Wednesday • 8/9/2023
Wednesday of the Tenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 13)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; 2 Samuel 9:1–13; Acts 19:1–10; Mark 8:34–9:1

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 in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 13 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.

A well-meaning preacher I once knew seemed to have stalled out on one message: “Repent!” The only way to feel good about your Christian life was to feel bad. If your job wasn’t going well, you needed to repent. If you felt lonely, you needed to repent. If you weren’t sure about God’s calling on your life, you needed to repent. Honestly, going to his church was depressing. 

Acts: from gloom to joy. In Ephesus, Paul comes upon a group of twelve “disciples” stuck in the same rut. At first, Paul assumes that they are Christians, but he soon finds out they are not yet Christians. Their “discipleship” consists of dedication to the memory of John the Baptist. Paul instructs them, however, that John’s message had been one of penitent preparation only. John had ministered, Paul explains, in anticipation of something — Someone! — better: “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus” (Acts 19:4). 

Image: The Albertype Co. (Brooklyn), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When Paul points them to the person of Jesus instead of to an experience of repentance, suddenly the Holy Spirit falls upon them, and they display extraordinary signs of the inbreaking of God’s kingdom: “…they spoke in tongues and prophesied” (Acts 19:6). Unanticipated ecstasy takes over from gloom. Excitement about the future replaces mere memorializing of the past. 

An important takeaway for us is that Paul doesn’t try to replace one kind of experience (doleful regret about themselves and the sad state of the world) with another kind of experience (joyful exuberance). Rather, he points them to Jesus. The Greek idiom Paul uses twice in Acts 19:4 is “believe into Jesus” (emphasis mine). The idea is “place your whole person, your life, your destiny, your hopes, your sense of well-being—place it all into the hands of Jesus.” 

When that entrustment happens, heaven opens, and the Spirit comes. For Jesus is sin-bearer, gift-giver, joy-bringer, hope-instiller, love-inspirer. Resting in his strong hands, we find the Spirit’s life being breathed into us and then flowing out of us: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22). 

Mark: “take up your cross.” “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” — Mark 9:34–35. The testimony of two millennia of Spirit-kissed Christ-followers is, therefore, that crosses can be taken up joyfully, martyrdoms can be endured while singing, and self-denying missions can be undertaken without regret. “The power of his resurrection” always accompanies “the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings” because through it all, Christ himself is there, for, as Paul says, he is faithful (Philippians 3:9–10). 

2 Samuel: David’s kindness to Mephibosheth. Among all the failings the Old Testament records flash a few displays of Kingdom life. King David’s deep affection for Jonathan, son of Saul, leads him to make life-long provision for Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, who had been accidentally crippled in 2 Samuel 4:4. 

Mephibosheth becomes a lovely picture of all of us who know ourselves to be broken in some way—and nonetheless welcomed to the Table of God’s Anointed, and lovingly cared for there. Some of us live with physical or mental disabilities, some with moral struggles or besetting sins, some with fractured homes or other challenging life situations. Whatever our infirmities, in Jesus David’s greater Son, we have a King who is merciful, generous, and welcoming. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 