Thursday • 11/9/2023 •
Thursday of the Twenty-third Week After Pentecost (Proper 26) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 71; Ezra 7:1–26; Revelation 14:1–13; Matthew 14:1–12 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of 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. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 26 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Unholy trinity. In Revelation 13 (delicately skipped over by the Daily Lectionary), an “unholy trinity” has risen up against God, the Lamb, and his people. Empowered by the dragon Satan, a beast comes up out of the sea (the sea is often a symbol of chaos in the Bible). The beast is a parody of Christ: he appears to have been killed but was healed. He leads the world in worship of the dragon, and then himself receives worship along with the dragon. This beast’s words (in perfect mockery of the true Christ—see Matthew 11:25–30), are proud and blasphemous (Revelation 13:5). The beast that emerges from the sea appears to be the figure John refers to in his epistles as “Antichrist” (1 John 2:18,22, 4:3)

While most interpreters focus on what this horrible imagery means for the future of the church and the world, it is important to notice, I think, that the season of the rule of this first beast is forty-two months (the symbolic length of time for the persecuted church). As John says in his epistles, “antichrist” and many embodiments of “antichrist” are already among us (1 John 4:3; 2 John 7).  

Meanwhile, a second beast emerges that has the power to give life to the image of the first beast, and to work miracles—deluding, deceiving miracles. There arises full throttled rebellion by the anti-trinity of dragon, first beast, and second beast. This rebellion will at some future date launch a concentrated attack, but it’s a rebellion with which the church must contend throughout this age of “already and not yet.”  

In view of the campaign of the dragon and the two beasts, what’s called for from us, says Revelation 13:10, is endurance and faith. Today’s reading in Revelation 14 underscores, and indeed, heightens this point.  

A church united in suffering and praise. In Revelation 14, John reprises the joint picture he had painted in Revelation 7 of a church comprised of the full number of faithful Israelites and of the myriad from all the nations to whom the eternal gospel is proclaimed. Even while soberly recounting the tribulations they undergo, John finds them joining the song of victory that resounds in heaven.  

The great choice in life is whether or not to receive the name of the Lamb and his Father on one’s forehead: “Then I looked, and there was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion! And with him were one hundred forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads” (Revelation 14:1).  

It is not inconsequential, I think, that in the ancient church, anointing oil would be applied to the forehead at baptism, when a person is sealed in Christ, declared “child of God,” and given their “new name.” As first fruits of God’s new creation, the baptized bear God’s name and announce his “eternal gospel” to the world.  

Choose wisely. By contrast, those who do not receive that sacrament will find themselves receiving an ugly parody of chrismation: “Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands…” (Revelation 14:9b). In addition, they will find that because they refused Jesus’s offer of the Bread from Heaven and the Cup of Salvation, “they will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger…” (Revelation 14:10a).  

The same choice lies before all of us as lay before characters in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: “Choose wisely.” A cup of death, or a cup of life.  

John is shown that Babylon (a symbol of the human quest to overthrow God) will fall, if not immediately, then nonetheless inevitably. In the meantime, believers of every time and place (from the 7 churches of Revelation to the churches of our own day, and beyond) are given a threefold challenge:  

Endure. Obey. Believe. “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12). Our challenge is, first, to endure with grace and courage all that comes our way, second, to obey God’s Word rather than our own predilections, and, third, to believe in the finished work of Jesus on the cross and his ongoing work in our lives and in our world.  

And we are given a singular promise: our deaths are neither wasted nor to be lamented: “And I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them’” (Revelation 14:13).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+