (Psalm 22:1, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 30).  

It seems fitting to reprise some observations from last year’s Good Friday Devotional based on the 1 Peter reading:  

…the Spirit of Christ…testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory. — 1 Peter 1:11. Holy Week prompts me to remember the many Old Testament Scriptures that pointed to the life and saving work of Jesus Christ long before his appearance on earth. On the Emmaus road after his resurrection, Jesus explained to two disciples “the things about himself in all the scriptures” (Luke 24:27). I’m reminded of how movie directors charm audiences by embedding “Easter eggs” inside their films. You can find Alfred Hitchcock appearing momentarily in his films, and similarly, Stan Lee in the Marvel Comic Universe movies, for example. You’ll find images of Star Wars’ R2-D2 and C-3PO in the hieroglyphics of a pillar in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Look closer, the directors say.  

Peter tells us angels have been looking closer for a long time. His sweeping statement about the advance notice of Christ’s suffering and glory in the Old Testament invites us, too, to look and find God’s Easter eggs hidden throughout his Word:  

The Seed who will strike the Serpent’s head, despite suffering a bruised heel (Genesis 3). 

Escape from a storm of judgment in an ark built by the One Righteous Man, with a new start signaled by a rainbow (Genesis 6-9). 

The sparing of a beloved son by the substitution of a ram (Genesis 22). 

A snake lifted up on a tree for the healing of people snake-bit by the power of sin (Numbers 21).   

After three days and three nights in the belly of “a great fish,” deliverance unto life, and the renewal of a call to prophetic ministry (the whole book of Jonah).  

So, despite everything—Judas’s betrayal, Peter’s (and my own) denial, the whimsicality and the vitriol of the crowds, the obscene injustice of religious and political authorities—Good Friday is good because it marks the pivot point in the long epic of God’s unspeakable love and unstoppable plan. Because of Good Friday, the song at the Great Vigil can ring out in praise of the God who “casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord,” joining earth and heaven, and God and humankind.  

Collect for Good Friday. Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen. 

Be blessed this Good Friday,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Washing the Feet - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 4/6/2023 •
Maundy Thursday 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; Jeremiah 20:7–11; 1 Corinthians 10:14–17; 11:27–32; John 17:1–11(12–26) 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you.  

Today is Maundy Thursday, a day that invites contemplation of the significance of the Table at which Jesus issues the mandate (thus, “Maundy”) that we love one another.  

According to the great twentieth century New Testament scholar Oscar Cullmann, John’s Gospel provides three angles of vision on the Eucharist.  

First, the Eucharist portrays atonement. Vessels for purification by water become vessels prefiguring blood for atonement (John 2). The wine of a Galilean wedding feast prefigures the wine of the eschatological wedding feast of the Lamb and his Bride the Church (Revelation 19). 

Second, the Eucharist is manna from heaven. Jesus is Bread from Heaven, and the Eucharist is the life-giving nourishment that the resurrected and ascended Jesus gives to his people on their journey through life (John 6).  

Third, the Eucharist is a fellowship of love. By depicting Jesus washing his disciples’ feet (John 13), John paints an amazing portrait of the Table as a place where we experience love. “Having loved his own while he was in the world, he loved them to the end,” in illustration of which, Jesus takes off his outer garment, wraps himself with a servant’s towel, and takes up a basin. The foot washing becomes a profound parable of the whole project of incarnation: love stoops to conquer. As Paul puts it in Philippians 2, he who was, and is equal with God, humbles himself in the most profound service to humankind; and in the end is exalted to receive the name that is above every name. The towel and the basin paint a mini-tableau of the whole redemptive drama of God’s love for us. 

Jesus’s “High Priestly Prayer.” Jesus rises from washing the feet of the disciples, and says (I paraphrase), “What I’ve done for you, you’re to do for one another. A new commandment I give to you: love one another. That’s how the world will know you’re my disciples” (John 13:34–35). And then after three chapters of teaching about various dimensions of being his disciple (John 14–16, a section which we will read in the first two weeks of Easter), Jesus prays in chapter 17. This prayer, often referred to as Jesus’s “High Priestly Prayer,” is the crowning event of their time at the Table. At the heart of Jesus’s prayer for his disciples is this (again, I paraphrase): “Father make them one as you and I are one, so that the world may know that I am in you and you are in me. May the world see our love for one another in their love for one another.”  

Jesus stakes his reputation, his Father’s reputation, and indeed the credibility of the gospel on one thing. It’s not the cleverness of our arguments. It’s not the sophistication of our apologetic. It’s not the slickness of our marketing. It’s not the beauty of our music or our architecture. It’s our love for one another.  

It’s interesting to observe that, for Paul, washing the feet of the saints becomes a shorthand for a lifestyle of meeting the needs of others. Think of 1 Timothy 5:10. When Paul lists qualifications for what he calls “enrolled widows,” the phrase washing the feet of the saints stands between “receiving strangers” and “relieving the afflicted.” To be sure, the objects of service are different: strangers, saints, and the afflicted, but the same attitude is expressed toward all. A spirit of humble self-giving. That’s part of what we learn at this Table. 

Discerning the body. And that, dear reader, is what Paul means when, in 1 Corinthians 11:29, he warns us not to come to the Table “without discerning the body.” What he means is that we must “discern Christ’s body” at the Table in this sense: we must recognize that Christ indwells those with whom we partake of this meal. His body is made up of all the people who are shoulder to shoulder with us there: the strangers, the saints, the afflicted, the widows and orphans, the people with whom we agree, and the people with whom we disagree. To come to the Table with a sense of independent pride or a feeling of spiritual or social superiority to anybody else there—that is what it is to come “in an unworthy manner.”  

Let me say this clearly and pointedly: you are not coming “in an unworthy manner” if you feel like you are an unworthy sinner; we are all—all of us—precisely that! The Table is a place to experience a fellowship of love. Jesus wraps himself with a servant’s towel and washes the feet of all his disciples, from John the beloved to Peter the impetuous … and, yes, even to Judas the betrayer. He loved each of them … he loves you and me … and he loves every other person at his Table.  

Collect for Maundy Thursday. Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it thankfully in remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

Trust in the Father - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 4/5/2023 •
Holy Week 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 55; Jeremiah 17:5–10,14–17; Philippians 4:1–13; John 12:27–36 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Wednesday of Holy Week. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

There’s little worse in life than being betrayed by someone you thought was a friend. All the honest things you’ve told them about yourself, truths you’d only tell someone you trust implicitly, now they are ammunition in the hands of an enemy. There’s the question now about your own ability to gauge friendship: “What did I miss? What’s wrong with me? Can I trust myself to trust anyone?”  

In Psalm 55, we find that King David has had this experience, although scholars are unsure of exactly which event this psalm describes. The betrayal of a friend has led to a conspiracy taking over the city of Jerusalem (Psalm 55:11–12). David’s first instinct is to pray. Therein lies his greatness. And his gift to us is that he writes his prayer down.  

Image: From "Betrayal" by vidalia_11 is licensed under CC BY 2.0  

An even greater gift is the way David’s own experience turns out to provide us an advance view of our Savior’s experience. As often in David’s psalms, when he opens his heart to Yahweh about his troubles, he provides an anticipatory glimpse into the experience of Jesus Christ, the true Son of David who was to come a thousand years later. This Holy Week, I find myself noticing several features of Jesus’s life in David’s prayer about friendship betrayed. 

Betrayal hurts (Psalm 55:13–14,21–23). Jesus Christ is not untouched by any grief we bear. He has known what it is to have a close companion offer “speech [that] is softer than butter, but war is in his heart. His words are smoother than oil, but they are drawn swords” (Psalm 55:22–23). Jesus had entrusted the disciples’ finances to someone he had treated as a “familiar friend,” and with whom he “took sweet counsel” … and worshiped together “in the house of God” (Psalm 55:14,15). When betrayal leaves us alone and abandoned, we can know we are not truly alone and abandoned. Jesus is right there with us, a “man of sorrows and acquainted with our griefs” (Isaiah 53:3).  

Jesus could have prayed for escape, but didn’t (Psalm 55:7–9). David imagines himself escaping with “wings like a dove.” Running away to the desert where he doesn’t have to deal with people. Finding rest and shelter in a far-off place, protected from storm and tempest (Psalm 55:7). Similarly, for a brief moment in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wonders if there might be another way to accomplish his task. He asks that the cup of death’s judgment might pass from him. But he submits: “Not my will, but Thine be done.” Happily, over the course of his life, Jesus’s deeper prayer to be delivered “out of death” has prepared him for his cross and vindication (Hebrews 5:7). Praise be!  

Jesus could have called down judgment, but didn’t (Psalm 55:10,16, 25–26a.) Understandably, David calls upon God: “Swallow them up, O Lord,” and predicts his enemies will be brought “down to the pit of destruction” (Psalm 55:10,25). What makes Jesus our Savior (and David’s) is that while his ancestor David prays for God to ruin the betrayer and the enemies who have come against him, Jesus responds and prays differently. He expresses nothing but sorrow for his betrayer: “It would have been better for that man not to have been born” (Mark 14:21). And he asks the Father to forgive those who scourge him, mock him, and nail him to the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Thanks be, especially since, if we are honest with ourselves, we know we belong as much with the betrayer as with the betrayed.  

Jesus took his pain to his Father (Psalm 55:18). “In the evening, in the morning, and at noonday, I will complain and lament, and he will hear my voice.” David is saying pretty much: “All day long, I bring my just cause and my grief to you, Father.” The New Testament is as candid about Jesus’s own emotions before God. Our authors aren’t embarrassed about the passion that leads Jesus to whip the moneychangers, the vituperation he pours out on phony faith, his grief for the daughters of Jerusalem who will go through the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, the tears he sheds at the grief of Lazarus’s mourners, the “loud cries and tears” he lifts up over the course of his life, or his anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane (when you have time, check this long list of references: John 2:17; Matthew 23:13–39; Luke 23:28; John 11:35; Hebrews 5:7; Mark 14:32–50). The New Testament writers attribute to Jesus a blunt and raw honesty before God. He knows his Father cares about what is on his heart. That’s good news for us: our blunt and raw honesty won’t push our Heavenly Father away from us either.  

Jesus trusted his Father for deliverance (Psalm 55:17,24,26b). David can acknowledge all of the gritty things in Psalm 55—his hurt over a friend’s betrayal, his wish that he could just fly away from it all, his desire for vengeance, and his pain —because, at bottom, he knows his Father’s love for him. In spite of the betrayal and ugliness which follows for Jesus, he, too, knows his Father’s  love for him (and for us). He is confident of his Father’s determination to see deliverance all the way through, for him (and for us). “But I will trust in you.” 

Collect for Wednesday in Holy Week. Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

No Longer Lost and Alone - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 4/4/2023 •
Holy Week  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 6; Psalm 12; Jeremiah 15:10–21; Philippians 3:15–21; John 12:20–26 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Tuesday of Holy Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

Jeremiah prefigures our Savior. There are subtle ways in which the prophet Jeremiah prefigures the sufferings of our Savior. It was clear from the start of Jeremiah’s ministry that he would face resistance and rejection. As a youth, he had been told by Yahweh: “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10). Jeremiah would be, like Dante, “a party of one,” or like Lincoln, “a majority of one.” He would “sit alone” in his prophecies against the majority opinion of his day (Jeremiah 15:17). And, like Jesus, he would come to his own people, only to be treated like a stranger (compare John 1:10–11). 

Nonetheless, Jeremiah, like Jesus, would so internalize God’s words that they, and they alone, would be sustenance and joy to him: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16). In this, Jeremiah was like Jesus, who said his food was to do his Father’s will (John 4:34), and who also said we were made to live not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).  

A sinner just like the rest of the people to whom he prophesies, Jeremiah must go into exile with them. Even there, God will deliver him from his opponents, and God’s Word will sustain him as he continues his lonely mission of proclaiming truth in the face of error (Jeremiah 15:19–21; 43–44). Simultaneously sinner and saint, alone and in solidarity with fellow sinners, Jeremiah foreshadows a greater prophet. Jesus, that greater prophet, would be like us in every way, save sin. Jesus would be with us as sin-bearer, and at the same time he would be alone in resisting sin’s lure to the end.   

Image: "110908-A-NR754-002" by USAJFKSWCS is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 

John—Jesus suffers alone, but not alone. While Jesus suffers alone, like “a grain of wheat that falls into the ground,” he does so in order that he will not be merely “a single grain.” For by his death, Jesus “bears much fruit” (John 12:24). It is, after all, the inquiry of “some Greeks” that has prompted Jesus to exclaim at last: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23—compare with the “not yets” of John 2:4; 7:6,8,30). When he is lifted up on the cross, he will say, in tomorrow’s passage in John, “I will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).  

Life can be messy. We can feel alone at work. We can feel alone with our sins. We can feel alone, without family. We can feel alone, without friends. It can feel like a kind of dying. Jesus, too, experienced aloneness, pain, and suffering on the cross. He understands anguish. We can thus feel God himself accompanying us in our aloneness, our sense of dying. And in that sharing we can see to the other side, to the gift of a resurrection-life of abundance and companionship.  

Philippians—independent, yet belonging. There is a splendor to Paul’s letter to the Philippians (most of whom are, like those who approach Jesus in John 12, Gentiles). In this letter, Paul unpacks what it is to be independent of anybody else’s assessment of personal worth, and yet at the same time what it is to be part of a great new “commonwealth” or “citizenship” (Philippians 3:29—the Greek is politeuma).  

One thing to keep in mind during Holy Week is that the loneliness of Good Friday’s cross yields to the fellowship of Easter Sunday. Jesus, indeed, as the old hymn puts it, “walked this lonesome valley, he had to walk it by himself.” But with his rising, he brings, not only us, but a great company of others, with him. Once dead, we are made alive: our resurrection begins because of his resurrection. Once feeling friendless, we have the dearest and best of friends: God himself, in the person of Jesus. Once lost and alone, we have a destination and companions on the journey: the Body of Christ.    

Collect for Tuesday in Holy Week. O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

The Weeping Prophet - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 4/3/2023 •
Holy Week  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 51:1–18(19–20); Jeremiah 12:1–16; Philippians 3:1-14; John 12:9–19 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This is Monday of Holy Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

Jeremiah’s life and ministry plunge us into a vortex of confusion. Guilty people prosper. “The beloved of [God’s[ own heart” are given over “into the hands of her enemies.” God forsakes his own house. God’s “pleasant portion” is made into “a desolate wilderness” (Jeremiah 12:1,7,10). No wonder Jeremiah is called “the weeping prophet.” No wonder portraits envision him looking out over a barren and depressing landscape.  

Image:  Ilya Repin: Cry of prophet Jeremiah on the Ruins of Jerusalem    http://www.art-catalog.ru/picture.php?id_picture=11437Wikimedia. Public Domain. 

And still, for Jeremiah, God’s promises stand: “I will again have compassion on them, and I will bring them again to their heritage, and to their land, every one of them.” (Jeremiah 12:15).  

Philippians. Paul’s life and ministry confront us with the existential discovery that all our credentials are worthless skubala (the Greek language’s own “s” word for excrement!—Philippians 3:8). Pedigree, education, exactness in theology, correctness and righteousness of political and ethical cause (Philippians 3:4–8)—all of it, as Jesus says in another context, is like “whatever goes into the mouth, enters the stomach, and then passes into the latrine” (Matthew 15:17 New American Bible). According to Paul, it’s all a bunch of skubala!  

Paul can muster up raw self-renunciation like this because the loss of these markers of identity and importance have, for him, yielded to “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). Paul realizes there is no “righteousness of my own” that can be established, buttressed, or maintained by all the credentialing in the world (Philippians 3:9). Instead, Paul discovers, to his wondrous amazement, that there is a credentialing “that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness—a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness” (Philippians 3:9 New English Translation).  

John. May we appreciate that first Palm Sunday for what it is: the humble King presents himself for his Passion. God’s own dear Son rides into Jerusalem, where he will bring down on himself all the desolation we deserve at the hand of God, and all the rejection. Our pretense to self-credentialing merits God’s rejection, which Jesus will experience in our place. Out of sheer love, he comes to endure, on our behalf, the skubala-storm of God’s wrath against sin. By Jesus’s Passion, desolation becomes heritage, wrath becomes joy, and self-pride is replaced by a grateful “pressing on toward the prize of the heavenly call” (Philippians 3:14).   

Collect for Monday in Holy Week. Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Fragrance of Worship - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 3/31/2023 •
Week of 5 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 22; Jeremiah 29:1,4–13; Romans 11:13–24; John 12:1–10 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday of the fifth week of Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week.   

If there are anything like “best friends” in Jesus’s life, they would have to be the sisters Mary and Martha of Bethany, along with their brother Lazarus. Of the three, Mary appears to be the one who understands the implications of Jesus’s plan to go to Jerusalem. In Luke 10, she is the one who sits at Jesus’s feet rather than wait on tables. Here in John 12, Martha is once again waiting on tables, and Mary is once again at Jesus’s feet. This time, she’s not listening. She is offering a gift of powerful symbolism, anointing his feet with costly oil and wiping them with her hair (John 12:3).  

Image: "Mary anoints Jesus' feet" by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

“Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him” (John 12:1–2). Shortly before the events of John 12, Jesus had restored to life Mary’s recently-deceased brother Lazarus. The raising of Lazarus is the last provocation for the Jewish leadership. They are planning to kill Jesus (and Lazarus as well, as it turns out—John 11:50; 12:10). Jesus avoids traveling to Jerusalem for a short while. People wonder if he will dare to make a showing at the upcoming Passover. In fact, he will. To prepare for his entry into Jerusalem for the religious celebration, he stays with his three friends in Bethany about a mile outside the city. Mary and Martha and Lazarus throw a dinner party in Jesus’s honor.  

Like everybody else, Mary has heard the buzz. The cynical leaders are conspiring to take “one man’s life” in a ridiculous ploy to “save” the nation. Mary’s loving act is a wonderful counterpoint to the ironic and unwitting prophecy by Caiaphas that Jesus would die “for the nation … and not for the nation only,” as John comments, “but to gather into one the dispersed children of God” (John 11:52).  

Mary has comprehended the political climate following the restoration of her brother Lazarus. She’s become aware of the conspiracy against both Jesus and Lazarus. More than anything, I suspect, she has given thought to what Jesus had proclaimed of himself in advance of raising Lazarus from the dead: “I AM the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25). Somehow, she has rightly inferred Jesus’s “being resurrection and life” means he must first die. Resurrection, after all, comes only after death. Such an understanding accounts for the NRSV’s sage rendering of Jesus’s defense of her extravagance: “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial” (John 12:7).  

Mary has bought for Jesus an expensive and fragrant ointment that ordinarily would be used to prepare a corpse for interment. Perhaps she had just planned to show him the bottle she had acquired in advance, signaling her readiness to prepare his body for resurrection from the dead. With the purchase of the “pound of costly perfume made of pure nard” (John 12:3), Mary acknowledges, if reluctantly, that she understands what it’s going to take for him to be “resurrection and life.” If she had intended to anoint him on this occasion, you might have expected her to have a towel at hand for wiping his feet. Instead, in a spontaneous gesture, while Jesus is reclining at table, Mary pours the fragrant burial ointment on his feet and towels them with her hair. Here is one of the most poignant, tender, and loving scenes in all Scripture.  

“The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” — John 12:3. The reader will be pardoned for being reminded of the powerful symbolism of smell elsewhere in the Bible. Paul describes Jesus as sacrificing himself as “an offering and sacrifice to God as a smell of fragrance” (my literal rendering of the Greek of Ephesians 5:2). Paul welcomes a gift from the Philippians as “a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, very pleasing to God” (Philippians 4:18 NET). We ourselves “are a sweet aroma of Christ to God” (2 Corinthians 2:15).  

Every time I walk into the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, my first sensation is that of the fragrance that exudes from the incense-soaked stone walls and pillars. And I think to myself, “That’s what church is supposed to smell like. It’s good to be here and to take my place among the generations who have offered up the sweet fragrance of worship to the Crucified and Risen Savior.” 

Contrast the beauty of the fragrance that Mary’s gift releases with the moral stench of Judas’s crass and disingenuous objection: “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (John 12:5). This isn’t the last time, alas, a moralistic voice is raised to deride beautiful and heartfelt worship in the name of a righteous cause, masking hypocritical and base motives. Happily, in the deeper experience of the church, generosity towards God encourages, rather than negates or frustrates, generosity towards our neighbor. In the realm of the Spirit of God, some things are not a zero-sum proposition.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Faith in Redemption - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 3/30/2023 •
Week of 5 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 131; Psalm 132; Psalm 133; Jeremiah 26:1–16; Romans 11:1–12; John 10:19–42 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Thursday of the fifth week of Lent.  

Through Jeremiah and Paul, God calls us today to embrace, and live with, a couple of challenging but encouraging truths.  

Jeremiah says that we can change God’s mind. God’s absolute control over everything could mean that nothing I do matters. It could be that his decisions are final, and there’s nothing I can do to make him change his mind about anything. But Jeremiah says that that isn’t quite true.  

Yahweh, in today’s reading, sends Jeremiah to the courtyard of the temple to tell the people of Jerusalem that the coming desolation he’s predicted is not inevitable: “It may be that they will listen, all of them, and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster that I intend to bring on them because of their evil doings” (Jeremiah 26:3).  

There was precedent for this. When the pagan king of Nineveh heard about Jonah’s prophecies of doom, he called for people to cry out to God and turn from their evil and violent ways. “‘Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it” (Jonah 3:9–10). And thus Nineveh was spared. However, because in Jeremiah’s day, the Jerusalemites did not “turn from their evil way,” Yahweh’s purpose of a punishing destruction does come to pass.  

Image: Daybreak, Reggie Kidd photo 

Lent is a time for taking stock. When I am walking on a rebellious path that can only lead to destruction, there’s nothing inevitable about my remaining on that path. Which means the consequences aren’t inevitable either. As the apostle John later writes: “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  

Paul says human failure can produce God’s greater good. Paul wrestles mightily with the failure of his fellow Israelites to embrace Jesus as their Messiah. Once he has seen that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all the promises of Scripture, it’s mystifying to him that others who have been shaped by Scripture’s story don’t see that as well. But then he comes to understand that the failure of the Jewish mission has forced a Gentile mission that is wildly successful. He realizes that that Gentile mission is the very means by which God is fulfilling his promise that Abraham would be the father of nations (Genesis 12). Through Israel’s failure to believe, other people groups can experience the mercy of God. Paul calls this a mystery, a truth long hidden in Scripture that has now been revealed: “…how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).  

Gentiles who were living in darkness and undeserving of God’s mercy have now been offered mercy, thanks to Israel’s rejection of the gospel. Ironically, Israelites are now in the Gentiles’ position, living in darkness and in need of just as much mercy. “Just as [Gentiles] were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of [Israel’s] disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” (Romans 11:30–32). What a wonderful punchline: “…that he may be merciful to all.”  

The long and the short of it is that biblical faith is a faith in redemption, because God has a way of turning evil on its head and producing good out of it. That’s something for all of us to keep in mind when we find relationships to be challenging, self-discoveries to be disappointing, and headlines to be depressing. Paul closes today’s passage in Romans this way: “Now if [Israel’s] stumbling means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!” (Romans 11:12). There’s a wonderful hopefulness here. With his pointing to the prospect of “full inclusion” for Israel, Paul opens for us an always-buoyant approach to life under our God of mercy.   

Collect for the Fifth Sunday in Lent. Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+