Tenderness: Ours, and God's - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/13/2024 •

Friday of Proper 18

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 40; Psalm 54; Acts 15:12-21; John 11:30-44

Job 42 (a departure from the Book of Common Prayer)

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)

As I noted on Monday, we are jumping ahead in our Old Testament readings to the last chapters of the Book of Job, today to Job 42.

Job is restored. Despite appearances, the happiest part of the happy ending of the Book of Job is not the restoration of the sufferer’s fortunes (42:10-17). I don’t mean to minimize Job’s receiving “twice as much as he had before” (42:10). However, the real climax of the story lies in Job’s words to the Lord, “But now my eyes see you” (42:5b), and in the Lord’s words to Eliphaz, “And my servant Job shall pray for you” (42:8b). 

Image: William Blake , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“But now my eyes see you.” In his striving for an audience with God his “tormentor,” Job had dared to hope that after his death he might “see” God, and in him see his Advocate and Friend (19:25-27). Yahweh has done so much more than that. Yahweh has pulled back the curtain between heaven and earth, if only to show Job his own limitedness and Yahweh’s incomprehensibility. In doing so, God has permitted Job to see as much of Yahweh’s own self as a human can stand. Job has taken his place alongside Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah as those who have “seen” the invisible, eternal, and almighty God. And for Job, that is more than sufficient. As Peter Kreeft puts it: “Here God answers Job’s deepest heart quest: to see God face to face; to see Truth, not truths; to meet Truth, not just to know it” (Kreeft, Three Philosophies, p. 92). 

“And my servant Job shall pray for you.” Throughout the Book of Job, his friends have mouthed many abstract truths about God. But the only person who has spoken directly to God is Job. Even if his thoughts have been confused, he has known to Whom to go with his confusion. God’s verdict is that Job alone has spoken truthfully. His friends, by contrast, have lobbed mortars of “truths” (we might say that they have fired off “Bible bullets”)—but they have not spoken truthfully. 

So, now, the second thing that makes for a happy ending to the book is that Yahweh calls upon Job to pray for his friends. Ministry flows out of a real relationship with the Living God, not out of a lot of head knowledge about the idea of God. Here is a powerful anticipation of the Apostle Paul’s discovery that it is the consoled who can console: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). 

Jesus weeps. The Job story’s tenderness towards the friends is its own indication that there’s more to the God of Job than the high and mighty Tester of souls, spinner-outer of the stars, and manufacturer of Behemoth and Leviathan. That is what makes today’s account of Jesus at the tomb of his friend Lazarus so wonderful. God-in-flesh has tears sliding down his cheeks as he beholds the grief of Lazarus’s circle of friends and family. His heart is breaking for them, but Jesus feels something stronger as well (John 11:35). God-in-flesh shudders within himself in rage at what death does to God’s image-bearers. (Here please note that the NRSV is entirely too tame, twice offering “he was greatly disturbed in spirit” when the Greek in this passage really denotes rage! — John 11:33,38). And God-in-flesh has come to do something about it. He will take it all into himself when he is lifted up on his Cross. In advance of that, he stands with weeping friends and makes their sorrow his. He will not let them weep alone. He will cry with them. 

What we learn from John 11 is that the God who weeps at the sadness of his friends, stays alongside each of us through burials, sicknesses, bouts of depression, spiritual turmoil, broken relationships, seasons of apathy or aloneness, sorrow at global unrest (as the date September 11 has reminded us ever since that blue-sky Tuesday morning in 2001)—and he weeps with us. He sighs as you sigh, shudders as you shudder, and matches you tear for tear. As Jesus wept on the way to the tomb of his friend, people exclaimed, “See how he loved him!” So Jesus loves you now. And just as he called then, “Lazarus, come out!” so will he do for you. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Right On Time - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/12/2024 •

Thursday of Proper 18

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 50; Acts 15:1-11; John 11:17-29

Job 41 (a departure from the Book of Common Prayer)

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)

Lessons on humility from Behemoth and Leviathan. As we saw yesterday, Yahweh is reducing Job to the realization that he does not have the capacity to defeat the powerful and the proud: “Look on all who are proud, and bring them low; tread down the wicked where they stand. … Then I will also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can give you victory” (Job 40:11-12). As final proof of Job’s incapacity, Yahweh brings forth two untamable monsters, Behemoth and Leviathan. 

Behemoth (literally, “Beasts”) is a huge vegetarian beast that lives in the marshes (40:15,21). It is powerful (“its limbs like bars of iron” … “if the river is turbulent, it is not frightened”), if not especially dangerous. Who could tame it (“can one … pierce its nose with a snare”)? Who would want to tame it? A strong strand of scholars’ commentary on Job suggests that the prototype for Behemoth is the hippopotamus. If so, the poetic imagery expands its proportions: “It makes its tail stiff like a cedar … It is the first of the great acts of God” (Job 40:19). The modern reader—well, this one, at least—can almost not think of a huge dinosaur like the brontosaurus or the stegosaurus. The Behemoth is an ancient curiosity of God’s inventiveness—its “why” and “wherefore” are beyond Job’s comprehension. 

Leviathan, the main topic of Job 41, appears in other biblical passages as a terrifying and dangerous sea dragon (Psalm 104:26; Isaiah 27:1; Psalm 74:13-14—see also Job 3:8; 7:12). It’s curious to me that Peter Kreeft credits J. R. R. Tolkien with translating the Book of Job for the Jerusalem Bible, when Tolkien himself says that the only translation he managed for that project was Jonah (Peter Kreeft Three Philosophies of Life, p. 62; Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, p. 378). Still, the description of Leviathan in Job looks so much like Tolkien’s dragon Smaug in The Hobbit that it’s not difficult for me to imagine Tolkien finding inspiration from this text in Job: 

Can you fill its skin with harpoons? …
No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up. …
Who can penetrate its double coat of mail? …
Its back is made of shields in rows, shut up closely as with a seal. 
Its sneezes flash forth light …
From its mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap out.
Out of its nostrils comes smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
Its breath kindles coals, and a flame comes out of its mouth.
Its heart is as hard as stone…
When it raises itself up the gods are afraid…
Though the sword reaches it, it does not avail,
nor does the spear, the dart, or the javelin….
The arrow cannot make it flee…
it laughs at the rattle of javelins. …
On earth it has no equal, a creature without fear.  

Many commentators find the prototype of Leviathan in the crocodile—but if so, the poetic imagery leaves that point of departure in the dust. Here is a monstrously terrifying creature. Tellingly, for the lesson in humility that Yahweh is impressing upon Job, the description concludes: “It surveys everything that is lofty; it is king over all that are proud” (Job 41:34). 

Image: "Time" by John-Morgan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

“Four days late…” There is only One who is powerful enough to conquer Leviathan, the deadly dragon. There is only One who is ancient enough to comprehend Behemoth, God’s oddity. That is the One who, in John’s Gospel, comes for Lazarus—the One who comes, as the gospel song by Karen Peck and New River says, “Four Days Late … and Right on Time.” (songwriters: Aaron and Roberta Wilburn):

The news came to Jesus: “Please, come fast,
Lazarus is sick and without Your help he will not last.”
Mary and Martha watched their brother die.
They waited for Jesus, He did not come,
And they wondered why.

The deathwatch was over, buried four days.
Somebody said, “He’ll soon be here, the Lord’s on His way.”
Martha ran to Him and then she cried,
“Lord, if you had been here, You could have healed him.
He’d still be alive…

“But You’re four days late and all hope is gone.
Lord, we don’t understand why You’ve waited so long.”
But His way is God’s way, not yours or mine.
And isn’t it great, when He’s four days late
He’s still on time.

Jesus said, “Martha, show me the grave.”
But she said, “Lord, You don’t understand,
He’s been there four days.”
The gravestone was rolled back, then Jesus cried,
“Lazarus come forth!” Then somebody said,
“He’s alive, he’s alive!”

You may be fighting a battle of fear.
You’ve cried to the Lord, “I need You now.”
But He has not appeared.
Friend don’t be discouraged,
‘Cause He’s still the same.

He’ll soon be here, He’ll roll back the stone,
And He’ll call out your name

When He’s four days late and all hope is gone,
Lord, we don’t understand why You’ve waited so long.
But His way is God’s way, not yours or mine.
And isn’t it great, when He’s four days late,
He’s still on time.
God, it’s great, when He’s four days late
He’s still on time …

“If you had been here…” An underappreciated, but wonderful, part of the story of the raising of Lazarus is contained in our reading today in John 11. As Jesus arrives in Bethany, Martha (sister of Lazarus) comes to meet him. Yes, this is the whining, complaining Martha of Luke’s gospel (“Jesus, can’t you get my sister Mary to help me? I’m doing all the work here all by myself.”) In our reading today, Martha says to Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died” (verse 21). At first glance, this looks like another complaint from the familiar fault-finding Martha we know from Luke. But there’s something different here. Martha goes on to express a belief that Jesus can bring Lazarus back to life. She is hesitant to dare to ask outright for that miracle. She cautiously hints instead: “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” (v. 22)

“Yes, Lord, I believe…” When Jesus tells her Lazarus will rise again, she’s not exactly sure what he’s telling her. It’s as if she can’t presume to hope for Lazarus’s death to be reversed. She hedges: “I know he will rise again at the resurrection.” And that’s when Jesus drops another of the “I AM” statements we find in the book of John. This one’s a bombshell: “I am the resurrection.” Those who believe in him, though they will die, they will live, Jesus says. He asks Martha if she believes this. And what we get from Martha is the clearest, most emphatic recognition of Jesus by anyone in the entire book of John: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” To grasp the import of this statement from Martha, we only have to compare it to Peter’s declaration in Matthew 16, where Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:16-17). 

Martha recognizes Jesus as God even when a miracle seems far-fetched. Job never loses trust in God even when his own restoration seems unrealistic. What gifts these stories of faith are for us!  Do we trust that he will always be “on time” for us? I hope we all do.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Suffering and the Christian Life - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/11/2024 •

Wednesday of Proper 18

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:49-72; Acts 14:19-28; John 11:1-16 

Job 40 (a departure from the Book of Common Prayer)

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 & the Problem of Evil. Throughout the Book of Job, Yahweh is there, and he is not disengaged. It’s not that he doesn’t listen; thus, he speaks from quite near us, within the very chaos (“the whirlwind”) that surrounds us (Job 38:3; 40:6). However, he would have us understand that his moral governance of the universe includes: a) things that appear to us to be evil or harmful or bad; and b) things that appear to us to be arbitrary or frivolous or meaningless. It is prideful to think that we can wrap our heads around it all, much less do a better job running things if we were in charge. 

Yahweh’s final proofs will be the Behemoth (Job 40) and the Leviathan (Job 41), both of which are beyond human comprehension and control, and each for its own reason. I will compare their attributes tomorrow. But for today, notice the first half of chapter 40. The most dangerous idea that Job has flirted with is the idea that there is a law of justice that stands higher than God himself, and to which God must be held answerable. 

Image: Jules Bastien Lepage / MBA Nancy, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

God’s answer is basically that there is a pride in the human heart that you, Job, cannot fix: “Look on all who are proud, and bring them low; tread down the wicked where they stand… Then I will acknowledge to you that your right hand can give you victory” (Job 40:11-12,14).  Here is OT scholar Bruce Waltke’s elegant summary: “Human beings cannot impose through irresistible power from the top on down perfect justice. God did not endow them with the power to impose a utopian state here and now (v. 14)” (Waltke, Old Testament Theology, pp. 942-943). 

Evil sucks. Even so, in this fallen world it has its place in God’s governance. What makes him God is that his good governance allows for and works through the existence of evil in humans, and of harmfulness, arbitrariness, and frivolity in the natural world. 

As he is beginning to understand all this, Job wisely shuts his mouth: “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but will proceed no further” (Job 40:4-5). 

Not that Job leaves us with a counsel of despair. Not that silence in the face of the impossibility of attaining perfect justice means resignation to, or compliance with, the reign of evil in this life. No, it means simply giving up triumphalistic delusions about our own powers to right all wrongs, not to mention to dictate the terms of our “best life now.”  

There is good counsel and helpful perspective in today’s New Testament readings. 

John: Death & God’s Glory. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of God’s promise to put an end to evil once and for all, to overthrow death’s reign, and to end the long season of night that began in the Garden of Eden. John 11 chronicles one of the most magnificent displays of that promise in action. Jesus will proclaim himself in this chapter as “the Resurrection and the Life,” as proof of which he will raise his friend Lazarus from the dead. 

But today’s reading in John is merely the preface to that story. Here we find Jesus, having been informed that his friend is in danger of dying, intentionally staying away long enough to make sure that Lazarus is good and dead: “Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was” (John 11:5-6). What nobody else knows, but Jesus does, is that Lazarus’s dying “is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). 

Hard to swallow though it may be, that truth has animated generations of believers in Jesus Christ. Knowing that no death died in him is final, we see our deaths—and all the “little deaths” that lead up to it—as ways that God’s glory and the Son of God’s glory come to light. It’s why we can say, with Thomas (minus the Eeyore-like resignation), “Let us go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). 

Acts: Suffering & the Christian Life. A remarkable thing happens at the end of the First Missionary Journey, as Luke describes it in the Book of Acts. Paul has received brutal treatment in city after city on the mainland of Asia Minor. His last stop is Derbe, where there turns out to be a good reception. Surprisingly—indeed shockingly!—Paul turns around and retraces his steps through Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. He goes back to the cities from which he has been bounced, and in one case beaten and left for dead. 

He has two purposes. The first is to explain that the sufferings that the new believers in these cities had seen in him are part of the “normal” Christian life: “They strengthened the souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue in the faith, saying, ‘It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God’” (Acts 14:22). 

The second purpose is to put in place competent and godly leadership who can mold these new believers into churches, for worship, mutual support, and extension of the ministry: “And after they had appointed elders for them in each church, with prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the Lord in whom they had come to believe” (Acts 14:23).

What’s remarkable about Job is how much faith he exercises in the absence of the full revelation of “the Resurrection and the Life,” and minus the support of a community of faith to cheer him on. With so much more going for us on this side of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, may we know that in whatever whirlwind surrounds us, the same Lord is still present, still hears our cry, and still speaks. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

God's Own Dominion - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 9/10/2024 •

Tuesday of Proper 18

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; Acts 14:1-18; John 10:31-42

Job 39 (a departure from the Book of Common Prayer)

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)

There is delicious irony in the juxtaposition of today’s NT passages. 

Jesus is facing stoning for his claim: “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). Stoning is the punishment for blasphemy, so his interrogators have heard him correctly. Jesus belittles their incorrigible unbelief by calling up Psalm 82:6. There, mere human judges are called to execute God’s own justice for the benefit of others, and thus to share in this aspect of God’s attributes: “I said, you are gods” (John 10:34, quoting Psalm 82:6). If the Bible is willing to dignify mere humans as “gods” when they have been given the “godlike” task and status of reflecting God’s image (an irresistible thought for ancient church theologians—a notion to pursue on another occasion!), how readily apparent it should be to Jesus’s opponents that Jesus’s words and especially his works (“signs”) confirm that he is even more than that: “from the beginning,” both “with God” and “God” (John 1:1).  

Right in front of these spiritual dullards stands their “Good Shepherd,” (John 10:14), the physical embodiment of the prophet Ezekiel’s promise: “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice” (Ezekiel 34:15-16). To Jesus the Eternal Son, God the Father has given all judgment: “The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father” (John 5:22-23).

The occasion for this entire dialogue is the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22), celebrating the 2nd century bc liberation of the Temple from the pagan and self-idolizing Antiochus Epiphanes, and the re-consecration of the Temple to the service of Yahweh. How much more should people acclaim the coming of the One who has been consecrated by the Father (John 10:36) to raise up a new and better Temple (John 2:18-22)! 

Image: Johann Heiss , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By contrast, in Acts 14 Paul and Barnabas must intervene to prevent blasphemous worship of themselves. It is a predicament revealing a sadly humorous aspect of Lystra’s history. Because of their miracle-making, Paul and Barnabas are misidentified as Zeus and Mercury. (The citizens of Lystra believed they had missed a visitation by those very deities centuries before, and they were determined not to let that happen again.) The apostles insist that they are simply human bearers of good news that comes from “the living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them” (Acts 14:15). As Yahweh did with Job, they begin by pointing to the wonders of creation to help their audience reach proper conclusions about the relationship between Creator and creation: “… [God] has not left himself without a witness in doing good—giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy” (Acts 14:17). This teaching achieved only moderate success. The miracles of Paul and Barnabas were sufficiently impressive that some of the crowd continued to attempt to offer sacrifices to the apostles.

And then there’s Job. According to the NT Book of James, part of the dignity of human beings is that “every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species” (James 3:7). Yahweh, by contrast, wants Job to understand the limits of humans’ dominion over the animal kingdom. The Lord puts before Job the characteristics of one exotic creature after another that defy human comprehension and control. The single creature mentioned that humans are able to domesticate is the war horse. However, even in this case, while humans may direct the war horse’s energy, humans can never understand where its fury for battle comes from: “Do you give the horse its might?” (Job 39:19-25). 

In every other case, Job is confronted with incomprehensibilities in God’s design of his creatures. Why give the huge ostrich such impossibly small wings? Why the predation of the lion, the raven, and the eagle; yet the independence of the mountain goat, the wild ass, and the wild ox (or aurochs)? The list will continue in chapters 40 and 41 with the even more mysterious Behemoth and Leviathan. But the point is clear: although we humans have been given the mandate to exercise dominion under God, we will never understand some aspects of God’s own dominion over his creatures. God’s delight in variety will always outstrip our desire to control and to comprehend. And we should draw sound conclusions as regards our own lives. So much of Job’s own experience seems out of control. It is indeed unfathomable by any human accounting. Our faith in Yahweh must dwell in contentedness at never knowing everything there is to know about our own stories. 

Which takes us back to Jesus as Good Shepherd and as God-Incarnate. It is good to learn to rest in the knowledge that what we can neither control nor understand, he can and does—and that, to our benefit. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

When Yahweh Finally Speaks - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 9/9/2024 •

Monday of Proper 18

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Acts 13:44-52; John 10:19-30

Old Testament: Job 38

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)

Job 38–42: Yahweh answers Job out of the whirlwind. I don’t know how many times I’ve said: “I’m going to add that to my list of questions for God when I get to heaven.” If Job’s experience is any indication—and I think it is—the question looks like it’s going to be directed in the opposite direction: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? … I will question you, and you shall declare to me” (Job 38:3). 

Image: "dust devil" by [TheAsarya] is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

In Chapter 19, we saw Job expressing the extraordinary hope that he will “see” God. But Job ends his final complaint against God in Chapter 31 by returning to his oft-expressed demand that God “hear” him and answer his charges that God has been unfair to him: “O that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!)” — Job 31:35. 

In Chapters 38 through 42, God finally answers Job’s prayers. Several things to note:

First, throughout the dialogues or arguments between Job and his four friends, God had been referred to in less personal terms, as either “God” (Elohim) or “the Almighty” (Shaddai). When God reveals himself to Job, he does so in terms of his personal, covenant-making name, “Yahweh” (usually rendered the Lord in translations). 

Second, when Yahweh finally does speak there are matters that he never addresses. Job has been protesting his unjust treatment at the hand of God—why have such bad things happened to a good person? We the readers have known all along that Yahweh has been proving Job’s faith to heaven’s Accuser. Yahweh never offers Job any explanation. Even so, when Yahweh shows up, Job’s questions cease—his demand to know “Why?” disappears. We learn that what Job has needed all along is not answers, but the Answerer. 

Third, Yahweh never accuses Job of sin. He adjusts Job’s field of vision by taking him on a tour of the mysteries of creation. And Yahweh tells the friends that Job is the only one who has spoken truthfully the whole time. Even though just about every word that the friends have spoken is echoed elsewhere in Scripture, they have been totally wrong about the applicability to Job’s situation, and Job has been in the right: “You have not spoken of me what is right,” Yahweh tells Job’s friends, “as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). 

Job 38. What Psalm 19 (“The heavens are telling the glory of God”) and Romans 1 (“What can be known about God is plain to them … through the things he has made”) say succinctly, Job 38 says more expansively. In this chapter, Yahweh takes Job on something like an excursion through his creation. With one striking, gorgeous, and poetic metaphor after another, Yahweh invites—indeed, challenges—his image-bearer to receive the gift of createdness, and to marvel. 

The world is a vast edifice that has Yahweh as its designer and builder, from foundation-laying to capstone-setting (38:4-6). The stars had sung in praise of Yahweh’s craftsmanship—as Job is now invited to do (38:7). The sea is envisioned as a child at birth, with clouds as its swaddling clothes (38:8-11). Each morning’s dawn is like a housekeeper that opens the house to the newness of the day, shaking sleepers from their slumber (Job 38:12-15). Job hasn’t a clue as to subterranean wonders: the depths of the sea, the gates of death, the secret recesses of light and dark, how old the earth actually is (Job 38:16-21). Snow and hail presuppose a storekeeper. The east wind bespeaks one who summons it. Green vegetation springing up briefly in the desert whisper that there is one who delights in evanescence (38:22-27). The fact that constellations appear every night shouts that there are “ordinances in the heavens” (Job 38:31-33). That rains fall as though from tilted waterskins (not to mention lightnings that strike like called up soldiers), as Jesus will later say, “on the evil and on the good.” Everything testifies that there is a wisdom beyond ours (Job 38:34-38). 

Yahweh invites Job to look around himself—and the tour will continue in chapters 39–41, as we trace them Tuesday through Thursday. But we begin to see that God would stun us with the elegance of his grand design. For the modern reader, the effect of the poetry behind the science is to make our jaws drop … and to make our lists of questions fall from our hands to the ground. 

The prospect that the Book of Job puts before us—and by which he invites us even now to a perspectival shift—is that today’s “Oh, the tragedy!” will one day give way to “Oh the majesty!” 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

God My Redeemer - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/6/2024 •

Friday of Proper 17

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. 

Image: Orazio de Ferrari , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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 as 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+

Real Opportunity for Christ's Light - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/5/2024 •

Thursday of Proper 17

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)

Psalm 37. 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 will not be thwarted. (This Psalm is worth reading in its entirety this morning.)

Image: Attributed to Gerard Seghers , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Job. 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 beautifully illustrate this last point, that is, 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.” 

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+

The Secret of the Bible - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/4/2024 •

Wednesday of Proper 17

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. 

Image: Adaptation, Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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 rivaled 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+

You Will Be Free Indeed - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 9/3/2024 •

Tuesday of Proper 17

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)

Today’s readings offer life-giving “takes” on freedom.

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.    

Image: Alonso Cano , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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+

On Life in Crisis - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 9/2/2024 •

Monday of Proper 17

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)

Job on life in crisis. Crises emerge, evolve, turn lives upside, trade places with each other in the news cycle: pandemic, gun violence, racial reckoning, no-holds-barred politics, the specter of another world war. Crises 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. 

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay

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. When we can’t share common air — or in church, a common cup. When we can’t attend a 4th of July parade or go to the mall without fearing for our lives. When we can’t be sure the resolve to preserve democracy won’t wither in the face of autocracy. When a democratic way of life itself seems unsure of itself. 

As Job observes: 

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. 

Jesus steps into our crises. 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 pre-commitment, 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+

Jesus, Be Our Life - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 8/30/2024 •

Friday of Proper 16

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 16; Psalm 17; Job 9:1-15,32-35 (per BCP) or Job 9:1-35; Acts 10:34-48; John 7:37-52

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)

Life-giving water & unending light. To appreciate all that is going on in chapters 7-9 of John’s Gospel (the reading of these chapters will take us through next week), we need to understand two features of the Feast of Booths (also known as Feast of Tabernacles). In Exodus 23 and Leviticus 23, this seven-day long feast had been established to celebrate the end of the harvest season. By Jesus’s time, given the feast’s harvest theme, ceremonies in the Temple had taken on an end-times cast. The prophet Zechariah anticipated the day when God would bring unending light, and would cause “living water” to flow unendingly from the temple itself: 

On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity. … On that day there shall not be either cold or frost. And there shall be continuous day (it is known to the Lord), not day and not night, for at evening time there shall be light. On that day 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 13:1; 14:6-9, emphasis added). 

Image: "pouring water" by Kamoteus (A New Beginning) is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

And so, over the course of the week of the Feast of Tabernacles, pitchers of water from Jerusalem’s Gihon Springs would be poured onto the altar during the day, and menorahs would be lit at night—all of it in anticipation of the day when Yahweh would come in person and provide continuous light and ever-flowing, life-giving water. 

It turns out that though the “hour had not yet come” for Jesus to give himself up and to be glorified, the hour had indeed come for him to reveal himself as the source of living water (John 7:37-39) and as the Light of the World (John 8:12; 9:3). 

It is “on the last day of the festival, on the great day” that Jesus steps forward. This is the final day of the pouring of water on the altar. Imagine Jesus breaking into the scene to proclaim: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37b-38). John provides the explanation: “Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39).

Further, it is against this week-long festival’s celebration of God’s promise to usher in a season of continuous day that Jesus will proclaim himself to be the Light of the World in chapter 8, and then provide an illustrative sign through the healing of the man born blind in chapter 9. 

Small wonder John’s Gospel signals early on that “in him was life, and the life was the light of humankind” (John 1:4). By his death and resurrection, Jesus will release a life-renewing fountain of cleansing and healing through the Spirit of God: “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains” (Wm Cowper). Moreover, by his life and teaching, as well as his death and resurrection, Jesus will bring darkness to light and expose faux light for the darkness it is:

God sent the stars to give light to the world
The star of my life is Jesus
In Him there is no darkness at all
The night and the day are both alike
The Lamb is the light of the city of God
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus (Kathleen Thomerson). 

Jesus is Life—this is good to remember when death is everywhere, from toxic political discourse, to fear and distrust between races (which today’s reading about Peter in Cornelius’s house addresses), even to the air we breathe! Jesus, be our Life. 

Jesus is Light—this is also good to remember when darkness is everywhere, from international health crises, to social upheaval; from prevaricating pundits, to storms in the night; from political chaos at home, to the beating of war drums abroad. Jesus, be our Light. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+