Thursday • 9/5/2024 •

Thursday of Proper 17

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 37:1-18; Job 16:16-22; 17:1,13-16 (per BCP) or Job 16,17; Acts 13:1-12; John 9:1-17

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3-4, BCP, p. 94)

Psalm 37. Today’s Psalm offers comfort and consolation for God’s people when they feel, like Job, overwhelmed. The promises of Scripture, expressed in Psalm 37, are set against life’s frustrations and injustices in order to remind us that God is ultimately in charge. His love and his justice will not be thwarted. (This Psalm is worth reading in its entirety this morning.)

Job. In the early verses of Job 16 (not included in today’s reading), Job describes feeling brutalized by God: God has torn his body, handed him over to wicked people, broken his neck, set him up as an archery target, and savagely sliced his body open: “He slashes open my kidneys, and shows no mercy; he pours out my gall on the ground” (Job 16:13).

Feeling unjustly attacked, Job asks, in verse 18, that the earth not cover his blood, so that it can cry out as an appeal for vindication. At the same moment, Job suddenly seems to realize that his hope resides in his relationship with God. Through the despair and anguish that have accompanied Job thus to this point, Job catches a glimpse of consolation. As if catching sight of the sure and steady comfort of a lighthouse beacon piercing a raging night at sea, Job perceives that his advocate in heaven is God himself: “Even now, in fact, my witness is in heaven, and he that vouches for me is on high” (Job 16:19). As we saw just yesterday in Job 14, and as we will see tomorrow in Job 19, “embedded in [Job’s] lamentations,” says commentator F. I. Anderson, is “a titanic assertion of faith.”  Although he accuses heaven, Job looks there for his only defense, though he cannot see ahead.  When life is difficult, we might do as well:

Commit your way to the Lord;    trust in him, and he will act.He will make your vindication shine like the light,    and the justice of your cause like the noonday. — Psalm 37:5-6

Hardened as it is in the furnace of tribulation, Job’s stubborn faith in a heavenly advocate prepares, in its own unique way, for the future revelation of Jesus Christ. Job sees, dimly, something that we, from our vantage point, recognize was already there, on a far horizon. Small wonder that a Christian “great” like Augustine of Hippo would describe the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament this way: “The new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed.”

 John 8. When Jesus does come, the issue of vision, of the ability to see, is more immediate. Jesus comes with the authority and the power to open eyes that cannot see, and to close eyes that only think they see. As he declares (in tomorrow’s reading), “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind” (John 9:39). 

Sight for a man born blind. Earlier, in the middle of John 8, Jesus had proclaimed himself to be the “Light of the World.” In John 9, he repeats this claim, and provides a “sign” of that reality: he heals a man who had been born blind. (Notice that is a second healing on the Sabbath by Jesus. Coincidence? I think not! “I AM” is, after all, Lord of the Sabbath. The repetitions provide symbolic emphasis.) Jesus specifies that the man’s blindness is not the result of his sin or of his parents (reinforcing Job’s message that it isn’t necessarily our fault when we suffer!). As with Job, what’s on display here is the glory and power of God. 

John discloses that Jesus came to offer sight to the blind. Not just physical sight to a single individual, but spiritual sight to those who will respond to his invitation. Conversely, as we see in the Acts reading for today, if you refuse to see, Jesus will confirm your blindness. 

Blindness for a blind guide. Providentially, today’s Daily Office readings beautifully illustrate this last point, that is, in the apostle Paul’s encounter with the magician/Jewish false prophet named Elymas, or Bar-Jesus (which, ironically, means “Son of Jesus”), on the island of Cyprus. Cyprus is the first stop on the First Missionary Journey, as recorded in Acts. The island’s Roman governor, Sergius Paulus, summons the missionaries because he wishes to hear their message. However, when they arrive for their audience, “Barnabas and Saul” find Bar-Jesus urging the proconsul to reject their teaching about faith in Jesus Christ. 

Sidebar: An interesting pivot in the ministry takes place as “Saul” steps forward under his Roman name “Paul” (a name that he happens to share with the governor, whose name is Sergius Paulus). From now on, we will know the apostle only by his Roman name. Further, the leadership of the missionary group will no longer be described as “Barnabas and Saul,” but as “Paul and Barnabas.” 

At any rate, in the presence of Sergius Paulus, the apostle Paul rebukes the false prophet, “You son of the devil … you will be blind for a while, unable to see the sun” (Acts 13:11). Immediately, Bar-Jesus goes blind. Seeing this, Sergius Paulus attains spiritual sight: “When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord” (Acts 13:12). 

I pray that you and I have the grace to acknowledge whatever darkness we experience as what it is: real darkness—and at the same time, real opportunity for Christ’s light. 

Collect for the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany. Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory, that he may be known, worshiped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+