Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:1-24; Exodus 15:22-16:10; 1 Peter 2:1-10; John 15:1-11
This morning’s Canticles are: 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)
In the ancient church, the weeks just before Easter were a time of preparation for baptism, and the weeks just after Easter were a time for learning how to live “as baptized.” It’s especially easy to see that sensibility in play across the gamut of biblical readings for the second week of Easter in the Daily Office for this year.
Then Moses ordered Israel to set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went for three days in the wilderness and found no water. — Exodus 15:22. Crossing the Red Sea had been Israel’s baptism: “All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Corinthians 10:2). In that baptism they had been rescued from slavery by what the 2nd century church leader Irenaeus would refer to as the “two arms” of God’s embrace, “the Angel of the Lord” (Exodus 14:19a, a prefiguration of Christ) and “the Pillar of Cloud” (Exodus 14:19b, a prefiguration of the Holy Spirit).
Now for the journey through the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land. The next few weeks’ OT readings will focus on the central lesson from that journey: chiefly, the mission of this newly baptized people is to take to the world the calling to love God and neighbor. This second week of Easter finds us in the wilderness on the way to Mount Sinai. The lessons here are about trusting the Lord for provision when the journey seems hard, provisions are scant, and, perversely, the mistreatment “back there” seems less intimidating than the deprivations “out here.”
Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. — 1 Peter 2:2-3. Many scholars think that 1 Peter as a whole was written to provide instruction to newly baptized believers. Whether that is the case or not, this letter provides some of the most succinct teaching in all the NT about how those who have come to recognize that they are “elect strangers” (1 Peter 1:1 eklektois parepidēmoi) are to live. That is, God has chosen them in order to usher them in to a new life in Christ, and, in that single stroke, has made them “outsiders” to their former friends and family members.
In today’s passage, Peter is finishing a section in which he has been reminding his readers of the great “indicatives” of their election—all that God has done to give them new life (1 Peter 1:1–2:10): “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). And in tomorrow’s passage, Peter will pivot to explaining how they may proclaim those mighty acts. He will begin to outline for them the “imperatives” that come with now being strangers in a world that no longer defines who they are: “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11). His instruction will show how, in Christ, to navigate life’s hardest relationships as they “show and tell” the mighty acts, living as servants of God and stewards of grace (1 Peter 2:11–5:14).
Abide in me, as I abide in you. … I am the Vine, you are the branches. — John 15:4a,5a. Arguably, pride of place in a season of post-baptismal instruction goes to the portion of John’s gospel for this week. Jesus had painted a picture of his ministry by washing the disciples’ feet in John 13, to leave them an example of how they should live; and he had prayed what is called his “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17, to fortify them. Between those chapters, in John 14–16, Jesus provided his most extensive teaching in all of John’s gospel for what life would look like after his death, resurrection, and ascension, and before his final return in glory.
Today’s passage is perhaps the linchpin to the whole: our responding to Christ’s love by “abiding” in him through his Word—studying it, meditating on it, and obeying it—so that the Risen Christ may “abide” in us—dwelling in us by his Spirit. Christ likens himself to a vine, in fact, claiming for himself a rich identity that God had given to Israel in the OT. In passages like Psalm 80 and Isaiah 5, God says that he had planted Israel as a vine, but that that vine had proved unfaithful and unfruitful. This was all an anticipation of a “True Vine” that would prove faithful and fruitful, the One who is at Table with his friends. Now this True Vine calls his followers “branches” in the Vine, sharers in, and extensions of, his own life. Amazing.
All we “branches” need to do is “abide” (a very simple Greek word that means essentially “remain” or “stay”) in the vine—that is, stay connected to our life source. When we are unfruitful but “abiding,” the good Vinedresser (the Father) will raise us up so we can get better sunlight and rainfall (the NRSV’s translation of the first half of verse 2’s airei as “remove” is terribly misleading, making it appear as though unfruitful branches get cut off). When we are fruitful, we get pruned—and sure, that cutting can hurt, but it’s only so that lesser fruitfulness in the present can lead to greater fruitfulness in the future. That’s the scenario in the second half of verse 2. Of course, 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 horrible “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).
This day, I pray that you live well “as baptized.” I pray you are able, in Christ, to learn what was so hard for the children of Israel to learn: the wilderness is lonely and barren and dangerous, but when the Lord is with you, your needs will be met.
This day, I pray that you live well “as baptized.” In other words, that you are able to claim your true place in God’s royal priesthood and his holy nation, confident that he will show you how to make his mighty acts known in word and deed.
This day, I pray that you live well “as baptized”: abiding in Christ, with him abiding in you.
Be blessed this day.
Reggie Kidd+
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 5 & 6; Exodus 15:1-21; 1 Peter 1:13-25; John 14:18-31
This morning’s Canticles are: Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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)
Observations today based on three phrases in today’s passage in 1 Peter:
…not with perishable things… — 1 Peter 1:18. Sweet irony. Peter reminds us of the transience of our existence: “during the time of your exile.” But then he turns right around and puts that “exile” in the context of God’s eternal plan to prosper us. Peter speaks of the “imperishability” of things working to end the exile, and, in particular, of the revealing of God’s Son who was “known (i.e., loved) before the world was made” (verse 20, Jerusalem Bible).
With all of today’s reminders of how brief our years here are—bodies stored in morgues because funerals can’t keep up with the deaths, with daily death counts from a single disease in the hundreds—it is good to be reminded that God’s good intentions for health and salvation extend from eternity to eternity.
That’s why it is important to begin the day as you have, re-immersing yourself in the story of creation; of the fall; of a multi-staged course of redemption running from promises in the Garden, to the calling of the nation Israel (thus, today’s “Song of Moses,” in Exodus 15), to the crowning events of Good Friday and Easter, to the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit through the Church (for which Jesus prepared his disciples in today’s John 14 passage); and ultimately of the great drama climaxing in the Lord’s return to bring “a new heavens and a new earth.”
…but with the precious blood of Christ… — 1 Peter 1:19. It’s a remarkable thing that, as Peter notes in verse 17, the Judge of all things has invited us to call him Father. Think about that: the Judge of heaven’s courtroom has come from behind the bench, and invited us to come home with him, to take his name as our own, to become a part of his family. Setting aside his “impartiality” (an impartiality that, given who we are, should have consigned every one of us to the remotest, coldest darkness), the Lord of heaven and earth has loved us and “chosen and destined” us to be his children (see 1 Peter 1:1). He doesn’t want to squash us. He wants to welcome us home. So much so, that he has opened the coffers of heaven to make that possible.
In the strange biblical economy, one thing is more valuable than anything humans might value: the “precious blood of Christ.” Peter might have named anything else: diamonds, plutonium, yachts, mansions … doesn’t matter. The point is: you were loved so much that God spent that which was infinitely more valuable than anything you could reckon valuable, just so he could set aside his impartiality as Judge to become your Dad. Your Dad. Notice the end of verse 20: “for you.” That “you” there is “you,” personally, by name, warts and all. Heaven’s coffers poured out because God values you enough to spend whatever it takes to get you out of jail and into his own home.
Now that you have purified your souls… — 1 Peter 1:22. A friend once told me he was grateful for mixed motives, because, he said, “If I didn’t have mixed motives, I wouldn’t have any motives at all.” I can relate. Still, the whole direction of Christ’s life in us is to move us past mixed motives, to a pure and unadulterated passion for him. Peter says it comes from “a heart that has been cleansed” (my rendering of verse 22’s katharas kardias, somewhat dully rendered in the NRSV as “from the heart”). That kind of heart produces, in turn, “brotherly love that is unaffected” (literally, “unhypocritical”).
It’s painful right now to watch some leaders who seem unclear about which is more important: the long-term benefit of people or their own short-term advantage? There’s a lot of that in each and every one of us.
The good news is that, if you belong to Christ, he’s not going to leave it that way. He has committed himself to eliminating the double mindedness, the mixed motives, and the hidden agendas that infect us all. The best way for us to cooperate with the process is to see ourselves the way the Lord sees us: purified of soul, cleansed of heart, and equipped with a capacity for unaffected brotherly love. And then to look around and ask: how can I be that today?
Collect for the Second Sunday of Easter. 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 this day.
Reggie Kidd+
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalms 1,2,3; Exodus 14:21-31; 1 Peter 1:1-12; John 14:1-17
This morning’s Canticles are: Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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)
Psalms 1,2,3. The Daily Office lays out the Book of Psalms in such a way that if you read each day’s morning and evening psalms, you will get all the way through the book every seven weeks. If you follow the schedule in the Office, you will cycle through each psalm about seven times over the course of a year. Seven cycles of seven. Nice biblical numerology, huh?
It’s also an amazing way to immerse yourself in the biblical story. In the 4th century, Athanasius wrote that while all the other books have their own particular theme (e.g., Genesis, creation; Exodus, rescue; Joshua, conquest), the Book of Psalms includes all the themes (e.g., Psalms 19 & 24 on creation; Psalms 78, 106, & 114 on rescue; Psalm 105 on conquest). Not only that, but the book of Psalms gives you the opportunity to engage the biblical story in poetic form (that is, with the heart), or even to sing it, if you are of a mind (for most psalms are hymns, after all).
The first three psalms are a perfect keynote to what the psalms as a whole are all about. I encourage you today to linger over each of these three.
Psalm One and God’s Law as the Way of Life. Psalm One points the reader back to Mt. Sinai, when God gave to his newly rescued people his Law as a way of life, a way to remain free from the more insidious slavery to sin. The entire Mosaic vision of life is that there is always a choice between two ways: back into slavery to sin and death (“walk[ing] in the counsel of the wicked”), or ahead into the freedom of knowing God in the journey toward the promise of life. That journey requires, ironically, rootedness.
Psalm One’s invitation is to “meditate on his law day and night.” To do so is to plant yourself beside “streams of water,” where your roots can find rich nourishment. And the life that flows into you will flow through you and out to others (“bearing fruit in due season”), and you will find that even as you age, your inner being can grow and flourish (“with leaves that do not wither”).
Psalm Two and the Prophets’ Plan for God’s Kingship. Psalm Two points the reader ahead to the day when God would establish his Son as King on “my holy hill of Zion.” The entire prophetic vision is that world history is the backdrop for the drama of God’s reestablishing his gracious rule in the face of the world’s chaos, and of “the kings of the earth ris[ing] up in revolt, and the princes plot[ting] together against the Lord and against his Anointed.”
Psalm Two’s invitation is to look beyond the folly and the frustration of any day’s headlines and any era’s crisis to the victory that God wins in his decree: “I myself have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion;” and when he says to his Son: “You are my Son; this day have I begotten you.” At Eastertide we celebrate the victory already won on a hill in Zion made holy by the cross raised upon it. At Eastertide we rejoice in God’s fulfillment of his promises, as the apostle Paul proclaimed in the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, “by raising Jesus; as also it is written in the second psalm, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’” (Acts 13:32b,33).
Psalm Three and God’s Nearness When You Suffer. Psalm Three points the reader to the present as a time of frustration, failure, and fear—a time to call upon the nearness and the aid of the Lord. The superscription of this psalm (in all the ancient versions) shows its dramatic backdrop: “A Psalm of David, when he fled from his son Absalom.” At the zenith of his career, David had fallen. At long last he had been crowned king, but then he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and had murdered her husband Uriah. Though forgiven after his confession to Nathan the prophet, he had nonetheless already sown bitter seed. His son Absalom, witness to the sad events, had acquired his father’s erring ways, and has now risen up to usurp his father’s rule.
2 Samuel 15 describes the pathetic scene: David is forced to flee Jerusalem, going up the Mount of Olives “weeping as he went, with his head covered and walking barefoot,” publicly humiliated, and leaving behind ten of his concubines to serve Absalom’s lusts (compare 2 Samuel 12:12 with 15:16 & 16:21-22). This, according to the superscription, is when David composes Psalm Three, calling out in the face of his “many adversaries” and the “many who rise up against me”: “But you, O Lord, are a shield about me; you are my glory, the one who lifts up my head.”
Hopefully, whatever shame or disgrace, rejection or enmity—whatever “fall” you experience— again, hopefully it will not look exactly like David’s. But this you can count on: the same Lord who enabled David to “lie down and go to sleep” that night, and to awaken the next day “because the Lord sustains me”—that same Lord will give you rest and sustenance. However you “fall,” the Lord will raise you up. He is your glory and the lifter of your head.
I pray you are able to bask this day in the power of God’s Word to nourish and feed your “inner being,” and to keep you walking in the way of faithfulness (Psalm 1). I pray that you will see in the face of all the counter-evidence—all the ways that history seems to be under the control of godlessness—that above it all stands the rule of King Jesus, Risen and Conquering Lord (Psalm 2). And I pray that in spite of whatever discouragement, and even failure, you face, you will know that your Lord hears you when you cry, “Set me free, O my God,” and that he truly is one who blesses his people, including you (Psalm 3:7a,8b)!
Be blessed this day.
Reggie Kidd+
Sunday Worship: Second Sunday of Easter
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 136; Exodus 13:1-2,11-16; 1 Corinthians 15:51-58; Luke 24:1-12
This morning’s Canticles are: Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“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)
…for his mercy endures forever… (כִּ֖י לְעוֹלָ֣ם חַסְדּֽוֹ — ki lᵉʿôlām ḥasdo). Psalm 136 sees the whole of cosmic and human history as one occasion after another for the singing of God’s mercy. In creating all things, he shows mercy. In rescuing Israel and giving them an inheritance, he shows mercy. In remembering the lowly and feeding all creatures, he shows mercy.
The psalmist can’t even get from one thought to another without interrupting himself to thank the Lord for the unending mercy. Twenty-six verses of remembrance, twenty-six half-verses of grateful self-interruption. It’s wonderful when this psalm is read in corporate worship as call and response, half-verse by half-verse—and even better when the half-verse refrains are in Hebrew!
The heavens and the earth, in their very existence. Not random. Not from nowhere. Not without design or purpose. Not evil, not neutral, but “good.” Expressions of Yahweh’s, and nobody else’s, mercy that endures forever.
People trapped in slavery, waiting deliverance from oppression. Not without hope, because his mercy endures forever.
People in low estate—by virtue, today, of debilitating disease, loss of work, life put on hold. Not forgotten, but remembered, because his mercy endures forever.
…in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet…. (1 Corinthians 15:52). It probably wasn’t the first time I had heard these words, but it was the first time I actually noticed them. It was during a live performance of Handel’s Messiah. The baritone voice, the trumpet accompaniment, the new-old text. The combination was overwhelming, and I’ve never been the same. In the face of death itself we can say: “You don’t win. Christ has beaten you. And I belong to him. No matter when you take me or how you do it, it will only be for a time. I will rise.”
I pray that whatever you face today you face it in the confidence that somewhere in the hardest part of it there is “mercy that endures forever.” I pray that throughout this day, your theme can be: “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Amen.
Collect for Friday in Easter Week. Almighty Father, who gave your only Son to die for our sins and to rise for our justification: Give us grace so to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may always serve you in pureness of living and truth; through Jesus Christ your Son 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+
Noonday Prayer
Noonday Prayer for Thursday, 4/16/2020, is available on Facebook.
CLICK HERE to access the video.
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 146, 147; Exodus 13:3-10; 1 Corinthians 15:41-50; Matthew 28:16-20
This morning’s Canticles are: 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)
What is sown is perishable,
what is raised is imperishable.
It is sown in dishonor,
it is raised in glory.
It is sown in weakness,
it is raised in power. …
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust,
we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. — 1 Corinthians 15:42b-43, 49.
None of the people Paul wrote to in Corinth questioned whether Jesus rose from the dead. What some of them didn’t understand was what his rising from the dead meant for them. It had been some twenty years since Jesus’s resurrection, and they had seen plenty of their fellow church members—friends, husbands, wives, parents, children—die. Some in the church had concluded, therefore, that Jesus’s resurrection affected them only in a “spiritual” way. It provided a “ticket” to heaven in the future, and conferred new spiritual powers in the present, like miracles, heavenly languages and/or their interpretations, prophetic powers. But, while Jesus’s own physical rising may have been a powerful metaphor for the “new creation” they felt within themselves, they figured physical death was the end of physical, bodily existence for them.
That led to some unfortunate, even crazy, conclusions about what to do with their bodies in this life. Paul spends most of First Corinthians dealing with these problems. Some Corinthian believers, because they thought their bodies had no connection to being a “new creation” and going to heaven, were sleeping with people they had no business sharing a bed with—one person, with his stepmother; some, apparently, with prostitutes. Others, believing the Holy Spirit in them was holier than, in their way of thinking, their “polluted” bodies, were refusing to have sex with their own spouses. Some thought that Christ’s resurrection meant that they deserved to “grab all they could get” right now, right in this life. So they were using the court system to wrangle financial benefits for themselves, even bringing suit against other followers of Christ.
To Paul, these Corinthians were acting like entitled, over-privileged “king’s kids.” “Already you have all you want!”, he chides, “Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you!” (1 Corinthians 4:8).
And, as far as Paul was concerned, the issue was their confusion about what Christ’s resurrection meant for them, not only in the future, but in the now. Their basic problem was failing to see that Christ’s physical resurrection (which they believed in) necessarily also meant physical resurrection for them. If Paul could get the Corinthians straight on that, he could get them to back away from their ethical stupidity. Back in chapter 4 (where the above quote comes from), he had pointed to his own sufferings and weakness as evidence that none of us has yet to receive all the “riches” Christ has won for us or come into the fullness of the “kingly” status Christ confers. All of those promises await resurrection: a new bodily existence, after our physical deaths, when Christ returns for us to raise us up with a glory that is like his. If you let go of that hope, Paul insists, you get yourself into trouble—you become a petulant narcissist, demanding your “best life now.”
In today’s passage, Paul is asking them to consider the frailness and fragility of their own bodies: perishable, dishonored, weak, “of dust.” And then to dare to believe that what Christ died for was to guarantee them something so much better, even if they couldn’t have it now. That something better was imperishability, honor, strength, a whole new existence when the Holy Spirit gives their bodies—not to mention this entire weary planet—a complete “do over.” Resurrection. Paul wants them to take hold of the vision and truth of the riches, the inheritance, awaiting all followers of Christ.
Right now is a wonderful time for all of us who have benefited from living in one of the most prosperous nations the world has ever seen, and who have grown accustomed to life’s prospects getting better and better all the time, to realize that appearances are deceiving. The coronavirus has made it abundantly clear that, despite a level of freedom and safety unlike anything the world has previously known, our existence is actually quite tenuous. Apart from Christ, as the rock group Kansas put it a number of years ago, “all we are is dust in the wind.”
Easter’s glory is that, in the end, we are not dust in the wind. But Easter’s glory is also that, in the meantime, we can live more humbly, more graciously, and more lovingly. As heirs of the resurrection, we belong to each other, and so we can be more attentive to the needs of those around us than to our own needs.
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 this day.
Reggie Kidd+