Wednesday • 5/17/2023 •
Week of 6 Easter 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; Baruch 3:24–37; James 5:13–18; Luke 12:22–31

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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 Sixth Week of Easter. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!”

Tomorrow is the Feast of the Ascension. Today is a remembrance of the last full day of Jesus’s earthly presence among the disciples. After today, he would be present to them in the same way he is present to us today: by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 

Baruch. The reading from Baruch looks back to intertestamental hopes for God’s wisdom to “appear on earth and live with humankind” (Baruch 3:37). Jesus’s disciples saw that very thing take place. And we, in their wake, are beneficiaries of their experience. Week by week we can pray (as our chancel party frequently does immediately before the start of Sunday worship services): “Be present, be present, O Jesus, our great High Priest, as you were present with your disciples, and be known to us in the breaking of bread; who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen” (Dennis Michno, A Priest’s Handbook, p. 269).  

Luke. While he was on the earth, Jesus both taught and modeled a life of faithful dependence upon his and our Heavenly Father. Worry can’t lengthen life. In the face of hostile, traitorous, and even demonic forces arrayed against him, Jesus trusted that his days were being precisely numbered by his Father. We can trust the Father to number our days as well. 

And being overly concerned about meeting physical needs like clothing and food can crowd out what should be our preeminent concern: God’s rule. It is, after all, God’s kind intention to wrest control of his world from the power of evil through his Son, and to restore it to being a garden of delight and a theatre of his glory, with a restored humanity as his vice-regents. Focus on these things and our place in God’s redemptive project, Jesus says, and the other things will follow. Keep the main thing the main thing, he insists, and the lesser things will come. 

James. Meanwhile, we are here for one another. Sickness and the decay of our mortal bodies and fragile spirits will come: “Are any among you suffering? (the Greek is kakopathein = “suffering evil”) … Are any among you sick?” (the Greek is asthenein = “experiencing weakness,” which can range from physical sickness to wounds of the spirit—James 5:13,14). Without discouraging us from seeking medicinal and psychological help for our infirmities, James points us to the spiritual resource that the Father provides in the prayers and the praises of the church. “Call for the elders and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord” (James 5:14). Oil is a sign of messianic power—it recalls the descent of the dove to anoint Jesus as Messiah and Second Adam, and to propel him into the wilderness to begin the reclamation of the cosmos from the forces of evil (see Luke 3:21–4:15). 

When I am so low that I can barely hold on to God’s promises, “the prayer of faith” offered up by my elders (those whose faith is strong when mine is weak) will be heard on my behalf. Their prayers can bring strength in the midst of my weakness, and, at times even raise me from my sickbed. They certainly can pull me out of my “slough of despond” (with a nod to Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress). James understands perfectly well what Paul taught: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). We’ve not been put here to grind it out or to soldier through on our own. 

Jesus reigns now from the right hand of the Father, but he is no less engaged with your life and mine than he would be if he were still here physically. He told his disciples, “It is to your advantage that I go” (John 16:7). By his ascent, and his reception of and bestowal of the Holy Spirit upon us, he himself is able to be not just with us but in us as well: “you in me, and I in you” (John 14:20). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+