Thursday • 5/16/2024 •

Thursday of the 7th Week of Easter

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105:1-22; Zechariah 4:1-14; Ephesians 4:17-32; Matthew 9:1-8

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moss,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

A Priest and a King: A feature of the book of Zechariah is the expectation that after the exile, Israel will be rebuilt and ruled by a priest and a king. Zechariah looks forward to a messianic age where the high priest Joshua, son of Jehozadak, and the future king Zerubbabel (“a man whose name is Branch”) will rule together in peace. One can’t help but think of the book of Hebrews, where Jesus is described as prophet, priest, and king.  (If you’d like to read further in Zechariah, chapters 8 and 9 describe the reign of the victorious yet humble Messiah who rides into Jerusalem on a donkey—see especially Zechariah 9:9)

Zechariah prophesies that the Temple will be rebuilt, and Jerusalem will be refortified. As mentioned in yesterday’s devotional, Zechariah and other prophets of the time understand that the glory of the second temple, however, will not match that of the first temple that Solomon built. But Zechariah says that these “small beginnings” (Zechariah 4:10 NET) are not to be despised. 

Israel’s stature among the nations—even at the height of Solomon’s reign with its massive building projects and extensive alliances—never depended on military prowess or political sagacity. The reality was always, as Zechariah puts it here: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). 

That’s a word to remember in good times, and in bad. When things flourish, it’s by God’s Spirit. And when things appear to be in decline, his Spirit is still at work—for those who have eyes to see.

A different kind of people. The apostle Paul had to contend with “small beginnings,” as well. Christian believers in Ephesus represented a tiny percent of the population of one of the Roman Empire’s larger and more robust cities. Ephesus was marked, according to Paul, by hardness of heart toward the things of God. He describes the city’s chief values as immorality, greed, deceit, anger, thievery. He calls upon Christ’s followers to be a colony, instead, of those who have “put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-23). They are to live in such a way as to delight God, not grieve him; and to model a kindness and readiness to forgive exactly like the kindness and forgiveness that have been extended to them in Christ. 

We have our own world of bad actors, rudderless fellow citizens, childish leaders, megalomaniacal despots, and brutal authorities. 

We can be a different kind of people—especially now, in a world of new adjustments and changes, through our own personal small beginnings: small obediences, small courtesies, and small kindnesses. 

A Healer has come. Matthew’s account of the healing of the paralytic reminds us of three simple things: 1) at the bottom of all things that afflict us—from physical maladies to social breakdown—is the reality of sin and the curse on the creation God loves; 2) the one who has authority and power to forgive and heal is Jesus, who is both Son of God and Son of Man; and 3) we are here to help each other find the Healer: “some people were carrying a paralysed man lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Take heart, son…’” (Matthew 9:2). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+