Wednesday • 1/17/2024 •
Wednesday of 2 Epiphany, Year Two
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 38; Genesis 9:18–29; Hebrews 6:1–12; John 3:22–36
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)
Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Wednesday in the Second Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year 2 in the Daily Office Lectionary.
Genesis 9: a hitch in the new beginning. “Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. He drank some of the wine and became drunk, …” — Genesis 9:20. The translation “Noah was the first to plant a vineyard” is misleading. The text would be better rendered as “Noah planted a vineyard for the first time.” Likely he is both an inexperienced vintner and an inexperienced drinker. Wise is biblical counsel to enjoy wine, but not to excess (see Psalm 104:15; Proverbs 23:29–35).
“…and he lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father…” — Genesis 9:21a–22. The biblical language of “seeing the nakedness” of one’s father is delicate. While we don’t know the specific details of Ham’s sin against his father Noah, what he does is profoundly and inexcusably dishonoring. Yahweh covered Adam and Eve’s shame with clothes; Shem and Japheth do so with a garment for their father (Genesis 3:21; 9:23). Noah’s curse of Ham and his son Canaan accounts for the enmity throughout the Old Testament between Israelites (descendants of Shem) and the surrounding peoples: the Canaanites, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Assyrians.
The lines drawn here are not of race, but rather a matter of faith versus unfaith. Messiah will come from Israel, of the line of Shem. And through Messiah, all peoples will be blessed. That reality comes to fruition at Pentecost where all nations are represented at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and in the terms of the Great Commission, where the disciples are instructed to make disciples of all the nations. But the Old Testament, too, is replete with promises of the ultimate reconciliation of all people groups in the age of and through Israel’s Messiah: for example, “On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians” (Isaiah 19:23), and “Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon; Philistia too, and Tyre, with Ethiopia—'This one was born there,’ they say” (Psalm 87:4).
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John 3: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” John the Baptist stands at the summit of the history of the prophetic ministry that had been pointing forward to the coming of Messiah. John the Baptist is the culmination of that ministry, for the “forward” to which he points happens to be “now” to him! “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” he had declared (John 1:29). While John’s Gospel deftly and discreetly points to the arrest (and therefore to the subsequent martyrdom) of John the Baptist (John 3:24), this Gospel emphasizes John the Baptist’s realization of the monumental transition in the staging of God’s plan to redeem the world: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
Beautifully, gloriously, wonderfully, John the Baptist realizes that the Divine Bridegroom long anticipated and longed for in Scripture has come. The Bride, the church, has been prepared through the millennia of human history and Israel’s struggles. Now begins the celebration foreshadowed in Hosea’s ministry and Solomon’s Song of Songs, and even symbolized by Jesus’s “sign” at the Wedding of Cana (John 2). How can John be jealous that people are following Jesus, not him? The friend of the bridegroom is at the wedding to share in the bridegroom’s joy!
There’s a good word here for all of us who participate in church life. Our job is not to point to ourselves, the splendor of our buildings, the beauty of our music, the refinement of our gifts, much less the cultivation of our brand or the measuring of our following. We exist to point, constantly and faithfully, to the Bridegroom, and to rejoice in the honor of being called “Friend of the Bridegroom.”
Hebrews 6: Don’t even think about turning back. The congregation to whom the Epistle to the Hebrews is written is in danger of letting other things “increase” and Jesus “decrease.” The Greek of this epistle (or treatise) is the most complex in the New Testament, and its argumentation the most sophisticated.
There’s probably good reason for the writer to chide his readers about how they ought to be teachers (Hebrews 5:12). They’ve let themselves get sidetracked and nearly derailed because their view of Jesus has become diminished. What’s become more important to them is preservation of their national heritage: saving the earthly Jerusalem, protecting the temple, renewing its sacrifices, and reverting to an eschatological expectation that has more to do with angelic powers than with Messiah’s rule.
Here in Hebrews 6, the writer says he thinks “better things concerning you” when it comes to their grip on salvation (Hebrews 6:9). He nonetheless feels compelled to show them the absurd potential results of a drift into apostasy. It’s important for them firmly to hold onto truths they are in danger of forgetting. In Christ they have come to the heavenly Jerusalem (Hebrews 12:22). They are beyond the need of the physical temple that is on the verge of passing away (Hebrews 8:13). They need no sacrifices beyond the once for all sacrifice that Jesus has performed for them (Hebrews 10:10). And they are not to look forward to a day when angels will rule, because, in fact, when Christ comes back they will rule with him (Hebrews 2:5–13).
I think the anonymous writer should be taken at his word: he genuinely thinks better of this congregation than that they would overthrow their faith in Christ for something less. Nonetheless, he wants them to see what an impossible position they would put themselves in if they turned their back on their once-crucified, now-risen-and-mediating, and one-day-returning Prophet, Priest, and King!
I pray we never ever lose sight of what a wonderful gift it is that we have in Jesus, what an honor it is to be not just “Friend of the Bridegroom,” but his Bride. And what a joy it is, even as the Bride of the Bridegroom from Heaven, to say, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+