Monday • 2/22/2021
Week of 1 Lent

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Deuteronomy 8:11–20; Hebrews 2:11–18; John 2:1–12

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one…. That is a literal rendering of the first phrase in Hebrews 2:11. Translators find a number of ways to bring out what the expression “from one” means: “of one Father,” “of one family,” “of one stock.” The point the writer to the Hebrews is making is that Jesus is our brother, and we have a shared life with him.

The benefits and the significance of the life that Jesus shares with us are inestimable. But that does not keep our eloquent writer from pursuing the idea. In his exploration of the topic, he leads with a wonderful litotes (understatement, by expressing a negative): “Jesus is not ashamed to call them (us!) brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:11). The affirmation that lies beneath this understatement is that Jesus delights in the fact that he is “bring[ing] many children to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). He has become what we are, to cite once again the ancient theologians, that we might become what he is. And as the writer to the Hebrews notes in chapter twelve, his work on our behalf has brought him joy. He disregarded the shame of the cross “for the sake of the joy set before him”—that joy being us! (Hebrews 12:2).  

There follow three lovely quotes from the Old Testament, all of which the writer to the Hebrews puts in the mouth of Jesus himself. It’s an extraordinary combination of truths:  

“I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.” — Hebrews 2:12 (from Psalm 22:22). When we gather, the ascended Jesus is somehow present to us and alongside us as a fellow worshiper. He leads us in worship by making God’s Word come alive in our hearts and by being the chief voice in our singing of the Father’s praise. For good reason, an ancient way of singing the Doxology was this: “Glory to the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit.” 

“I will put my trust in him.” — Hebrews 8:13a (from Isaiah 8:17; 12:2). Over and over again in the Old Testament, God’s message to his people was: Trust me! Listen to me! Don’t forget me! Remember me! 

In fact, within the ten verses of today’s passage in Deuteronomy, Moses warns God’s people not to forget Yahweh three times, and he tells them to remember him once—Deuteronomy 8:11,13,18,19. The NRSV translates the last verse of today’s passage from Deuteronomy as a warning that the people would perish if they would “not obey” Yahweh’s voice. That passage in the original Hebrew language states it is because they would “not listen to” Yahweh’s voice. Israel’s hardness of heart was really hardness of hearing. Because they didn’t listen, they couldn’t trust. 

At long last (“in these last days”), in Jesus, maintains the writer to the Hebrews, there is one true Israelite who trusts the Father. Finally, in Jesus, there is one Child who obeys. Finally, in Jesus, there is one Son who listens. Finally, in Jesus, One of us doesn’t forget. The wonder of it is that God’s Son does all this trusting and obeying and listening on our behalf. Some theologians refer to Jesus as exercising “vicarious faith.” Later, the writer to the Hebrews says, “he ever lives to intercede” for us (Hebrews 7:25). Jesus prays that his faith becomes our faith, his obedience ours, his patience ours, his endurance ours … his trust ours. 

Even when—maybe especially when—we feel we can’t trust God, we can trust Jesus’s trust for us. When our prayers feel feeble and ineffectual, as though they were simply bouncing off a concrete ceiling, we can count on Jesus’s prayers for us at the Father’s right hand. When we doubt our worthiness as sons and daughters, we can count on God’s Son, our Brother, continuing to call us what we are: “My brother! My sister!” When our grip on God loosens, we can count on Jesus’s grip on us not loosening, long enough for us to regain our grip. 

“Here am I and the children whom God has given me.” — Hebrews 2:13b (from Isaiah 8:18). Jesus takes our humanity to himself so that by dying as one of us he can cover our sin and release us from the finality of death (Hebrews 2:14–15). Our merciful and faithful High Priest experiences and resists temptations for us and dies for us. And because death cannot hold him, and because we live in him, death no longer brings the end for us; it merely marks a change. As the Eucharistic prayer in Commemoration for the Dead puts it: “For to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens” (BCP, p. 382). 

When the medieval Italian painter Giotto renders the scene of the Marriage at Cana (from today’s reading in John 2), he places the Eucharistic elements on the table. That simple table in Galilee becomes, for the redeemed Christian imagination, a symbol of the future Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Jesus turns vessels of water-purification into vessels for wine. In doing so, he celebrates not just the wedding of that day, but a greater wedding waiting at the end of time. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), Cappella Scrovegni a Padova, Life of Christ, Marriage at Cana. Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain