Thursday • 12/22/2022 •
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; Psalm 46; Isaiah 35:1–10; Revelation 22:12–17(18–20)21; Luke 1:67–80
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 this Thursday of the third week of Advent, as we begin a new year (Year 1) of the Daily Office Lectionary.
And today, we are taking a look at the readings for the morning of Christmas Eve: Isaiah 35:1–10; Revelation 22:12–20; and Luke 1:67–80.
Isaiah and hope: the song that never ends. From time to time our Old Testament readings remind us that despite all the travails and the judgments that Israel experiences, the message she bears for the world is ultimately one of hope. In Isaiah 35, the prophet receives an unusually—even for him!—uncanny picture of the salvation that is to come. On the far side of the denuding of the land and the decimation of the population by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, good things await. God’s people can expect their covenant-keeping God to pour his Spirit of life and fertility on their desolate land and to provide healing and life for their ailing and broken people. That’s who he is—that is his long-term commitment to them.
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy (Isaiah 35:5–6).
The child born in a manger this night will grow up to enact these very promises. For it is precisely in these terms that Jesus will answer the imprisoned John the Baptist as to whether he, Jesus, is in fact the one who is coming to redeem and rescue God’s people: ““Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them” (Luke 7:22).
Something to remember as we prepare to welcome his birth: though he is a unique singularity (“your only and eternal Son,” as the Eucharistic prayer goes), Jesus does not come in isolation. It’s just as Isaiah said it would be (though Isaiah put it in symbolic terms): “For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water” (Isaiah 35:6b,7a). The “bright morning star” and “the dawn from on high” do not come without bringing with them the full light of day (Revelation 22:16; Luke 1:78).
Jesus’s coming is accompanied by the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. His anointing at the River Jordan as Israel’s true Prophet, Priest, and King comes at the hand of no mortal. As all four gospel writers note, it comes by the descent of God’s Holy Spirit from God the Father, in the form of a dove (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:21–22; John 1:32–33). It is in that power that he defeats Satan in the wilderness; exorcises demons; raises the dead; and gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, strength of limb to the lame, and speech to those who cannot speak. It is a whole new order of peace, joy, and healing—the Age of the Spirit—that Christ’s birth ushers in.
And it is that very life that Jesus breathes into his disciples at his resurrection. It is that very life that he says pours out of himself into his followers:
“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.’’’ 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 7:37b–39).
Prepare! Come! On Christmas Eve it is appropriate to note that the New Testament’s story begins and ends with words of invitation. In the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, John the Baptist is born to call people to prepare for their rescue and for the gift of the forgiveness of their sins (Luke 1). Our story opens thus, with John the Baptist coming to baptize with the water of repentance. In the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, we read, “the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come’” (Revelation 22). They invite everyone who is thirsty for that rescue and its forgiveness to come and to drink. Our story—indeed, the whole Bible’s story—closes with “the Alpha and the Omega” providing “the water of life as a gift” (Revelation 22:13,17).
John the Baptist shouts, Prepare!
The anointing Spirit and the beautified Bride urge in tandem, Come!
Prepare! Come!
Collect of the Nativity of our Lord: Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+