This is the first in a series of devotions based on the Daily Office, which is found in the Book of Common Prayer.

“Social distancing” can be, at one and the same time, lonely and suffocating.

Lonely because you’re isolated from friends and coworkers.

Suffocating if there’s no break, on the one hand, from family (and maybe work-from-home?) obligations, and, on the other, from bombardment by media with oppressive and frightening words: pandemic … testing … economic collapse … hoarding … escalating deaths.

One way to resist the loneliness is to join millions around the world who practice Daily Morning Prayer, a daily routine of Scripture reading and of prayer (I follow the Book of Common Prayer 1979’s, Rite II, pp. 75–102). In Daily Morning Prayer (shorthand for which can be the “Daily Office” or simply the “Office”), Scripture reading is governed by a lectionary that takes us all together over time through the Bible’s amazing story of God’s saving, loving grace. And prayers are guided by biblical canticles and daily themes, uniting our hearts to lift “one voice,” and freeing space for our individual hearts to voice their unique needs.

When I pray the Daily Office, I know that Jesus’s promise is being fulfilled, the one that says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” I know that friends around the world are doing exactly what I am doing. We become Christ’s Body gathered throughout space, and even throughout time, as we read what someone has called “ancient words ever true” and as we pray prayers crafted over centuries by godly hearts.

At the same time that I resist loneliness through the Office, I push back against the suffocation of the day’s pressing demands and the oppressing assault of the news cycle. Instead, I breathe the fresh air of God’s promises, and I take my place among the kingdom of priests that intercede for a world that one day will be released from its bondage to decay. In Scripture reading, I inhabit a world in which there is hope, and in prayer I defy the darkness that otherwise seems so prevalent.

Without a prayer book, the smoothest way to take the “on ramp” to the Office online is through a ministry called Mission St. Clare, where each day’s Office is posted in its entirety (go to https://www.missionstclare.com or download the Mission St Clare app for your smartphone or tablet).

You don’t have to be alone. You can be a part of a vast family united by Word and prayer. You don’t have to be suffocated by obligations and fear. You can take in the vivifying truths of God’s goodness and offer up in prayer the world he promises to restore.

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Yesterday’s Scriptures were: Psalms 97 & 99; Gen. 49:29–50:14; 1 Cor. 11:17–34; Mark 8:1-10

From yesterday’s reading in Genesis, specifically ch. 50, v. 29, “Then [Jacob] charged them, saying to them, ‘I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my ancestors…’”

As Jacob contemplated his own death, his preeminent concern was to be “gathered to my people.” He had a hint, it would seem, that death did not destroy fellowship. These were the sort of hints that Jesus Christ would gather up into the great confession that our God is the God of the living and not the dead (Matthew 22:32)—and, by implication, of a family and nation that transcends death.

And so I pray for you this day, that you will know no fear of death, nor of ultimate separation from God or from loved ones. May you know, by virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, your place in a family that is forever. May you know that for the faithful, “life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place”—the gathering of a family unbounded by death — “eternal in the heavens.”

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Today's scriptures are: Psalms 101 & 109; Genesis 50:16–26; 1 Corinthians 12:1–11; Mark 8:11–26
 
A couple of brief observations from today’s passage in Genesis.
 
Joseph’s story closes out. Two strong notes stand out: forgiveness and an expectation for a homecoming. Genesis being a Book of “Beginnings,” these notes recall themes from the beginning of the story.
 
First, Jacob wants the story line of contention between his sons to turn to one of reconciliation—a reversal of the animosity between the first two sons of Adam: Cain & Abel. In the long run, hate will not win, love will.
 
Second, Joseph expects to end his days in Egypt, but he knows his ultimate destiny lies back in Israel. The human race has been excluded from the Garden for now—but our destiny is back home, not through fruitless efforts at replanting the Garden ourselves, but through God’s inexorable plan to restore all things and bring “a new heaven and a new earth.”
 
The larger story of reconciliation and homecoming that Genesis has begun continues (with tomorrow’s reading) in the book of Exodus.
 
My prayer for you this day: Lord Christ, where relationships are broken, please bring healing, forgiveness, restoration—where separation remains necessary, grant wisdom, patience, and freedom from bitterness and anger. If your children, Heavenly Father, feel disorientation, would you center them in your strong love and give them hope, a sense of their place in your family in the now, and a strong confidence in “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven” (1 Peter 1:4). Amen.

Blessings on you this day.

Reggie Kidd+