Friday • 1/28/2022
Friday of 3 Epiphany, Year Two

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 40; Psalm 54; Genesis 17:15–27; Hebrews 10:11–25; John 6:1–15

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)

Wisdom from Hebrews

One and done. “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” — Hebrews 10:14. Seldom does Scripture bring the breathtaking scope of salvation into such sharp focus, a salvation that is past, present, and future.

Christ made a single offering of himself (“for by a single sacrifice”) in the past to cover our sin. Therefore, a perfection or completeness of our humanity will be ours forever (“for all time”) after the Lord returns in glory. But even in the meantime, the writer can assert that we already stand in that perfection or maturity in God’s eyes (“he has perfected”). And in this meantime, we are in the process of being transformed in the direction of that perfection or maturity; the last phrase is more accurately rendered in the progressive present tense: “…those who are being sanctified (hagiazomenoi).”

There is a past, present, and future to our salvation that mirrors the great confession of faith: “Christ has died (he won our forgiveness). Christ is risen (he lives to sanctify us by his Spirit). Christ will come again (he will bring us to the perfection of resurrection).” Praise be!

Holy amnesia! “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more” — Hebrews 10:17. In this verse, the writer to the Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31:34. That verse takes its place in a cluster of Old Testament verses that describe a final and definitive putting away of our sin: “… you have cast all my sins behind your back (Isaiah 38:17b) … I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins (Isaiah 43:25) … You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19b) … as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). As otherwise irreverently unhelpful as this simile sounds initially, it is as though the omniscient, eternity-inhabiting, creator-of-time-itself God of the universe, by virtue of the Cross of Christ, comes down with Alzheimer’s Disease in this one respect: he just can’t remember us as sinners! Praise be!

In sync. “…let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” — Hebrews 10:22. What’s especially lovely in this verse is the wedding of external and internal. The notion of approaching (I’m reminded of the act of coming forward for Communion) and the idea of bodies being washed (baptism, of course) are physical acts.

Each of these physical acts is paired with something internal. We dare to approach because faith in who God is, and what he has done for us in Christ, gives us confidence that we are welcome. We desire to approach because deep in our innermost being, our “heart,” we know that here in God’s presence is the only love that will ever satisfy. We give our bodies over to the waters of baptism with the confident prayer that God will do what only God can do: grant our inner being a liberating sense that we have been cleansed. While our heads can tell us that God no longer holds our offenses against us (see verse 17 above), deep down in our guts we need an intuitive conviction that we are no longer dirty. Praise be!

It’s a together thing. “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together…” — Hebrews 10:24. Just as external practices and internal reflection reinforce each other, so it is with individual and corporate experience. I need you to prompt me to believe, and I depend on you to inspire me to love. You need me for the same. A friend used to tell me, “There are no Lone Ranger Christians. Even the Lone Ranger wasn’t a Lone Ranger. Tonto helped make him what he was.” The way it works in the Body of Christ is that on one day, I may be Tonto to your Lone Ranger, and on another, you may be Tonto to my Lone Ranger. Regardless, we can’t live this life without each other — and what a life it is! Praise be!

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: ABC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons