Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; Job 19:1-7,14-27 (per BCP) or Job 19:1-27; Acts 13:13-25; John 9:18-41
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)
Job expects to “see” God. To this point, Job has been seeking a hearing so he can be vindicated. Not at all sure now that he will not die from his afflictions, he wants to make sure his words are written down or inscribed as a permanent record. Nonetheless, his faith rises to a height virtually unparalleled in the Old Testament. Even should he die, he believes that he will not just hear from, but that he will see God—just like Abraham did (Genesis 18), just like Moses did (Exodus 33,34), and just like Isaiah did (Isaiah 6). Resurrection! A familiar concept to Christians, who live on this side of the story of the cross. For you and me, the idea of resurrection, of seeing God face-to-face after death, is an idea we accept, even if we don’t fully understand it. Here, way ahead of Christ’s coming, Job expresses his astounding belief that it will really be Job the man—and not some disembodied spirit—who sees God. Three times in the first part of Job 19:27, Job uses the pronoun “I” to emphasize that it is the same Job who has lived on the earth: “whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” Throughout this passage, Job stresses his “skin,” his “flesh,” and his “eyes” experiencing his seeing God on the far side of death. His belief in resurrection is at least latent, around the corner, or nascent in this passage.
God my Redeemer. Moreover, when Job sees God, he genuinely believes that God himself will be his Vindicator or Redeemer or Advocate. The words of the lovely aria from Handel’s Messiah, “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth,” are all the more lovely and poignant when we ponder the depths of despair out of which Job perceives God’s help for him. Verses 25-27 are like an extraordinary lightning strike from the future, when the one who is the Light of the World and the Resurrection and the Life will come “for us and for our salvation,” as the Creed puts it. There is here a flash of the same sort of confidence that Jesus says characterizes the astute reader of Scripture: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matthew 22:32). Job’s insight is breathtaking. Gaze upon it! Bask in its light!
Light of the World. The man who is healed of his blindness in John Chapter 9 provides one of the best hymn phrases ever: “… was blind, but now I see” (John 9:25). In context, this line is a statement of the limits of this man’s knowledge. This truth is all he knows. His virtue is that he states the truth as far as he knows it. And he sticks to his guns. When his parents deflect their inquisitors who call the man back for a follow up interview, the man turns the interrogation on its head: “Do you also want to become his disciples?” That’s a question this story not so subtly puts to all of us: will we believe? Will we become his disciples?
At this point in the story, the man still doesn’t even know who it is who has given him his sight. But he’s already pointing people to the source of light—or at least exposing those who love the dark! Have you ever tried to talk to someone who… Just. Won’t. Listen…? They don’t want to understand what you are trying to say! You realize, finally, that you’ve said as much you possibly can: “end of discussion.” The formerly blind man understands this. All he knows is: “I once was blind, but now I see.” Even so, he’s become an apologist and evangelist. When Jesus does finally come and have the conversation in which he reveals himself as “the Son of Man”—“you have seen him and the one who is speaking with you is he” (John 9:37, emphasis added)—the man gives the best response possible: “Lord, I believe.” Now he really “sees.” John’s Gospel celebrates the moment when this man realizes the One who brings light to his physical eyes is truly the Light of the World: “And he worshiped him” (John 9:38). Amen.
Light to the nations. In today’s reading from Acts, Paul gives the introduction to his sermon at Pisidian Antioch about Jesus Christ. Paul lays down a compressed history of the way God had rescued his people from slavery, given them the land of Canaan, and provided judges and then kings Saul, whom he removed, and David, “a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.” From David’s line has come “a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.” Paul explains that John the Baptist’s proclamation of a baptism for repentance was a preparation for Jesus’ coming.
Saturday’s reading will include some of the most pivotal moments in the book of Acts. Paul explains that the death of Jesus, wrongful though it was (Acts 13:27-28), had been in accordance with the Scriptures (Acts 13:29; e.g., Isaiah 50:6; 53; Psalm 22; and even today’s Psalm 31: “Into your hands I commend my spirit”). The linchpin of Paul’s sermon is the resurrection of Christ, which also fulfills Scripture’s promise of an eternal rule for David’s line. Moreover, Christ’s death and resurrection mean that Jesus does for us what the law could never do: bring forgiveness of sins (Acts 13:38-39).
Most of Paul’s Jewish listeners reject his message. However, “many Jews and devout converts to Judaism” do believe. The longer Paul stays in Pisidian Antioch, the more hardened Jewish resistance becomes, and the more receptive his Gentile audience becomes. As a result, Paul announces a shift in his own ministry: “we are now turning to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). Even this phenomenon, Paul declares, is a fulfillment of God’s promises in Scripture: “I will set you to be a light for the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47, quoting Isaiah 49:6).
Here is the Light of the World at work. The overwhelming light of Christ’s first appearance to Saul/Paul had brought him temporary blindness (Acts 9:8-9). With his baptism, sight returns. (Acts 9:17-19). And then, through Paul, the Spirit’s work to illuminate the whole of Scripture as Christ’s story begins. Now, Paul is ready to fulfill Israel’s ministry to be a “light to the nations.” Praise be.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 37:1-18; Job 16:16-22; 17:1,13-16 (per BCP) or Job 16,17; Acts 13:1-12; John 9:1-17
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)
Today’s Psalm offers comfort and consolation for God’s people when they feel, like Job, overwhelmed. The promises of Scripture, expressed in Psalm 37, are set against life’s frustrations and injustices in order to remind us that God is ultimately in charge. His love and his justice with not be thwarted. (This Psalm is worth reading in its entirety this morning.)
In the early verses of Job 16 (not included in today’s reading), Job describes feeling brutalized by God: God has torn his body, handed him over to wicked people, broken his neck, set him up as an archery target, and savagely sliced his body open: “He slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy; he pours out my gall on the ground” (Job 16:13).
Feeling unjustly attacked, Job asks, in verse 18, that the earth not cover his blood, so that it can cry out as an appeal for vindication. At the same moment, Job suddenly seems to realize that his hope resides in his relationship with God. Through the despair and anguish that have accompanied Job thus to this point, Job catches a glimpse of consolation. As if catching sight of the sure and steady comfort of a lighthouse beacon piercing a raging night at sea, Job perceives that his advocate in heaven is God himself: “Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high” (Job 16:19). As we saw just yesterday in Job 14, and as we will see tomorrow in Job 19, “embedded in [Job’s] lamentations,” says commentator F. I. Anderson, is “a titanic assertion of faith.” Although he accuses heaven, Job looks there for his only defense, though he cannot see ahead. When life is difficult, we might do as well:
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.He will make your vindication shine like the light, and the justice of your cause like the noonday. — Psalm 37:5-6
Hardened as it is in the furnace of tribulation, Job’s stubborn faith in a heavenly advocate prepares, in its own unique way, for the future revelation of Jesus Christ. Job sees, dimly, something that we, from our vantage point, recognize was already there, on a far horizon. Small wonder that a Christian “great” like Augustine of Hippo would describe the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament this way: “The new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed.”
John 8. When Jesus does come, the issue of vision, of the ability to see, is more immediate. Jesus comes with the authority and the power to open eyes that cannot see, and to close eyes that only think they see. As he declares (in tomorrow’s reading), “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind” (John 9:39).
Sight for a man born blind. Earlier, in the middle of John 8, Jesus had proclaimed himself to be the “Light of the World.” In John 9, he repeats this claim, and provides a “sign” of that reality: he heals a man who had been born blind. (Notice that is a second healing on the Sabbath by Jesus. Coincidence? I think not! “I AM” is, after all, Lord of the Sabbath. The repetitions provide symbolic emphasis.) Jesus specifies that the man’s blindness is not the result of his sin or of his parents (reinforcing Job’s message that it isn’t necessarily our fault when we suffer!). As with Job, what’s on display here is the glory and power of God.
John discloses that Jesus came to offer sight to the blind. Not just physical sight to a single individual, but spiritual sight to those who will respond to his invitation. Conversely, as we see in the Acts reading for today, if you refuse to see, Jesus will confirm your blindness.
Blindness for a blind guide. Providentially, today’s Daily Office readings provide a beautiful illustration of this last point in the apostle Paul’s encounter with the magician/Jewish false prophet named Elymas, or Bar-Jesus (which, ironically, means “Son of Jesus”), on the island of Cyprus. Cyprus is the first stop on the First Missionary Journey, as recorded in Acts. The island’s Roman governor, Sergius Paulus, summons the missionaries because he wishes to hear their message. However, when they arrive for their audience, “Barnabas and Saul” find Bar-Jesus urging the proconsul to reject their teaching about faith in Jesus Christ.
Sidebar: An interesting pivot in the ministry takes place as “Saul” steps forward under his Roman name “Paul” (a name that he happens to share with the governor, whose name is Sergius Paulus). From now on, we will know the apostle only by his Roman name. Further, the leadership of the missionary group will no longer be described as “Barnabas and Saul,” but as “Paul and Barnabas” or “Paul and his companions.”
At any rate, in the presence of Sergius Paulus, the apostle Paul rebukes the false prophet, “You son of the devil … you will be blind for a while, unable to see the sun” (Acts 13:11). Immediately, Bar-Jesus goes blind. Seeing this, Sergius Paulus attains spiritual sight: “When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord” (Acts 13:12).
I pray that you and I have the grace to acknowledge whatever darkness we experience as what it is: real darkness—and at the same time, real opportunity for Christ’s light.
Collect for the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany. Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
New Youth Ministry Director: Jonathan McKenzie
Hello, I am Jonathan McKenzie, the new youth director here at St. Luke’s. I am so excited to get to know y’all as I begin to serve. Here is a little bit of my story to help you get to know me better:
I grew up in Texas as a pastor’s kid. Growing up I never remember a time when I was not madly in love with Jesus, but it was not really until middle school that the faith I was raised in really became my own. In middle school I really became interested in driving deep into the Bible and studying theology. It was about that time I also began feeling a call to ministry. During high school, I read/experienced/listened my way into the Reformational Anglican tradition by reading Church history, experiencing liturgical worship, and by listening to some really helpful Anglican podcasts. Last year I moved to Sanford to attend Reformation Bible College where I am currently studying Christian thought. Last Advent I stumbled into the 6pm service and knew I had found my new Church home.
Growing up my dad would always say “there are only two things that last forever: God’s Word and people. So we need to spend our time investing God’s Word into people.” Likewise he had us memorize the Westminster Shorter Catechism question 1 “Q: What is the chief end of man? A: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” I am looking forward to glorify God and enjoy him forever by investing God's Word into God's people as I spend time with the youth here at St. Luke’s.
Midday Eucharist
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 38; Job 12:1; 14:1-22; Acts 12:18-25; John 8:47-59
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)
Job’s death wish. Job careens between longing for death as relief from his pain and longing for an “awakening”, a “rousing from sleep”, a “release” after death. In the midst of uttering some of his most hopeless of words, Job cannot give in to hopelessness itself. He ponders the “hope for a tree” that is cut down, that seems dead, but that may yet “bud and put forth branches like a young plant.” Then he ponders death as possibly not final, but rather as a kind of waiting for God’s wrath to pass, for transgressions to be sealed up in a bag, and iniquity to be covered, until … until what? Until “you would appoint me a set time, and remember me” (Job 14:13). Job dares to imagine that the God who made him for relationship with himself “would long for the work of your hands.” And remember ….
Even as he seems to push God away (“Look away from them and desist”), Job draws nearer. Reduced to pestilential sores and unimaginable loss, ultimately Job cannot imagine that God would not bring life out of all that is happening to him.
Herod—now, he’s a different story. This is Herod Agrippa (11 bc – ad 44), grandson to Herod the Great (of Bethlehem fame, at Jesus’ birth). A product of privilege, Agrippa had been raised in Rome, where he became a close friend to the emperor Caligula. He was close enough that an admonition from him once prevented Caligula from profaning the Jewish temple. After Caligula’s assassination, Agrippa had some role in Claudius’s becoming emperor. Claudius, in turn, granted Agrippa dominion over Judea and Samaria. Agrippa reestablished, somewhat, the domain of his grandfather Herod the Great, and his own building projects rivalled those of his grandfather. According to the Mishnah, he supported the Jewish faith, even reading Scripture to the people one year at the Feast of Tabernacles.
In Acts 12, when Agrippa entertains the leaders of Tyre of Sidon in Caesarea, he is 56 years old and at the top of his game. The Jewish historian Josephus also describes this occasion, and does so in a way that is remarkably similar to today’s passage in Acts:
On the second day of the spectacles [Herod Agrippa] put on a garment made wholly of silver, of a truly wonderful texture, and came into the theater early in the morning. There the silver of his garment, being illuminated by the fresh reflection of the sun’s rays, shone out in a wonderful manner, and was so resplendent as to spread awe over those that looked intently upon him. Presently his flatterers cried out, one from one place, and another from another, (though not for his good) that he was a god; and they added, “Be thou merciful to us; for although we have hitherto reverenced thee only as a man, yet shall we henceforth own thee as superior to mortal nature.” Upon this the king neither rebuked them nor rejected their impious flattery. Josephus Antiquities 19.8.2 344-345
Agrippa should have known better than to allow people to acclaim him, in Luke’s words: “The voice of a god, and not of a mortal!” (Acts 12:22). It’s ironic that it is the leaders of Tyre who are there to implore Agrippa’s help that day. Centuries before, the prophet Ezekiel had warned the King of Tyre that their king is “a mere mortal and not a god,” and that he “will die a violent death” (Ezekiel 28:2,8). Though Josephus and the Book of Acts differ slightly in their details, they both describe Agrippa being struck down by intestinal disease that day, dying an ignominious and painful death. Acts says, “And immediately, because he had not given the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died” (Acts 12:23). Writing in Acts, Luke’s perspective is that Agrippa’s self-idolatrous pretensions result in his becoming worm food.
Life in Jesus, the great I AM. “Whoever keeps my word will never die. … Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I AM” — The secret of the Bible is that a Job can go desperately low, yet without losing hope, and that an Agrippa’s seemingly divine splendor will be shown to be the sham that it really is. That secret is that the One who is Life itself has walked among us, and lives among us still. The staggering claim that he makes for himself in John 8, is that he existed before Abraham some 2000 years prior. The claim, in fact, is one of eternal pre-existence, an astonishing claim: Jesus states that he IS God, the I AM of the Old Testament, the I AM of the Exodus, the I AM who spoke to Moses. Jesus’ hearers know this is exactly what he is claiming. They are ready to stone him because claiming to be God is blasphemy. (Unless, as in this case, it happens to be TRUE!) Jesus = God is a mystery that we will never “solve,” but that we must take into account, and that we can even marvel in. Because Jesus came from eternity, he is able to carry us to eternity. He makes “eternal life” reside in his people, even now: “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). I pray you know that life—his very presence—in you, now and forever.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Midday Eucharist
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 26; Psalm 28; Job 12:1, 13:3-17,21-27 (per BCP) or Job 12:1; 13:1-27; Acts 12:1-17; John 8:33-47
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)
Interesting “takes” on freedom in today’s readings.
Job’s freedom to be honest with his friends. If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom! … Will you speak falsely for God, and speak deceitfully for him? … Your maxims are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay. — Job 13:5,7,12.
Job’s freedom to be honest about his approach to God. See, he will kill me; I have no hope; but I will defend my ways to his face. This will be my salvation, that the godless shall not come before him. — Job 13:15-16.
Job feels free enough to speak honestly to God even if it is in an angry and frustrated fashion. He is free from the need to “speak falsely for God.” One simple lesson from today’s Old Testament reading: it’s better to say, “I don’t get it,” than to pretend that you do.
Jesus’s promise of freedom. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. — John 8:36.
Jesus’s deniers are certainly not free, despite their protests to the contrary. They are children of their father the devil, and can only do his bidding. The devil is a “murderer” and a “liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44), and so they can only believe a lie and wreak destruction on the people around them.
The opponents in Jesus’s dialogue are defining themselves by their lineage: “We are descendants of Abraham,” they say, “and have never been slaves to anyone” (John 8:33). (Let’s ignore for the moment Israel’s actual history, as well as the fact that they are living under occupation by the Roman army where their freedoms are restricted.) For Jesus’s opponents, their ancestry is their identity. And thus they are trapped. They can’t see that there is a higher calling, something greater than ethnic identity and loyalty. Failing to recognize that Jesus comes from the Heavenly Father, they show themselves to belong to the family of the one that Jesus calls “your father the devil” (John 8:44).
Implication: To the extent that I identify myself in terms of my background or heritage, my “fill-in-the-blankness,” I cannot see that the source of genuine freedom is knowing, loving, and being loved by Jesus Christ. Not only that, but defining life through loyalty to “my group” forces me to define other people only in terms of how like, or unlike, “my group” is to “their group.” In one of his most direct declarations thus far in John’s gospel, Jesus pronounces these people to be children of “your father the devil.” They are living in hell on earth. Lord Jesus, give me the freedom of the truth that in you, and in you only, lies all freedom, personal meaning, and power to inspire life in others.
Peter is freed from jail by an angelic visitation. Such power! With a touch of humor, Luke notes that when Peter knocks at the door, Rhoda the servant girl is so excited that she leaves him in the street while she runs back inside to tell everybody the good news. And, curiously, after this reunion, Peter “left and went to another place” (Acts 8:17). Indeed, he had plenty of work to do elsewhere, eventually rounding out his ministry, it appears, in Rome (1 Peter 5:13).
God, give us grace to believe that you have the power to remove whatever binds us: from determining who we are by where we come from, from feeling we can’t be honest with you about our hurts, or from any chains (physical or spiritual) that would hold us back from the ministry to which you have called us.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
Noonday Prayer
Daily Devotions with the Dean
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 25; Job 12:1-6,13-25 (per BCP) or Job 12:1-25; Acts 11:19-30; John 8:21-32
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)
Crises like those we in the USA face at the moment — COVID-19 especially, but also gun violence, racial reckoning, no-holds-barred politics — these unmoor us, and “force us to pause and question assumptions so deeply ingrained that we didn’t know we had them,” says author Eric Weiner. In doing so, they provide the opportunity to gain new perspectives.
Those at ease have contempt for misfortune, but it is ready for those whose feet are unstable — Job 12:5. In the midst of his personal crisis, Job sees something we all should be aware of all the time: the wise and virtuous can suffer, while the foolish and wicked can prosper. Job is a “laughingstock” to friends who look upon his sufferings and wrongly blame him for them. Sarcastically, he mocks their pretense to wisdom: “when you die, wisdom will die with you” (Job 12:3b JB). His friends’ simplistic formula (good always triumphs) doesn’t match the complexities of the moment (up is down, and down is up).
The presence of the Book of Job in the canon of Scripture is a good thing. It reminds us not to be shocked when things don’t work the way they are supposed to. Right now, we can’t share common air. Right now, we don’t have answers as to why a law enforcement officer would shoot a Black man in the back. Right now, we are watching the earlier noble battles for equality fought by Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, Jr., teeter on the precipice of unhinged self-expression and community-destruction.
He makes nations great, then destroys them; he enlarges nations, then leads them away. He strips understanding from the leaders of the earth, and makes them wander in a pathless waste (Job 12:23-24).
The presence of the Book of Job is good in another way: it makes us appreciate the distinctiveness of a redemption that comes at the hands of a Savior who steps into all of this “upside-downness,” taking it all into himself to turn it right side up.
In John’s Gospel the spiritual leaders (the Pharisees) are so confused about Jesus’s aims that they wonder if he isn’t suicidal: “Is the going to kill himself?” Like Job, he’s become a “laughingstock” at best, an object of derisive pity at worst. The supposed leaders cannot understand that the great “I AM” is walking among them (John 8:23), nor that this revelation will take place when he is “lifted up” (John 8:28). Lifted up on his Cross, the Son of Man will bring both healing from sin’s destructive power (John 3:14) and healing from humankind’s divisiveness (John 12:32). Who will be the laughingstock then?
When Jesus says, “the truth will make you free,” the truth to which he refers is twofold: first, his identity as the great I AM who has “become flesh and tabernacled among us” (John 1:14); and second, his mission to give his life to heal sinners and to reconcile the estranged.
This truth makes us free when we, his disciples, “abide in my word” (John 8:31 NASB). That is to say, the freedom Jesus promises comes not by mere passing familiarity with a verse here or there: a prooftext to support a precommitment, or a slogan to promote a cause. The freedom comes from daily, and moment-by-moment, immersion in his words, his thoughts, and his actions as they are conveyed to us here in John and in the other books of the Bible. And from immersive prayer in community with fellow travelers who follow him. That freedom comes when, like Job, we hear the chaotic noise around us, but unlike Job, we also hear the clear strong voice of the One that says: “I AM—I AM the Light of the World … the Resurrection and the Life … the Good Shepherd … the Door for the Sheep … the Bread from Heaven … the True Vine … the Way, the Truth, and the Life … believe in me.”
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+