Shrove Tuesday - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/13/2024 •
Tuesday of Last Epiphany or Shrove Tuesday, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 26; Psalm 28; Proverbs 30:1–4,24–33; Philippians 3:1–11; John 18:28–38 

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 Tuesday in the Last Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year 2 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which makes today Shrove Tuesday. The term “shrove” comes from an old English word “shrive,” which means “absolve.” Thus, it’s a day of confession and absolution. On Shrove Tuesday, some churches burn the previous year’s Palm Sunday ashes for use in the following day’s Ash Wednesday liturgy. The eating of richer and fattier foods (in the Anglican church world, pancakes are the norm) anticipates a leaner and more austere diet during Lent (which accounts for the celebration of Mardi Gras, literally, “Fat Tuesday,” in some traditions).  

On Shrove Tuesday, Christ’s followers are invited to take stock of wrongs that need to be corrected in their lives, and to ask God for help in personal reformation. The day has its place in the classic Christian discipline of what Paul calls “dying to sin” and “living to righteousness,” or what older theologians called “mortification and vivification.”  

Today’s Old Testament and Epistle readings provide an opportunity for taking stock and looking to God for help.  

Proverbs 30. Without God’s wisdom, confesses Proverbs 30 author, Agur, son of Jakeh (otherwise unknown to us), we are lost in the universe. We need a word from outside our plane of existence: “Who has ascended to heaven and come down? … Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is the person’s name? And what is the name of the person’s child? Surely you know!” (Proverbs 30:4). Here’s one of the Old Testament’s clearest calls for God to send his Wisdom in person!   

Meanwhile, Agur invites us to observe the created order and learn what life-lessons it holds for us. The first thing that this discipline will require for many of us is that we slow down, sit patiently, and observe.  

Ants, badgers, locusts, and lizards teach profound things about cooperation, creativity, mutual deference (Proverbs 30:24–28), In ironic juxtaposition, the lion’s stateliness and the rooster’s strutting give perspective to prideful aspiration (Proverbs 29–31). For, in the end, self-exaltation, evil schemes, and pressing anger are poor life strategies — the antidote for which is to become “shriven.”  

Philippians 3. Paul’s words here are especially apt for Shrove Tuesday meditation. All of us who think we make it through life on our bona fides, or by building our resumes and portfolios, would do well to heed the apostle who discovered for himself that it’s all “rubbish” (a polite rendering in English of solid waste material that goes into a toilet — Philippians 3:8).  

Seriously, take time to read through Paul’s credentials and his rejection of their worth. The point isn’t to make us rip diplomas off our walls, but to make us understand that those things don’t commend us to God. They certainly don’t make a life.  

Then, read carefully and slowly why Paul can divest himself of his personal and social capital: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:8–11). Knowing Christ is life. And he can indeed be known because, while his body was pierced for our transgressions, and while his dead body was laid in a tomb just outside Jerusalem, nonetheless, he is now the resurrected, ascended, and returning Lord.  

“…and the power of his resurrection…” — Because he is raised from the dead and promises a full resurrection like his when he returns in glory, there’s also a power for living in the now that Christ can and does extend to us.  

“…and the sharing of his sufferings…” Paul’s phrase is “the koinonia, the fellowship, of his sufferings.” This “koinonia of sufferings” is more than the fact that we experience sufferings that are like or similar to his. There is a mysterious way in which, because Christ does in fact live now, he can and does come to us when we suffer in this life. By his Spirit within us, Christ is ever-present to us; he personally and really communes with us and shares our sufferings with us. That’s what Paul is saying. Christ indeed tells us to take up our cross, but he does not ask us to bear it alone.  

Part of what we do on Shrove Tuesday is renounce the “rubbish.” The other part of what we do is ask for more of knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. May Christ “shrive” us, and indeed meet us in the renunciation of the “rubbish” and in the asking to know him better.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+

Preparing for Ash Wednesday - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/12/2024 •
Monday of Last Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 25; Proverbs 27:1–5,10–12; Philippians 2:1–13; John 18:15–18,25–27 

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 Monday in the Last Week After Epiphany, in Year Two of the Daily Office Readings.  

Collect of the Day: The Last Sunday after the Epiphany: O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

The Christian experience is not the stoic grey of the denial of appetite, of wanting, of desire. It is the embrace of the wild extremes of the emotional spectrum, from the joyous and radiant golds and whites of the shining sun and the ultimate satisfaction of our hearts’ deepest longings, to the mournful and shatteringly cold blacks of death’s night, a night that is darker than dark, lonelier than lonely, and laden with an eternity of sadness.  

Every year the Sunday lectionary readings give us glimpses of a future that is nearly too glorious to imagine: Every year, they take us to Christ’s mountain-top transfiguration, recalling his pre-existent glory and anticipating his resurrection glory. Every third year they contemplate Moses’s face being temporarily lit up with the glory of God, and Paul’s celebration of our progressive internal transformation into a permanent glory like that of the resurrected, ascended, and returning Christ (Exodus 34:29–35; Luke 9:28–36; 2 Corinthians 3:12–4:2).  

Preparing for Ash Wednesday. In the middle of this Last Week of Epiphany stands the inescapable and unavoidable hurdle: Ash Wednesday. Ashes form a cross on our foreheads, and we hear haunting words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Remember that there’s no Transfiguration that is not preface to a Crucifixion, nor an Easter without first a Good Friday. On Ash Wednesday, we embrace the dark so we — with Christ — may step into the light. Throughout all of Lent, that is the reality that will be burned into our consciousness.  

With today’s readings, we begin the Lenten journey with Paul’s exquisite hymn to Christ who laid aside his divine prerogatives, to clothe himself in our humanity, suffer a criminal’s ignominious death, and rise to claim “the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:6–11). All this in the interest of making us into a people who care more about each other than about ourselves (Philippians 2:1–5), and in doing so become lights in a dark world (Philippians 2:15).  

At the same time, today’s readings remind us that we continue to live with our frailty and fallenness: 

Living with frailty. Proverbs 27 reminds us how tentative our plans must be, how unsure our grip on our own lives: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1). And, therefore, how humble towards others we must be, and how circumspect in all our relationships: “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth—a stranger, and not your own lips. A stone is heavy, and sand is weighty, but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both. … Better is open rebuke than hidden love … The clever see danger and hide; but the simple go on, and suffer for it” (Proverbs 27:2,3,5,12).  

Living with fallenness. John recounts Peter’s failure even to acknowledge the one who just hours before had washed his feet and called him friend. In doing so, John reminds us how in need of forgiveness we all remain. Peter’s three denials, happily, call forth from the resurrected Jesus a simple threefold query. Jesus doesn’t ask about whether Peter feels guilty about the past or resolute about the future. Simply this: “Do you love me? … Do you love me? … Do you love me?” (John 21:15–17). When we too, like Peter, fail, that’s all he wants to know: “Do you love me?” 

Once again, from the Collect for the Day: “…may [we] be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory. … Amen.” 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Don’t Need to be “Good Enough” - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/9/2024 •

Friday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Genesis 27:46-28:4,10-22; Romans 13:1-14; John 8:33-47 

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 in the Fifth Week of the Season After Epiphany. We are in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Genesis: “Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin!” The Bible’s story is one long proof of this line from Julia H. Johnston’s (b. 1910) hymn. Today’s account of “Jacob’s Ladder” is case in point.  

If anybody ever needed grace, it was Jacob, the “Supplanter.” This second son had been prophesied to be the inheritor of his father Isaac’s estate, and the one through whom God’s promises to his grandfather Abraham would be fulfilled. Nonetheless, rather than trusting God to fulfill the prophecy and secure his inheritance, Jacob had conspired once to swindle his brother, and a second time to dupe his father.  

As today’s narrative picks up, Jacob is fleeing from his vengeful brother. At his mother’s urging, he is on his way to his uncle Laban’s home to seek refuge and simultaneously a wife. “He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set” (Genesis 28:11). In matter-of-fact fashion, Jacob takes a stone for a pillow, lies down, and goes to sleep. No Evening Prayer, no Compline, no “Now I lay me down to sleep.” He just lays down a weary head.  

Image: Pixabay

Unsolicited, Yahweh comes to him in a dream. A stairway to heaven opens and Jacob sees angels traveling back and forth between heaven and earth. It’s not a means by which merit and effort and pride climb up. Later, Jacob calls it “the gate of heaven.” It’s the gateway through which grace condescends to come down. “Grace, grace, God’s grace….”  

With not a single word of rebuke, Yahweh pronounces over this wayward sinner the same promises he had given faithful Abraham: “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Genesis 28:13b–15). Magisterially, Yahweh promises land, offspring, expansiveness, and presence.  

The good news is that for God to come to us, he doesn’t necessarily need us to be looking for him. He emphatically doesn’t need us to be good enough! “…Grace that is greater than all my sins!”  

John: whose child will we be? At some point, grace’s approach demands a receptive response. Jacob’s response takes time, but it does come. Eventually Jacob embraces Yahweh’s overture of love, and welcomes his role in his family’s unfolding mission to bless the nations. Sadly, not everyone in Jacob’s line does the same. (Well, they think they do, but they don’t.) That goes for too many of Jesus’s contemporaries, especially those who have risen to positions of spiritual authority. Abraham was promised “a seed,” a singular child (Genesis 12:7), through whom all the promises of land, of offspring, of expansiveness, and of God’s presence would come to fruition. That “seed” proved to be Jesus of Nazareth, but “He came unto his own,” John says, “and his own received him not” (John 1:11 KJV). To those who would not receive him Jesus utters the most chilling thing he ever says to anyone:  

“If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does” (John 8:39b–40). 

The stakes are high. Recognize the grace that is offered in Jesus. When it comes to us, whether we’ve been seeking it or not, we decide either to receive it or to spurn it. Embrace it (that is, embrace Jesus) and know what it is to be welcomed into God’s family. Rebuff it (or, him), and wake up one day staring into the most dreadful of faces, and bearing the most damning of family resemblances.  

A Prayer of Self-Dedication. Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Truth That Sets Free - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/8/2024 •

Thursday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 146; Psalm 147; Genesis 27:30–45; Romans 12:9–21; John 8:21–32 

For more extensive reflections on Romans 12:9–21 from 7/17/2020 

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 Thursday in the Season After Epiphany. Our readings come from the Daily Office Lectionary.  

The truth that “will set you free.” Truth that sets free is the fact that Jesus is the great “I AM” come in the flesh. John’s Gospel is characterized by the stupendous claim that Yahweh himself has come in the person of the Word, the true and only begotten Son of the Father. “I AM” is the name by which God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush of Exodus 3 & 4. Jesus has the audacity to claim the same name for himself (note the use of the pregnant, free-standing phrase “I AM” at 8:18,24,28, and especially 8:58, “Before Abraham was ‘I AM’”)! Truly, if Jesus isn’t lying or delusional, here is God in flesh! Christians believe, in fact, that the divine and eternal Word has come in the flesh to reverse the corruption that set in when the world came under the dominion of “the prince of the world” after the Fall.  

Truth that sets free, moreover, is the fact that Jesus is the Light of the World (John 8:12). To redeem the world, Yahweh had called Israel to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6). Through Israel’s one true Son, Yahweh’s light indeed shines into the world, bringing enlightenment and truth where there once was only darkness and error.  

And truth that sets free is the fact that Jesus’s being lifted up on the tree of Calvary is the way not to “die in your sins” (John 8:21,24).   

Image: Pixabay

The chains from which “the truth will set you free.” Within this paragraph in John, the truly liberating truth is that those who trust him do not “die in our sin,” and therefore, we do not wind up in an eternity of separation from God (really, a separation that would have been an extension of the hell already begun in this life).  

Within today’s reading in Genesis about Jacob and Esau, the truly liberating truth is that we have been freed from living life as either manipulators (like Jacob or Rebekah) or manipulated (like Esau or Isaac). The great I AM has come to free us from feeling we have to lie and cheat our way into getting what we deserve (like Jacob). The great I AM has come to free us from feeling envy of people, or enmity against a world that we feel has victimized us (like Esau).  

Within today’s reading in Romans 12 (Paul’s “Desiderata” — see an earlier DDD on this passage), the liberating truth is that we have been freed: 1) from a life of pretending to care about others when all we care about is ourselves (“let love be unhypocritical”); 2) from masking evil motives beneath a veneer of doing good things (“hate what is evil, and cling to what is good”); 3) from sloth, malaise of spirit, and a “who cares?” outlook on life itself (“do not lag in zeal, be enthusiastic in spirit, serve the Lord”); 4) from xenophobia and caring only about people who look/talk/think like us (“pursue hospitality”, literally, “love for the stranger”); 5) from quarrelsomeness (“live in harmony with one another”); 6) from arrogance (“do not be haughty … do not be conceited”); and 7) from vindictiveness (“do not repay anyone evil for evil … do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”).  

Oddly, looking over this list, I, for one, feel a great weight being lifted. I feel freedom from things that don’t have to define me, hold me down, bind me up, and set me against everybody around me. I hope it has the same effect on you. If so, that is Jesus providing truth that sets you free!  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

God Continues to Work His Plan - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 2/7/2024 •
Wednesday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; Genesis 27:1–29; Romans 12:1–8; John 8:12–20  

For comments on Romans 12:1–8 from DDD 7/16/2020 

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 in the Fifth Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year 2 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Virtually every day gives me reason to thank God for this one truth: it is a mercy that the God of grace works his design to do us good despite our sometimes purposeful and sometimes unwitting penchant for fouling things up. I see this truth within myself. I see it in the people around me. I read it in the headlines. And I read it in the Bible. Every person in today’s account of Isaac’s blessing of Jacob acts in an unworthy, if not horrible, manner. Still, through all their questionable acts God advances his gracious plan to redeem the world.  

Isaac and Rebekah both know that Yahweh has prophesied that their second son will receive the family inheritance, not their first-born: “And the LORD said to [Rebekah], ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger’” (Genesis 25:23).  

Image: Pixabay

Moreover, Esau has sold his birthright to his younger brother: “Jacob said, ‘Swear to me first.’ So [Esau] swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob” (Genesis 25:33). 

In defiance of what he knows, Isaac conspires with Esau to thwart God’s plans as well as the standing agreement between Esau and Jacob. Nor are Rebekah and Jacob innocents in the incident, as commentator Derek Kidner observes, “Rebekah and Jacob, with a just cause, made no approach to God or man, no gesture of faith or love, and reaped the appropriate fruit of hatred.”*  

Treachery and deceit win the day, as does, ironically, God’s sovereign will for the deliverance of the world through Abraham’s line. That God continues to work his saving plan through sinners desperately in need of salvation is, well, the point. Jacob’s very name testifies to God’s power to work through the mixed motives of his subjects. Jacob’s name can mean “May God be your rearguard” (that is, “My God be at your heels to protect you”). But instead of living up to his name, Jacob lives down to its other possible meaning: “You will grasp another by the heel.” He could be “Faith-filled.” Instead, he is “Supplanter” of his brother — and in today’s account, his mother is co-supplanter.  

Nonetheless, as Isaac himself eventually confesses, “Yes, and blessed [Jacob] shall be!” (Genesis 27:33b). And the writer to the Hebrews recognizes there is at least a kernel of faith in the blessing that has been coaxed out of Isaac under false pretense: “By faith Isaac invoked blessings for the future on Jacob and Esau” (Hebrews 11:20).  

John does a lovely thing when he juxtaposes Jesus’s teaching at the Festival of Booths that he is the source of living water (John 7) with his teaching that he is the Light of the World (John 8). Water and light happen to be main themes of the Festival of Booths. At the Festival of Booths, Israelites celebrated not only the future coming of the Spirit who would pour refreshing waters over the earth, but they celebrated Israel’s identity and destiny as bearers of God’s light to the nations. Moreover, Jesus claims that light to be himself, and that destiny to be his own, and therefore the destiny of all who belong to him and come to him.  

John begins his gospel by announcing that Jesus Christ has brought light into the world: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it,” says John (1:4,5). Thus, it is doubly lovely that the way John’s gospel came together, the story of the woman caught in adultery is sandwiched between the themes of Living Water and the theme of the Light of the World. He is Living Water for souls in need of cleansing from sin — sin overt (like hers) and sin covert (like those of her accusers). He is Light of the World for image bearers stumbling in the dark of self-made rules for living and the harsh consequences thereof.   

I pray we live in the wonderful knowledge that our God graciously rules all things. He will not be thwarted in his design to reconcile heaven and earth through his Son. He is the God of whom Paul says, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6 my translation). He will not fail to see through to the end the good work he has begun in each of his children. That includes you and me. It includes us when we are at our best and when, like Isaac and Rebekah and Isaac and even Esau, we are at our worst. God’s Son Jesus has come as the Light of the World, and “the darkness did not overcome” the Light.  

Collect for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany. Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; 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+ 

* Derek Kidner, Genesis, p. 155.  

Our Great Shepherd - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/6/2024 •

Tuesday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78; Genesis 26:1-6,12-33; Hebrews 13:17-25; John 7:53-8:11 

For comments on John 7:53–8:11 from 12/9/2020  

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 Tuesday in the Fifth Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year 2 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Closing out Hebrews’ “brief word of exhortation” 

We are learning precious truths about: our great God, our great Shepherd, ourselves, our great fellowship, the coherence of the New Testament’s message. 

Our great God. “May the God of peace…” Notice who he is: the God of peace — our Father God is himself the source in eternity of a covenant to reunite heaven and earth. He is not the wrathful, vindictive tyrant he is often caricatured to be. He is not an insecure, fickle Zeus who is torqued because Prometheus has brought us fire. Our God’s goal and intent from eternity is our flourishing, and our rising to the full stature of bearing his own divine character (2 Peter 1:4).  

Our great God and Father is the one who sent his Son as Apostle and High Priest to reclaim us for that high calling. Notice what he has done: he raised Jesus from the dead. And notice the careful phrasing of verses 20 and 21: “May the God of peace …make you complete … so that you may do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight.” Our great God works to equip us to do what aligns with who he is, and then he does that very work within us.  

Ourselves. Every one of us feels, I’m certain, the drag of “the sin that clings so closely” (Hebrews 12:1). Some of us have even, perhaps, felt the temptation to adjust the requirements of faith in apostate ways (like the congregation of the Hebrews — see Hebrews 6). But as we’ve just seen, we have something powerful within us: God himself working (as Paul put the same thought) “both the willing and the working” (Philippians 2:13). We have the privilege of cooperating with a most amazing, transformative process: our own makeover. We are created and destined to reclaim our stature as lords and ladies of the universe! Recall the way Hebrews 2:6–8 cites and comments on Psalm 8: “Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere, ‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them …  you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.’ … As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus….” We see him, in fact, as Lord in advance of our return to the lordship we lost at the Fall. And now we enjoy the Father’s work in us, by the Spirit of his Son, molding us in that direction—an onboard presence to steer and to guide, as the hymn puts it. Amazing, but true.  

Our great Shepherd. “…our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep…” (Hebrews 13:20b). It is because Jesus has shed his blood for us that we can know we are forgiven. It is because he has been raised from the dead that he can now serve as our Shepherd, guiding us in our living and leading us in our worship.  

Our great fellowship. We have in front of us the example of Jesus. We have above us a great cloud of witnesses. We have the presence of one another around us “stimulating us to love and good works.”  

We have leaders so that we may “stimulate one another” well: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with sighing—for that would be harmful to you” (Hebrews 13:17).  

The NRSV translation of the first sentence in this verse is perhaps a bit misleading. The first verb in this sentence (which the NRSV renders “obey”) is peithesthe, a passive imperative from a verb that in the active voice means “persuade.” In the passive voice, it means “be persuaded by.” The second verb (which the NRSV renders “submit”) is hupakouete, and is normally translated “obey”; but its etymology is revealing. Its parts are hupo, which means “under,” and “akouein,” which means “to hear” — it’s not naked, unthinking submission or blind obedience that is called for, but rather a “coming under the hearing of.” In combination, peithesthe … upakouete mean “listen to your leaders with a readiness to receive what they teach; listen attentively and discerningly.”  

The thrust of the verse is that we trust that our spiritual leaders’ joy lies in helping us flourish. And the Lord will hold them to account for that. Our job is to receive what serves to help us thrive in our relationship in Christ and with each other.   

Our great tradition. Nobody knows exactly who wrote this magnificent treatise on Jesus as our great High Priest and our need to stay true to him. Because the writer speaks of “exhortation/encouragement” (paraklēsis) in verse 22, because he is attentive to the contours of the priesthood, and because Joseph Barnabas was a Levite who came to be called “Son of Encouragement” (huios paraklēseōs — Acts 4:36), some people think Barnabas wrote the letter to the Hebrews. Some people notice how similar the Alexandrian manner of contrasting earthly things with heavenly things is, and they conclude the highly articulate Alexandrian Apollos wrote it (see Acts 18:24). Still others, sensing strong affinities with Paul’s thinking throughout Hebrews, and noticing that the writer references “our brother Timothy” and seems to be writing from Italy (the place of the last citing of Paul — see 2 Timothy), believe Paul may be the author.  

We just don’t know. What’s wonderful to me is that the overall coherence and congruence of the great teachers and leaders of the New Testament era is such that any of them could have given us this masterpiece from God. They were that much in sync. What a great tradition they have passed on to us! 

I pray we can walk confidently in the great fellowship of those who know the God of peace, who has called us to life through his Son the Great Shepherd of the sheep, and who nurtures our life together in the Holy Spirit. Amen.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+

A Foreshadowing of Christ - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/5/2024 •
Monday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; Genesis 25:19–34; Hebrews 13:1–16; John 7:37–52 

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 Monday in the Fifth Week After Epiphany, in Year Two of the Daily Office Readings.  

Today’s New Testament readings provide subtle but powerful insights into Christ’s identity and into his ministry among us.  

In John 7, Jesus claims that he has come to fulfill the prophecies that streams of water would come gushing forth from God’s temple to bless the earth (Ezekiel 47:1–12; Joel 3:18; Zechariah 14:8). Jesus has already said that he will be building a new temple from his own body (John 2:19–22). Now, he offers a word about the life that will emanate from that new temple.  

Part of the beautiful symbolism of the Feast of Tabernacles was a pouring out of water on the altar of Jerusalem’s temple each morning of the week-long festival. The symbol reminded God’s people of Zechariah’s promise that in the last days “living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea; it shall continue in summer as in winter. And the Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and his name one” (Zechariah 14:8–9).  

On the last day of the feast, Jesus stands up in front of everybody assembled and shouts out (yes, really, he SHOUTS it out): “IF ANYONE IS THIRSTY, LET THEM COME TO ME… (John 7:37a). Most translations (including the NRSV) treat the rest of what Jesus shouts as promising that water would then flow from believers’ hearts. However, it’s not clear how the Greek should be punctuated (there was no punctuation in the originals). Along with a number of influential commentators, I think that the rest of what Jesus shouts is: “AND LET THE ONE WHO BELIEVES IN ME DRINK. JUST AS THE SCRIPTURE SAYS, ‘FROM WITHIN HIM (by which Jesus means himself) WILL FLOW RIVERS OF LIVING WATER!” (John 7:37b–38). John explains that Jesus is talking about the Spirit that had not yet been given. On the Cross, water and blood will flow from his side (John 19:34). After his resurrection, the Spirit will flow from him to the apostles and the church (John 14:16; 20:22). In other words, first the living water flows from Jesus, King over all the earth — and then the living water flows from him into and through us, by the Spirit, to the world that he has come to reclaim, bless, and renew.  

Admittedly, we are in the deep end of the pool — but what a pool!!   

In Hebrews 13, the writer provides the fourth of four ways in which Jesus acts as High Priest in the line of Melchizedek and as our Worship Leader in the Heavenly Sanctuary. Hebrews has already recounted how Jesus declares the Father’s name in our worship, leads song when we assemble, and ever lives to intercede for those he has cleansed by his sacrificial death (Hebrews 8:1–2; 2:12; 7:25). Now, in Hebrews 13, the writer shows how Genesis 14’s Melchizedek foreshadowed Jesus as Priest when he brought “bread and wine” to Abraham, and received, in return, a tithe 0f the spoils of Abraham’s victory (Genesis 14; Hebrews 7).  

“We have an altar from which those who officiate in the tent have no right to eat,” says the writer (Hebrews 13:10). As he does so, he invites us to go outside the provincial camp of the earthly temple’s rites in Jerusalem; he invites us, instead, to partake of fellowship with Jesus who “suffered outside the city gate” (Hebrews 13:12). Ancient readers of this text (and rightly I think) understood the writer to be inviting us to recall Melchizedek, Gentile priest and king of Jerusalem, the very city outside of which God’s Messiah was to be crucified. Melchizedek had come outside that city to bless Abraham and to offer him “bread and wine” (Genesis 14:18–20).  

As in Paul’s writings where “promise” precedes and takes precedence over “law,” here in Hebrews the church’s “bread and wine” for everybody precedes and takes precedence over the temple’s sin offerings that were consumed by Levitical priests only (Leviticus 6:26). As our great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, Jesus brings us bread and wine from God’s holy altar. He does so week after week; and he will do so until that time when, at the end of time, he will host us at the great feast that ushers in the age to come (Isaiah 25:6–8; Luke 12:37).  

Here in Hebrews 13, instead of tithes from victorious Abraham, our Heavenly Melchizedek receives the twofold offering of: 1) “a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name”; and 2) the doing of good and in the living of lives of koinōnia — a rich New Testament word that denotes “intimate fellowship,” “generosity,” and “sharing with one another” (see Acts 2:42; Romans 12:13; 15:26–27, and elsewhere).  

The first part of Hebrews 13 offers a beautiful catalog of what such a life of koinonia looks like: hospitality, care for prisoners, honoring marital and sexual boundaries, freedom from a greed that would inhibit generosity, the sharing of community-building sound teaching rather than community-destroying “strange” teaching (Hebrews 13:1–9).  

Praise be! The New Melchizedek leads us in worship services (that is, what we come in from the world to do on Sundays), and in service that is worship (that is, what we go out into the world do on Monday through Saturday).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

To All Who Are Thirsty - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/2/2024 •
Friday of 4 Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 69; Genesis 24:1–27; Hebrews 12:3–11; John 7:1–13 

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 in the FourthWeek of the Season After Epiphany. We are in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

This morning, I find myself pondering two rich lessons, one from Hebrews about having a suppleness of spirit that fully receives the Father’s transformative work in our lives, and one from John about, well, letting Jesus be Jesus, and not projecting onto him our self-made plans for getting what we want.  

Hebrews. When our spirits are malleable and supple, rather than hard and resistant, we allow ourselves to receive the Father’s formative touch in any situation. The writer to the Hebrews knows that we may face hostility from others, that we may face all sorts of “trials,” that we may face temptation to sin, and, accordingly, that we may face chastisement for sin (yes, the Father chastens).  

We can know that in all of it, our heavenly Father is molding us after the image of his Son, “that we may share his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10). What a deep phrase that is. It is akin to 2 Peter 1:4’s “that you may become sharers of the divine nature.” One way to think of what the Father is doing in us is to picture ourselves on the far side of our deaths, waking up in a heaven in which we feel already (at least somewhat!) at home. We’re being shaped in the now to lessen the “culture shock” of that experience. Congruently, that process means the Father is using what he’s doing in us in this life to bring a bit of heaven into this world. #i.am.ok.with.that! 

John. The central message, I think, from today’s reading in John is that Jesus goes about his mission despite other people projecting their goals and aspirations onto him.  

“Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near” — John 7:2. The Feast of Booths is highly symbolic. It is the third of the three annual feasts that the law of Moses calls for: the Passover Feast marking liberation from Egypt (Exodus 23:14–15), the Feast of the Firstfruits marking the beginning of the harvest season (Exodus 23:16a), and the Feast of Booths (or Ingathering) marking the end of the harvest season (Exodus 23:16b). The Feast of Booths points forward to the great Sabbath at the end of time, when a world dominated by the power of sin (the age of the “flesh”) gives way to righteousness, peace, and hope (the age of the “Spirit”). This Feast is pregnant with typological significance for Jesus’s mission: his mission is to usher in the age of the Spirit.  

However, Jesus’s brothers remain as confused about Jesus’s mission as those who sought to make him king at the Feeding of the 5,000. They want him to go public with his supernatural powers. To Jesus, such expectations amount to ego-projection, and are, at bottom, disbelief: “So his brothers said to him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing; for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.’ (For not even his brothers believed in him.)” — John 7:3–5.  

Jesus’s head fake (“No, I’m not going,” but then going anyway — see John 7:6–10) gives him space to go surreptitiously, and to choose the time and place of his Epiphany. He plans to manifest himself at this Feast as the one who will bring to pass that great future Sabbath when God’s Spirit will govern from sea to sea, and from pole to pole. But he’s going to usher in the Spirit’s rule in his own way (by being lifted up on the Cross—see John 3:14–15; 12:32–33) and in his own time (that is, not just yet).  

Jesus wants us to know that he’s not a cipher for anybody else’s message. He’s not an avatar in anybody else’s game. He’s not a projection of anybody else’s ego-needs. He brings the beginning of the age of the Spirit…his way. His death will lead to his glory, his glory will bring the Spirit, and the Spirit will gush like rivers of living water from Jesus’s wounded side, to all who are thirsty for real life. #i.am.ok.with.that.too! 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Can Embrace Fearlessness - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/1/2024 •
Thursday of 4 Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 70; Psalm 71; Genesis 23:1–20; Hebrews 11:32–12:2; John 6:60–71 

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 Thursday in the Season After Epiphany. Our readings come from the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Genesis 23: burying Sarah. Jesus chides resurrection-denying Sadducees for not seeing traces of resurrection-faith in the faith of their forebears. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he notes, is the God of the living, not of the dead (Matthew 22:32; Mark 12:27; Luke 20:38). In yesterday’s reading in Genesis 22, we saw Abraham receiving Isaac back, as from the dead — a mini-resurrection, one might almost say. And, in fact, the writer to the Hebrews does almost say so: “[Abraham] considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” Hebrews 11:19). Congruently, in today’s passage in Genesis 23, we read how Abraham makes elaborate arrangements so Sarah’s body may rest in peace and naturally decompose, while her bones await their call from the dead. Jewish burial practices reflected resurrection-hope. 

Hebrews 11–12: eyes on Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews catalogues the way hope in the resurrection had sustained, fortified, and propelled hero after hero in the Old Testament. Faith enabled some to achieve great things in God’s kingdom (Hebrews 11:32–34). Faith enabled others not to succumb to withering attacks and discouraging defeats (Hebrews 11:35–38). No victory was final, nor was any defeat. All these Old Testament greats, says the writer to the Hebrews, were awaiting what we have been privileged to see: Christ’s victory over death for us and in us: “…looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2–3).  

Earlier in his tract, the writer has noted that while we do not see humans presently enjoying the dominion for which we were made, we do see Jesus (Hebrews 2:5–9). He has reclaimed for humans the dignity we lost at the Fall. By virtue of his sharing our humanity and by virtue of his death for us, Jesus is “now crowned with glory and honor” in advance of our sharing in that glory and honor (Hebrews 2:9). By his death and resurrection, Jesus has “destroyed the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14–15).  

The result is that we can embrace a certain fearlessness in the face of external hostility, an unyielding determination to resist an internal drift toward waywardness, and a resolute refusal to heed sloth’s siren call to drop out of the race towards holiness. We can do all this because we see Jesus traveling alongside us, our Pioneer and the Perfecter of our faith, urging us, “Come on, stay with me! I’ll get you home!” And above it all, of course, are those who’ve already run their race, and they’re cheering us on as well.  

John 6: staying with Jesus. Jesus asks us to do no more than what he has already done. Every temptation we could ever face—to drop out, lash out, give up, or give in—he faced it too. Today’s passage in John shows us the nadir of his ministry. His refusal of the crown, his claim to be bread from heaven, and his demand that people eat his flesh and drink his blood—it’s all been just too much! To some, it’s befuddling, to others it’s blasphemous. Everybody is bailing, and so he asks the twelve: “Do you also wish to go away?” (John 6:67).  

One can only imagine where his heart is—for here he is, like us in all respects (save sin). His best teaching material has turned off (or confused) as many people as it has turned on and enlightened. With every word and “sign,” his portfolio of enemies grows. He is surrounded by doubters. Now his friends (through their spokesman Peter … and praise God for Peter!) say they can only stick with him because they see no better option: “Lord, to whom can we go?” Even while acknowledging their reluctant willingness to stay with him, he says he’s aware that one of them will betray him. Still, he does not give up on them…any of them. He does not yield to the temptation to quit. He does not forsake the mission. He does not stop believing in his Father’s faithfulness or the Spirit’s residing presence. He presses on. And because he does, so can we.  

Jesus is Savior to us in the most comprehensive way imaginable: he pays a sin-price we could never afford, he defeats an enemy we wouldn’t stand a chance against, and he walks beside us when we are at our worst and when we experience the worst. Jesus saves to the uttermost. Praise his name! 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Isaac: Pointing Forward in Dramatic Ways to Christ - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 1/31/2024 •
Wednesday of 4 Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 72; Genesis 22:1–18; Hebrews 11:23–31; John 6:52–59 

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 in the Fourth Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year 2 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

John: “the one who chews my flesh.” The great 20th century New Testament theologian Oscar Cullmann brilliantly lays out the flow of thought in John 6: Jesus draws the line from the miracle of the feeding of 5,000 people with material bread (vv. 1-13), to the fact that despite the ordinariness of his birth as a human he is the “Bread of Life” come down from heaven (vv. 14–47), to the miracle of the fact that as the risen and ascended Lord he manifests his presence among his people in simple bread that is eaten and wine that is drunk: “For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. The one who chews my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” (v. 56).* 

Wonder of wonders: you and I commune each Sunday with the same Person who walked the shores of Galilee 2,000 years ago. And because he is eternal bread of eternal life, our fellowship with him will extend into a timeless, fully physical existence on a new earth and under new heavens. The Jesus of the Gospel’s historical account and the Christ of the Church’s worship and the Alpha/Omega of the coming eschaton are one and the same person—and altogether accessible to us.  

He came in the flesh. He comes in the bread and the wine. He will come again in power and great glory. Now, that is food for the soul.  

Genesis 22: the gift of an only son. Looking back on earlier revelation from this perspective, it’s impossible not to see the story anticipated repeatedly. Abraham’s testing on Mount Moriah is just such an instance.  

Abraham mirrors the love of God in being willing to give up his only son for the sake of relationship. Abraham also exemplifies utter faith in God’s promise to raise the dead to newness of life: “He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead—and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Hebrews 11:19).  

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

Isaac points forward in dramatic ways to Christ’s saving death for us. The destination of Abraham and Isaac’s journey is Mount Moriah, which, according to 2 Chronicles 3:1, is the place in Jerusalem where God makes a plague to cease and where Solomon builds the temple. Mt. Golgotha, the place of Jesus’s sacrifice, is a stone’s throw away.  

Isaac is remarkably quiescent in the face of the unfolding of events: “…like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7b). As Jesus will carry his wooden cross up to Calvary, so Isaac carries the wood for his altar. As Jesus will submit to the nails and to the agony of death, so Isaac submits to the ropes and is ready for the knife. On Mount Moriah, God substitutes a ram for Abraham’s “son your only son”; on Calvary, God will substitute his Son, his only begotten Son, for sinners.   

Nor should it escape our notice that everything happens “on the third day” of their journey (Genesis 19:4). By faith, Abraham does indeed receive him back from the dead “figuratively speaking” (Hebrews 11:19). And what a figure he has given us of the God-Man’s atoning and life-giving sacrifice!  

Hebrews 11: it takes faith. Because Moses is the Old Covenant’s “law-giver,” it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that he (no less than Abraham and other heroes in faith’s hall of fame), was driven by faith. Moses should never be thought of as the fountainhead of a project of merit, as the architect of a system of works righteousness, or as the standard-bearer for “judginess” toward the failings of others. “By faith he left Egypt,” says the writer to the Hebrews (11:27). “Faith” in the God of his people led him to say “No!” to the faux freedom of Egyptian court life and “Yes!” to the true freedom of life with Yahweh and his people through the waters of, and on the far side of, the Red Sea.  

I pray we too are able to live the wondrous mystery of “faith”: “Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!” 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

* Summarizing material in Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1953), pp. 37–38,91–102.  

The Only One Who Understands - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 1/30/2024 •
Tuesday of 4 Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 61; Psalm 62; Genesis 21:1–21; Hebrews 11:13–22; John 6:41–51 

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 Tuesday in the Fourth Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year 2 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Genesis 19: tears in a bottle. In today’s text from Genesis, the divine drama and the human drama seem to clash. Sarah’s laughter of skepticism turns to laughter of joy when Isaac the son of promise is born to her (compare Genesis 17:17; 18:12–15 with 21:6). But then there are the tears of Ishmael the legal heir,* left to cry himself to death out of earshot of a mother who cannot bear to hear.  

Image: Pixabay

I must have been four or five years old. I don’t remember what had transpired between my parents and me. What I do recall is sitting outside on the street curb in front of my house, with my arms around our pet dog “Tuffy,” and crying over and over again, “Tuffy, you are the only one who understands. You are the only one who cares.”   

“And God heard the voice of the boy….” — Genesis 21:17. I don’t imagine that a single one of us makes it through childhood without feeling something of what Ishmael felt. We’ve been left alone to cry hopelessly into the void. It doesn’t matter if we grew up with parents who did their best to love us, or with “caregivers” who treated us like worthless discards. We all, I imagine, know what it is to cry alone into the void.  

The thing is, there is no void. God’s got a bottle for every one of those tears: “You have noted my lamentation; put my tears into your bottle; are they not recorded in your book?” (Psalm 56:8). It must be a big bottle, for sure. A bottle the size of the world. But he hears. He does. And while we may think of God keeping a book on our offenses, the Bible says he’s keeping a book on our griefs.  

Despite the inattention of some of his servants (like Abraham and Sarah in today’s text), God gives ears to other servants to hear the crying. I give thanks for my friends whom God has called to make their homes into refuges of foster care and adoption. I give thanks for friends whom he has called to minister, through organizations like International Justice Ministry, to those who have been trafficked. And I give thanks for friends whom he has called to create bridges of understanding between the spiritual children of Isaac and Ishmael, those who work to find principled common ground between Christians, Jews, and Muslims.  

In the Bible’s way of thinking, as ignoble as Sarah’s motives are, she is correct to believe that God plans to redeem the world through Isaac’s line, not Ishmael’s (Muslim accounts, of course, differ). It was an ill-conceived plan that led to Ishmael’s conception, and it guaranteed tension between what Paul called “the children of the flesh” versus “the children of promise” (Galatians 4:28–29). Nevertheless, what is remarkable about Ishmael’s story is that God does not regard Ishmael as the discard that his father and legal mother do. Others had cast him aside, but God does not.  

Hebrews. As the writer to the Hebrews recounts the heroes of the faith, he characterizes them as having one characteristic: living their days as “strangers and foreigners on the earth,” while constantly seeking “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:12,16). There is a stubborn trust that no matter how incomprehensible the circumstance or instruction, there’s always a redemptive end: Abraham intuits that Isaac’s end must be resurrection. Joseph understands Israel’s sojourn in Egypt is prelude to their exodus.  

The challenge for us is to respect the fact that on any given day we see only partially what the point of that day is. Loving a difficult child, doing seemingly meaningless work for a less than appreciative boss — we just don’t have the cosmic perspective to see how our faithful obedience is being woven into a rich tapestry of redemption. But “by faith,” we know somehow it is. May that be enough for this day’s journey! 

John. At the heart of it all is “faith” that a mere carpenter’s son (“Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?”) did in fact “come down from heaven,” that he is in truth “living bread,” and that “Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Crazy! Really, certifiably crazy … or crazy true!  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

* Because Abraham is eighty-six when Ishmael is born and one hundred when Isaac is born, Ishmael is in his teens when he and his mother are sent away (compare Genesis 16:16 with 21:5).