Wednesday • 3/29/2023 •
Week of 5 Lent
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:145–176; Jeremiah 25:30–38; Romans 10:14–21; John 10:1–18
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 of the fifth week of Lent. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.
It so happens that the very first posting of these Devotions appeared on the Wednesday of the fifth week of Lent in the year 2020, at the beginning of the outbreak of a worldwide pandemic.
On this anniversary of a sorts, I’d like return to some orienting thoughts I offered at the time. Here’s an excerpt from the first Devotional I wrote:
“Social distancing” can be, at one and the same time, lonely and suffocating.
Lonely because you’re isolated from friends and coworkers.
Suffocating if there’s no break, on the one hand, from family (and maybe work-from-home?) obligations, and, on the other, from bombardment by the media with oppressive and frightening words: pandemic … testing … economic collapse … hoarding … escalating deaths.
One way to resist loneliness is to join millions around the world who practice Daily Morning Prayer, a daily routine of Scripture reading and of prayer (I follow the Book of Common Prayer 1979’s, Rite II, pp. 75–102). In Daily Morning Prayer (shorthand for which can be the “Daily Office” or simply the “Office”), Scripture reading is governed by a lectionary that takes us all together over time through the Bible’s amazing story of God’s saving, loving grace. And prayers are guided by biblical canticles and daily themes, uniting our hearts to lift “one voice,” and freeing space for our individual hearts to voice their unique needs.
When I pray the Daily Office, I know that Jesus’s promise is being fulfilled, the one that says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” I know that friends around the world are doing exactly what I am doing. We become Christ’s Body gathered throughout space, and even throughout time, as we read what someone has called “ancient words ever true” and as we pray prayers crafted over centuries by godly hearts.
At the same time that I resist loneliness through the Office, I push back against the suffocation of the day’s pressing demands and the oppressing assault of the news cycle. Instead, I breathe the fresh air of God’s promises, and I take my place among the kingdom of priests that intercede for a world that one day will be released from its bondage to decay. In Scripture reading, I inhabit a world in which there is hope, and in prayer I defy the darkness that otherwise seems so prevalent. …
You don’t have to be alone. You can be a part of a vast family united by Word and prayer. You don’t have to be suffocated by obligations and fear. You can take in the vivifying truths of God’s goodness and offer up in prayer the world he promises to restore.
As we travel in this next through the other half of the Old Testament and repeat the whole of the New Testament, may God richly form us in his Son, by the Spirit as we read and pray together.
Image: Historien d'art, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Now, for today’s readings: Wednesdays always take us through a portion of Psalm 119. Today’s section reminds us that we need fear nothing in this life. “You, O Lord, are near at hand, and all your commandments are true. Long have I known from your decrees that you have established them forever” (Psalm 119:151–152 BCP). May the nearness of the Lord and the truth of his Word sustain us this and every day.
Jeremiah offers heartening words for those of us who grow weary of the “bad guys” always seeming to win, of evil seeming consistently to triumph over good, and of error seeming to be more plausible than truth to too many. Jeremiah promises that Yahweh will not let evil and error triumph: “Like a lion he has left his covert” (Jeremiah 25:38). One day, he will roar, and he will set all things to rights.
Romans. Until that day, Paul urges us with joy to be about the task of proclaiming the fact that in the midst of the fallenness and brokenness of the human condition, God has planted his standard. God has raised his Son from the dead as the beginning of the setting of all things to right, and as a refuge against the coming storm of judgment. Our chief task until he comes again is to proclaim that good news: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:15; quoting Isaiah 52:7). May we take our part in telling the good news of God’s risen Son. May we enjoy the beauty of participating in God’s reclaiming lost souls for his “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15).
John introduces us today to one of his favorite themes. Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Fierce though he may be in judgment against the false shepherds and the wolves, fiercer still is he in his love for his sheep. Fierce enough to give his life that they may live. May we know beyond a shadow of a doubt the ferocity—and the tenderness—of his love.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+