Friday • 4/21/2023 •
Week of 2 Easter
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 16; Psalm 17; Daniel 3:1–18; 1 John 3:1–10; Luke 3:15–22
This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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)
Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives 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 Friday of the Second week of Easter. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!”
Psalm 17. “Deliver me, O Lord, by your hand from those whose portion in life is this world” (Psalm 17:14). In concert, today’s Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel readings urge us to consider the difference between having our “portion in life in this world,” and having it elsewhere.
Daniel—Nebuchadnezzar’s statue of gold. Today’s account in Daniel chapter 3 of King Nebuchadnezzar’s construction of a colossal golden statue in his own honor stands in jarring juxtaposition to the account we have just read in chapter 2 about his dream of a golden headed, top-heavy statue.
There’s continuity between the accounts, specifically in the theme of “gold” in each. In the dream of Daniel 2, Babylon is the kingdom of gold; the statue in Daniel 3 mirrors that fact, as the king portrays himself in gold. There’s discontinuity—in fact, profound incongruity—between the accounts when it comes to Nebuchadnezzar’s worship. Daniel’s interpretation of the dream leads Nebuchadnezzar to confess: “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings” (Daniel 2:47). Yet in the very next chapter, Nebuchadnezzar demands worship of himself. Nebuchadnezzar’s self-portrait in gold becomes a cautionary tale about having our portion in life in this world. Today’s text asks us to ask of ourselves if we understand the difference between haughtily setting our hopes on the uncertainty of riches, or humbly setting our hopes on God who richly provides (see 1 Timothy 6:17).
Image: The Baptism of Jesus, stained glass, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida
Yahweh will deliver from the king’s fiery furnace those who will not bow the knee (Daniel 3:19–30, tomorrow’s reading). To the credit of Daniel’s friends, it doesn’t matter to them whether the Lord will deliver them or not (Daniel 3:16–18). They know their portion in life lies elsewhere than in protecting their physical lives. Daniel’s friends get it right.
1 John—living as beloved children, or not. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him” (1 John 3:1). To John, two things mark the lives of people who live only for this world: lawlessness and sinfulness (1 John 3:4,8). By contrast, two things mark the lives of those who have been born of God and are therefore his children: they know they will be transformed into the likeness of Christ at his return (1 John 3:2–3), and they actively participate in Christ’s continuing destruction of the “works of the devil” in their own lives in this life (1 John 3:8b–10).
The NRSV translation of 1 John 3:8, “Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil,” is somewhat misleading. John’s Greek suggests what he means is that people who give themselves over wholesale to a sinful lifestyle are children of the devil. Everybody does “commit sin,” but not everybody surrenders their lives to it. That’s why John writes earlier, “if we do sin [which, by the way, we will — all of us!], we have an advocate with the Father” (1 John 2:1). What the Father calls for is that his children confess and turn from their sins (1 John 1:9). They will find him more than ready to forgive … and to cleanse. Today’s passage urges us, on the far side of acknowledging our need for forgiveness, to cooperate with Christ in his loving intentions for us by purifying ourselves, “just as he is pure” (1 John 3:3).
Luke—who’s your daddy? In an artistic move, Luke notes John the Baptist’s arrest prior to Jesus’s baptism even though, of course, the arrest had to have taken place after the baptism. The effect of Luke’s editorial decision is to highlight the differences between Jesus’s relationship with his Father, and Herod Antipas’s relation with his family.
Antipas’s father was Herod the Great, who had not only attempted to assassinate Baby Jesus, but he had also successfully assassinated a wife and several sons. All because he wanted to secure his earthly reign. His surviving children are no less ruthless, no less insecure. All they have to live for is this life, and they will remove every obstacle to their perceived happiness. The rivalry, therefore, among Herod the Great’s progeny is ugly. Herodias is daughter of Aristobulus, one of Herod the Great’s sons. She marries Philip, another of Herod the Great’s sons, only to divorce Philip so she can marry yet a third son of Herod the Great, Herod Antipas. The family of the Herods is a hot mess! And for pointing this fact out to Herod Antipas, John the Baptist’s reward is his arrest and eventual beheading. Here is a family whose portion in life is this world—and we know their portion will be more horrific in the next.
All this drama gets thrown into relief—and is given perspective—by the baptism of Jesus. At his baptism, which is his anointing by the Holy Spirit as the King and Priest of God’s people, Jesus prays. He has not manipulated his way into his office. He has trusted his loving Father. Jesus receives words of approbation and love from his Heavenly Father. He is not insecure in his knowledge of who he is. He knows he is loved. He knows the power that will work through him for the task set before him.
The baptism of God’s Son becomes for us both a sign of the beginning of the mighty works of God through Christ for our redemption, and a model of how to find our portion in life in the love of the Father who calls us his children: “Beloved, with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+