Friday • 4/30/2021
Week of 4 Easter

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 40; Psalm 54; Daniel 9:1–19; Colossians 3:1–11; Luke 7:1–17

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)

In today’s reading, Daniel, while meditating on Scripture, perceives that the seventy years of exile Jeremiah had prophesied (Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10–14) was the imposition of the covenant curse of a “sevenfold” punishment for Israel’s disobedience Moses had warned about: “[the land] shall have the rest it did not have on your sabbaths when you were living on it” (Deuteronomy 28:64; Leviticus 26:14–35, and especially verses 18,21,24,28,34–35).

And so, for the first time in this entire book, Daniel uses God’s covenant name, “Yahweh,” as he prays a prayer of repentance and confession for Israel’s violation of her covenant: “I pleaded with Yahweh my God and made this confession” (Daniel 9:4; and also at verses 8,13,14). It’s an incredible moment. Let it remind us that there are illuminations that come when, and only when, we give ourselves to deep, prayerful, and unhurried reflection on God’s Word.

Because of his deep engagement with God’s Word, Daniel is impelled to worship: Daniel remembers that our whole relationship with Yahweh begins with the Lord’s own “steadfast love,” which invites—indeed, demands—our loving response (Daniel 9:4).

Daniel is prompted to confess. Because the one to whom we acknowledge our failings is “steadfast love,” and because he has loved us from the start and never ceases loving us no matter how far we stray, we can admit shameful truths about ourselves: “Open shame, O Lord, falls on us, our kings, our officials, and our ancestors, because we have sinned against you” (Daniel 9:5–11).

Daniel is inspired to acknowledge the justice of Yahweh’s treatment of his people: “Indeed, the Lord our God is right in all that he has done; for we have disobeyed his voice” (Daniel 9:11–14). Israel’s mission for the sake of the world had been to be a vanguard of God’s kind dominion. Instead, the people had chosen gods that were projections of the nation’s own ego, or worse: demonic suitors. Not wanting Yahweh’s presence, Israel got what was tacitly asked for: expulsion from the land of promise, and distancing from the temple. Sometimes we just have to admit that we get what we deserve, and that the Lord would be perfectly in the right to give us the full measure of it.

However, Daniel is also moved to plead for God’s mercy: knowing there is nowhere else to go, Daniel unites himself with a sinful people and prays hard. The biblical sensibility is that as much as justice characterizes who God is, he is all the more constituted of mercy. And so, Daniel urges Yahweh, “not…on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies,” to smile once again on “your desolated sanctuary” (Daniel 9:15–19—and see the “desolate sanctuaries” of Leviticus 26:31).

It is an inspired and inspiring pattern for prayer: from worship, to confession, to an acknowledgement of God’s justice, to a plea for his mercy. Yahweh’s response, as we will see tomorrow, is to dispatch his angel Gabriel (whose name means “Strength of God”), with a message of the most profound hope.

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Detail, Stained Glass, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, FL