Sleeper Awake - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 1/18/2023 • 
Week of 2 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 38; Isaiah 44:24–45:7; Ephesians 5:1–14; Mark 4:1–20 

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 of the second week of Epiphany. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary, and today I am struck by one of the most magnificent “Epiphany”-aspects of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  

Sleeper awake! (Ephesians 5:14) 

There’s one thing the reading of Scripture keeps bringing me back to: the Bible is a book of hope.  

And the apostle Paul’s words radiate that hope.  

In the second half of Ephesians 4 and the first half of Ephesians 5, Paul elucidates all the ways that it’s possible, even for those who profess Christ, to think that they can continue in the “walking death” and social alienation of sin (recall both halves of Ephesians 2): fornication, greed, lying, stealing, wrangling, slander.  

I think we are all entirely too familiar with the powerful downward dragging forces of those impulses—vestiges of what Paul calls “the old self” (Ephesians 4:22). But he really does seem to think that the people he’s writing to don’t have to stumble around in the dark. They don’t have to succumb to the spiritual death that pervades the world around them, and that once controlled their being. “That is not the way you learned Christ!”, he says (Ephesians 4:20). 

Paul truly believes that Christ’s light has begun to shine on these believers, that Christ’s own resurrection life is something that he shares with them. And so, Paul calls to them: “Sleeper awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!” (Ephesians 5:14). 

I’ve thought a lot about what these words mean for me. Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges my bent towards “Eeyore-ness”—that is, my assumption that it’s best to prepare for the worst to happen. Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges me to look for Christ to bring goodness and to show redemptive purpose in any situation.  

Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges my bent to sink into ultimately self- and relationship-destroying sources of solace when I’m tired or discouraged (you can fill in the blanks as to what those temptations might be for you—I know what they are for me). Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges me, instead, to “thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4, that is, taking stock of how much there is to be encouraged about), and to “building up” (Ephesians 4:29, that is, to looking outside myself to those who need encouragement).  

Finally, as I live through a time of deep distrust in our civic life (I know you feel it too), Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges my bent to throw up my hands in despair at the political, social, and economic divides in our society and in our world. Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges me to care more deeply about truthfulness in the public square, and about the possibilities for “being ready for every good work,” as Paul puts it when he contemplates believers taking their place in their social world (Titus 3:1).  

I pray that we find Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” giving us hope, strength, and resources beyond our imaginations. I pray we find Christ himself shining upon us, as Paul says, radiating his own joy at his life in you and in me.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Strive to Be Christlike - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 1/17/2023 •
Week of 2 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 26; Psalm 28; Isaiah 44:9–20; Ephesians 4:17–32; Mark 3:19b–35 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights 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 is Tuesday of the second week of Epiphany, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Today, we contrast the emptiness of being that comes from idols versus the fulness of being that comes from the true and living God.  

“All who make idols are nothing…” versus “…clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” — Isaiah 44:9 versus Ephesians 4:24.  

If you fashion idols that are nothing, you become nothing yourself.  

Or…  

If you accept the true image of God in the face of His Son Jesus, you become the new self you were designed to be.  

Isaiah composes, in his 44th chapter, a brilliant “taunt-song” (per Old Testament scholar Claus Westermann) to hold up a mirror for idol-makers. He offers them the opportunity to see the vanity of their enterprise. Worship a block of wood, and you become (perhaps a bit colloquially) a “blockhead.” Worship nothing, and you become nothing. It’s wisdom that’s not confined to Israel. The Greek story of Midas’s touch makes a similar ironic point: “Gold is your god? Fine, how about you become that god?” The Hebrew psalmist says: “Those who make [idols] are like them; so are all who trust in them” (Psalm 115:8).  

It’s a truth that has a wonderfully and redemptive converse as well, though. As New Testament scholar N. T. Wright says in his Simply Christian: “You become like what you worship. When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship.” And when we gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder into the face of the true image of God—his Son Jesus Christ—we begin to be transformed into that same likeness. That is what Paul describes in today’s passage from Ephesians.  

Ephesians. Paul knows the book of Isaiah and he knows the Psalms. He continues their critique of idol worship, reminding the Ephesians of where their former idolatry had led them (Ephesus’s patron deity was a rock that supposedly fell from heaven, and which they turned into the goddess Artemis—see Acts 19:35). Their worship of a rock had left them “darkened in your understanding,” and insensible as to how to live. They had been trapped in self- and relationship-destructive desires and patterns of behavior: licentiousness, greed, impurity. By way of example, visitors to Ephesus today can see, etched into the sidewalk leading from its ancient port into town, directions to the brothel. Luxury homes of the day were covered with pornographic murals. The modern Ephesus Museum displays spectacular ancient graphic statues to Priapus, the Greek god of the phallus.  

Paul began his macro-picture of the “new self” in the first part of Ephesians 4, and he will complete it in Ephesians 5. In the first place, we are Christ’s very Body that is being filled — almost as though (I say this carefully) we are an extension of the incarnation — Christ as head, and we as body, “joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, making bodily growth and building itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:15-16). In the second place, we are Christ’s Bride — made for relationship with him; what he is doing is working to present her (i.e., us) to himself “spotless, holy, without blemish, radiant in glory” (Ephesians 5:25-28).  

Paul provides texture to his micro-picture of the “new self” in today’s and tomorrow’s reading, providing instruction for how each of us can “put on” characteristics of that “new self.” Not committing fornication, but “as beloved children liv[ing] in love” (Ephesians 5:1,2). Not lying, but speaking the truth (Ephesians 4:25). Not stealing, but working so as to be able to share (Ephesians 4:28). Not letting our speech be filled with destructive evil, but with edifying grace (Ephesians 4:29). Not being consumed by anger, bitterness, wrath … things that lead to wrangling and malicious slander; but instead, showing each other kindness, tenderheartedness, and the readiness to forgive as we have been forgiven (Ephesians 4:26,31–32).   

What is extraordinary is that as we pursue a life of speaking truth, sharing, and forgiving, we escape the nothingness and emptiness (Ecclesiastes calls it “vanity”) that is ours when we worship things that are not gods. Our lives get shaped into the likeness of Christ, who is the very image of God.  

Be blessed this day in the grace of this endeavor, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Will Never Be Forgotten - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 1/16/2023 •
Week of 2 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 25; Isaiah 44:6–8,21–23; Ephesians 4:1–16; Mark 3:7–19a  

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This is Monday of the second week of Epiphany, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. Consider with me one of the great promises in the second half of the Book of Isaiah 

O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me… — Isaiah 44:21.  

To a ten-year-old boy in Fort Lauderdale, FL, in the early 1960s, Searstown was a huge and delightful place. It was full of fascinating things—most notably, Ted Williams baseball and fishing gear. Things fascinating enough to get me separated one day from my parents, who were interested in more mundane things like, I dunno, furniture or something.  

At any rate, one minute I’m trying on a Ted Williams baseball glove with the tantalizing smell of its leather, and fantasizing about leaping for a spectacular Mickey Mantle catch in centerfield, when I look up and realize I’ve lost my parents. I wander around the store a while, and eventually I entertain the fleeting notion that they just might have forgotten about me and gone home. It was just a passing thought, but a chilling one. Soon, I heard my name over the store loudspeaker, with instructions on where to go to find my parents. Happy reunion.  

What would it be like to be not only lost, but really forgotten — for good? I know that that is what millions and millions of people on this planet live with every day. It certainly is what Israel felt after centuries of separation from their land, their temple, and their God — everything that gave them their identity. Everything that they could call “home.”  

Isaiah Chapters 40–66 are animated, more than anything, by this promise: “O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.” There is comfort here for anybody who wonders if they’ve been forgotten. You do a great job for your boss, and not a word of thanks—forgotten. You invest years in a relationship, and the other person just walks out—forgotten. You live long enough to see all your friends die off—forgotten.  

Isaiah promises a homecoming—if only Israel will realize she only has one God, the only God who truly is, the God who is “the first and the last; besides [whom] there is no god” (Isaiah 44:6). This God formed her for one reason: to have a relationship with himself (Isaiah 44:21). This God has “swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like a mist” (Isaiah 44:22). This God loves her. This God calls the heavens and the depths of the earth and the mountains and the forests to sing his redeeming power and his promise to come and make his radiant presence dwell in her (Isaiah 44:23). This God will never, ever, ever forget her … or you! 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

He Fights for Us - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 1/13/2023 •
Week of 1 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 16; Psalm 17; Isaiah 42:(1–9)10–17; Ephesians 3:1–13; Mark 2:13–22 

This morning’s Canticles are: 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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives 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 Friday of the first week of the Epiphany of Christ. We wrap up this week’s readings in Isaiah, Mark, and Ephesians with strong reminders that, in Jesus, God has come for us with strength and healing.  

Isaiah: “Sing a new song.” 

Isaiah invites God’s people to take up a “new song,” celebrating the fact that, like a mighty warrior, Yahweh has taken up their cause against their enemies: “The Lord goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior he stirs up his fury” (Isaiah 42:13a).  

Whenever we find a call for a “new song” in Scripture, we are taken back to the song that Israel first sang after crossing the Red Sea. It’s the first big celebratory song in the Bible. Delivered from slavery in Egypt and witness to the destruction of Pharaoh’s army, Israel danced and sang. They rejoiced: “I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. … The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name” (Exodus 15:1,3). Subsequently, whenever in Israel’s history Yahweh performs an act that’s a reminder of an exodus-like liberation, Israel sings a “new song” to celebrate that new chapter in her story of rescue and deliverance. Yahweh is her champion, and she rejoices afresh in his mighty love.  

For his part, Yahweh is passionate about restoring the well-being of his people, says Isaiah. He’s been forbearing long enough. Now he will act: “The Lord will march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal; with a shout he will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies. ‘For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant’” (Isaiah 42:13–14 NIV). Yahweh’s time has come, and he is bringing forth a world-changing deliverance:  

I will lay waste the mountains and hills 
and dry up all their vegetation; 
I will turn rivers into islands 
and dry up the pools. 
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, 
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; 
I will turn the darkness into light before them 
and make the rough places smooth (Isaiah 42:15-16 NIV).  

He is our champion too, as passionate for our well-being in the present as he was for Israel’s in the past.  We can be confident of this: whatever our circumstances might be, he has allied himself with us and he fights for us. He cares.  

Mark: It’s the sick who need a physician.  

Theologians as far back as Irenaeus in the 2nd century have speculated that even if Adam and Eve had not fallen into sin in the Garden, the Second Person of the Trinity might still have become incarnate to confirm us in our righteousness and shalom, and to take us into the fully righteous, glorified state of perfected shalom that God had intended for us.  

Well … it didn’t work that way. We fell. And so, Jesus didn’t come to make healthy people healthier, or righteous people more righteous. He came to make unrighteous people righteous, and to make sick people well. That’s why Mark makes a point of the fact that Jesus chooses a despised, compromised tax collector to be one of his twelve disciples. It’s why he makes a point of accepting this big sinner’s invitation to fellowship at table with “many tax collectors and sinners … for there were many who followed him” (Mark 2:15). 

It is so, so, so gratifying to know that we don’t have to put on a show and pretend that we are “good.” It’s OK—not only OK, but actually necessary—to admit susceptibility to temptation; proclivity to serve self; disinterest in God himself; anger, greed, frustration, anxiety, and/or fear. People like that, not perfect people, that’s who he came for.  

That’s who he is the Divine Warrior for. That’s who he cries out like a woman in labor for. That’s who he died for. That’s who he lives for.  

Ephesians: God’s message to those who need a physician.  

And that’s why the apostle Paul, one of the formerly “good” and “righteous” people, makes a point of calling himself “the very least among the saints” (Ephesians 3:8). Because he originally had lined up as one of those who “needed no physician,” he is all the more grateful that Jesus healed him of his arrogance, pride, and impiety. “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence,” he explains to these same Ephesians in a subsequent letter (1 Timothy 1:13).  

Now Paul can number himself among those who formerly were the spiritually “walking dead” but now are alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:1–10), and who were part of a broken human family that is being made whole again in Christ (Ephesians 2:11–22). He can boldly assert that the church—the remarkable collection of newly alive and newly reconciled people—is what God uses to prove his wisdom and to demonstrate his victory over death and disunity even in “the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10). Pretty amazing stuff!  

Be blessed this day in the knowledge that Jesus is your champion, and in the comfort of his healing mercy, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

One Like a Son of Man - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 1/14/2021 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 18:1–20; Isaiah 41:17–29; Ephesians 2:11–22; Mark 2:1–12 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of 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 is Thursday of the first week of Epiphany, the “manifestation” of God’s glory in Jesus Christ.  

“… the Son of Man has authority on earth…” — Mark 2:10.  

Four desperate people break through the roof of the place where Jesus is staying, to bring a paralytic friend in hopes that Jesus can heal him. Jesus proclaims forgiveness of the man’s sins. Immediately, the “theological sheriffs” in the room object that Jesus has claimed power for himself that belongs to God alone. Jesus responds obliquely: “Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’?  

 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins (he said to the paralytic) I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home” (Mark 2:9–11). The man rises on legs that have been restored to health. 

For the first time in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus uses the term that will be his favorite self-designation, “Son of Man.” It is an introduction to Jesus’s identity—an identity that he will gradually disclose over the course of Mark. The phrase comes from the book of Daniel, where that prophet refers to a divine and heavenly figure, “one like a son of man” who is destined to assume all dominion on earth (Daniel 7:9-17; 9:20-27), and who will “put an end to sin, … atone for iniquity, [and] … bring in everlasting righteousness” (Daniel 9:20-27).  

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus artfully employs the “Son of Man” terminology as he progressively paints his lionesque self-portrait. The main elements are threefold. Working from the back of Mark’s Gospel to the front:  

Ascension. First, at his ascension, Christ as Son of Man will “come” into the presence of the Ancient of Days and be seated at his right hand to receive dominion over heaven and earth. At his trial, in answer to his accusers as to whether he is the Christ, he says, “I am; and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’” (Mark 14:62; and also 13:26). As ascended Lord, Jesus the Son of Man will reign with everlasting righteousness (Daniel 9:27).  

Suffering. Second, this coming into his dominion follows the Son of Man’s “great suffering”: his betrayal, arrest, contemptuous treatment, dying, and rising again (Mark 8:31; 9:12,31; 10:33). Thereby, Jesus as Son of Man will, in Daniel’s language, “put an end to sin” and “atone for iniquity” (Daniel 9:24).  

Authority to forgive. Third, even before his death, resurrection, and ascension, the lordly Son of Man shows he has “authority on earth” to forgive sins. Here in his earthly ministry, the Son of Man who has come “to serve and not to be served” (Mark 10:45) manifests God’s magnificent love for humans by bringing life and healing and forgiveness down here to where we live.  

It is this third aspect of his Son-of-Man-ness that Jesus says is on display in his healing ministry. Behind all sickness stands sin: its power to attack, enfeeble, and ultimately hand us over to death. That is by no means to say that every sickness is the result of any particular sin we have committed (though we can do irresponsible things that make us more susceptible—but that’s not the point). The frailty of sickness comes upon us all regardless—and it does so by virtue of the fallen condition that has overtaken the whole race since Genesis 3. The heavenly and divine “one like a son of man” has come to the earth to bring back the health and the soundness of being that were lost in the Garden.  

“For he is our peace…” — Ephesians 2:14.  

Another sign of the power of sin in the world is the way the human race is fractured -- splintered into a near infinity of tribes, ethnicities, races, and classes. We are dead, and Christ makes us alive—so says Paul in the first half of Ephesians 2. But we are also divided, and Christ makes us one—so continues Paul in the second half of Ephesians 2.  

Of the many fault lines within the human race, none is more important to a Jewish person like Paul than that between Jews and Gentiles. Paul celebrates the fact that Christ has broken down the barriers between Jews and Gentiles, has brought the two together in his own body on the cross, and has made them together a single offering to God (Ephesians 2:11-19). We need no longer be strangers and aliens to one another because, in Christ, we share one nationality, one family membership, one sense of what it is to be a people. It’s one of the most breathtaking thoughts in all of Scripture.   

When disaster and disunity dominate headlines, I pray that we know that above it all reigns the Son of Man. I pray that he grants us assurance of the forgiveness of our sins, and gives us his peace regarding his care for our physical health as well as our spiritual well-being. I pray that he grants us the grace to be on his side in the breaking down of barriers between people and people groups, and that we have a firm sense of our own place in the “the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.” I pray we each may know how intentionally and wonderfully we are being built into our own special place in his church: the Lord’s “holy temple” and God’s “dwelling place” (Ephesians 2:19–22).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Biblical Prophecy - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday, 1/13/2020 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:1–24; Isaiah 41:1–16; Ephesians 2:1–10; Mark 1:29–45 

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 of the first week of Epiphany. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary, and we find ourselves exploring Isaiah’s promises on behalf of Yahweh, Mark’s lionesque portrait of Christ, and Paul’s wondrous unpacking of life in Christ.  

Isaiah’s promise of redemption and empowerment. Subject to humiliating domination and exile both from Assyria and Babylon, the people to whom Isaiah ministers have been made to feel like “worms” and “insects” (Isaiah 41:14 NRSV). Sometimes you just have to be brought that low, it seems.  

Isaiah wants the children of Israel to know that their story doesn’t end in ignobility—in being squashed like a bug! Right now, they feel like they are the laughingstock of the world. However, through Isaiah, Yahweh wants the world to know—and his people to find comfort in the fact—that just as millennia before, he had called Abram from the east to become his “friend” (through whom Yahweh intends to bless the whole world), he now calls “a victor from the east” to rescue God’s elect who are in such dire straits and low estate. Later, Yahweh will name him: “Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and he shall carry out all my purpose’” (Isaiah 44:28). Indeed, in 539 B.C. Cyrus of Persia would conquer Babylon and decree Judah’s release from captivity. This act, Isaiah claims, is under the sovereign control of Yahweh.  

Yahweh will thereby show himself still to be—as he was in the exodus, just so now—“your Redeemer … the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 41:14). Back then, the Israelites had witnessed Yahweh dispatch their enemies in the Red Sea and then make them a strong army for the conquest of the Promised Land. So now, he will once again rescue them and make them warriors.  

The fulfillment of biblical prophecy often takes surprising form. The return under the Persian ruler Cyrus was by simple decree. Israelites did not have to take up arms to retake the land. While they would have to protect themselves against the threat of military intervention when they rebuilt Jerusalem and the temple, there was nothing that approximated Isaiah’s language of becoming “a threshing sledge, sharp, new … you shall thresh the mountains and crush them” (Isaiah 41:14). Centuries later, the Maccabees would rise up briefly in successful military revolt against their Seleucid oppressors; but eventually, the Israelites would succumb to Roman conquest.  

On this side of the New Testament’s story, I suggest that Isaiah’s promise of a Redeemer and of the empowerment of his people finds a deeper and greater fulfillment in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. That’s where today’s gospel and epistle readings come in. 

Jesus as Redeemer in Mark. Because Mark’s Gospel is not loaded with extensive teaching material like the other synoptic gospels (Matthew and Luke), he focuses on demonstrations of Jesus’s power. Fever breaks at his presence. Demons depart (and their knowledge of his true divine identity obliquely points to the “behind the scenes” contest underway—though we know that the contest is not in doubt). Leprous skin becomes clean at his touch. As C. S. Lewis will finally put it in his Chronicle of Narnia, Aslan the Lion Redeemer, is in the land, and the endless winter of sin and death is “working backwards.” Amen! 

Jesus empowers the replacing of one “walk” with another, in Ephesians.  The apostle Paul writes from the perspective of Jesus’s finished work on the cross, where he accomplished “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” (Ephesians 1:7). Now, God gives, as Isaiah promised, strength to his people, power to his saints, noble status to those who once were “worms” and “insects.”  

Paul’s way of putting it is that we were spiritual zombies, the walking dead—subject to a domination by desires beyond our control. We were “were dead through the trespasses and sins in which [we] once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of body and mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Ephesians 2:1–3 RSV).  

Then Paul follows with one of the Bible’s great “But God…” clauses. “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…” (Ephesians 2:4–5). God counters our nothingness, and our being worthy of wrath and rejection, with the riches of his mercy and the depths of his great love. He raises us up right along with his own Beloved Son. On the cross, God kills our sin. By the empty tomb, he annuls our walking death. He “seats us in the heavenly places,” and empowers us to live again. He gives us the grace to believe in Christ, the grace to accept the amazing gift of forgiveness in Christ, and the strength and vision to work out what it is now to be “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8–10 RSV). The walking dead, no longer. The perspective is breathtaking. The words are worth poring over again and again, unhurriedly.  

As Paul prayed in chapter 1, just before writing this stunning paragraph, so I pray for you, “that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints [including … insert your name!], and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Ephesians 1:18–19 NASB).  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Lion - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 1/10/2023 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 5; Psalm 6; Isaiah 40:25–31; Ephesians 1:15–23; Mark 1:14–28 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights 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 is Tuesday of the first week of Epiphany, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Isaiah’s promise of comfort. Isaiah 40 includes a call to look for help coming from “the wilderness”:  

A voice cries out: 
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the  Lord, 
    make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 
Every valley shall be lifted up, 
    and every mountain and hill be made low; 
the uneven ground shall become level, 
    and the rough places a plain. 
Then the glory of the  Lord  shall be revealed, 
    and all people shall see it together, 
    for the mouth of the  Lord  has spoken” (Isaiah 40:3–5).  

The way in the wilderness evokes memory of the exodus, when Yahweh revealed his glory by providing his people a highway through the desert out of Egyptian slavery. Just so, Yahweh will once again provide a freedom trail out of exile in Babylon. Yahweh is, says today’s passage, “great in strength, mighty in power … the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 40:26,28). Therefore, people who have been enervated and deflated, depressed, and demoralized—hardly up for an arduous journey—will find new strength for themselves in him:  

He gives power to the faint, 
    and strengthens the powerless. 
Even youths will faint and be weary, 
    and the young will fall exhausted; 
but those who wait for the  Lord  shall renew their strength, 
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles, 
they shall run and not be weary, 
    they shall walk and not faint (Isaiah 40:29–31).  

Which brings us to Mark. Yesterday, we began reading Mark’s Gospel. It begins with Isaiah’s voice in the wilderness, calling, once again: “Prepare the way of the Lord!” The assumption is that once again God’s people are enslaved, in need of rescue and of strength for a journey. That journey begins with “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4).  

Because Mark’s gospel begins in the wilderness, early Christians associated his gospel with the “lion,” the powerful king, so it was thought, of the wild places. Accordingly, it only takes a little imagination to appreciate why C. S. Lewis would cast his Christ-figure as a lion — “Aslan,” who is “not safe, but good.”  

That is Mark’s Christ. Skipping right over Matthew’s and Luke’s birth narratives and John’s soaring prologue, Mark takes us directly to Jesus’s baptism and temptation, and then to the launch of Christ’s mission. Jesus begins his ministry by gathering disciples—Simon and Andrew, James and John—to witness his power to deliver (Mark 1:16–19). Then, he begins his powerful acts of deliverance, as he frees from physical and psychic oppression a man in the thrall of demonic forces (Mark 1:21–26). Ultimately, Jesus will also deliver from dullness of spirit and mind (like the disciples he has chosen) those who are slow to recognize him as Son of God. Jesus will lead them to understand that he has come for a singular act of rescue: “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  

The redeeming Lion is on the loose. As the people at his first miracle in Mark recognize, “They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee” (Mark 1:27–28).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Hand in Hand - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 1/9/2023 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 1; Psalm 2; Psalm 3; Isaiah 40:12–23; Ephesians 1:1–14; Mark 1:1–13 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This is Monday of the first week of Epiphany, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

During the next few weeks—weeks “after Epiphany”—we will read through the second half of the Book of Isaiah. In blighted and calamitous times, it is good to survey a portion of Scripture that has as its keynote:  

“Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God. 
“Speak kindly to Jerusalem; 
And call out to her, that her warfare has ended, 
That her iniquity has been removed, 
That she has received of the Lord’s  hand 
Double for all her sins” (Isaiah 40:1–2).  

In hard times, it’s hard to find real comfort. Not all avenues to comfort are especially beneficial, whether binge-watching or bourbon-drinking. Not all avenues to consolation are benign, whether addiction or indulgent hyper-indebtedness.  

After thirty-nine chapters of preparing God’s people for a long night of exile, Isaiah looks to the daylight of return and restoration. It’s still going to be a long way off, but daylight is coming nonetheless. Happily, for us, much of what is revealed to us for Israel’s future in these chapters has come to pass in Jesus Christ, most notably the epiphany (the manifestation) of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, who has been “crushed for our iniquities” so he can “make many righteous” (Isaiah 53:11).  

Today’s verses from Isaiah 40 are cautionary. Having sounded the note of hope in the opening verses of this chapter, Isaiah warns against resorting to false sources of comfort and solace.  

There is only one source of life, the very author of life. “Who has measured the waters in the hollow if his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?” (Isaiah 40:12).   

There is only one who can unravel the puzzle of our lives. “Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has instructed him?” (Isaiah 40:13). 

There is only one hope for the righting of all wrongs in the world and in our lives. “Whom did he consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice?” (Isaiah 40:14). 

There is only one who has the power to unseat wicked rulers: “Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as dust on the scales; see he takes up the isles like fine dust … [He] brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing” (Isaiah 40:15,23).   

The props we build for ourselves—whether literal idols, or little godling crutches—they eventually prove to be useless, or worse. “To whom will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol?—A workman casts it … then seeks out a skilled artisan to set up an image that will not topple” (Isaiah 40:18,20).  They all topple in the end.  

“Comfort, O comfort my people….” May God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ speak comfort to our hearts today. May he encourage us that our lives and destinies are in his benevolent hands (a la Ephesians 1); assure us that he will work justice in the world and fortify us for our part in its pursuit; and displace all false and lesser sources of satisfaction and inner peace with the Spirit of his own life-giving presence.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Are Drawn to Christ - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 1/6/2023 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 46; Psalm 97; Isaiah 52:7–10; Revelation 21:22–27; Matthew 12:14–21 

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 bring to our lives 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 Feast of the Epiphany of Christ.   

Feast of Epiphany. January 6 is, by tradition, the day we remember the three magi from the East who bring to the Christ Child gifts of frankincense (in recognition of his deity), gold (in acknowledgement of his royalty), and myrrh (in anticipation of his sacrificial death): 

Born a king on Bethlehem’s plain; 
Gold I bring to crown Him again 
King forever, ceasing never 
Over us all to reign. 

Frankincense to offer have I;  
Incense owns a Deity nigh;  
Prayer and praising, voices raising,  
Worshiping God on high. 

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume 
Breaths a life of gathering gloom; 
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding dying 
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb. 

The remarkable thing about the trek of the magi (probably Persian astrologer-priests) is that, according to Matthew 2, they are led to Jesus not by Holy Scripture but by some celestial sign, whether a visible alignment of objects in the heavens, the reading of an astrological chart, or something altogether unique and unknown to us. The point is that the magi represent “the nations” being drawn by their own devices to Israel’s—and therefore the world’s— King of kings and Lord of lords. Praise be! 

Today’s readings in the Daily Office contemplate the wonder of Israel’s God drawing all peoples and all nations to himself as he manifests—the Greek word epiphania means “manifestation”—his glory.  

In Isaiah 52, God redeems Jerusalem in the sight of all the nations. All the nations “see the salvation of our God.” In Revelation 21, the kings of the earth “bring their glory into” the City of God.  

Most remarkably and wonderfully, Matthew 12 portrays Jesus as altogether reticent during his earthly ministry to publish his fame. He is here to heal the sick and bind up the broken—to draw his people and the nations through his quiet love, not bombastic displays of ego. He has come for all the “bruised reeds” and “smoldering wicks.” There will be no small irony in the way he brings “justice to victory.” 

His leadership is one of service, not ego-inflation. His words are encouraging, not rancorous. When one of his followers uses a sword in his defense he says: “Enough!!” (meaning, “Stand down!”). Even as he hangs on the cross he cries out, “Father, forgive them!” There in the sacrifice of the cross he manifests his true deity and royalty. He trusts his Heavenly Father to transform his crown of thorns into a crown of gold. As Matthew says, may you and I hope in his name … and in no other.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+  

The True Vine - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 1/5/2023 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 2; Psalm 110; Joshua 1:1–9; Hebrews 11:32–12:2; John 15:1–16 

(See my comments about “abiding” in Christ in John 15:1–11, from April 22, 2020.) 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of 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 Thursday of the week in which Epiphany takes place, 13 days after Christmas, on January 6.  

Strength and Courage from the True Vine. When Jesus says, “I am the True Vine” (John 15:1), he evokes so many vivid biblical images. Today we read this passage alongside Joshua 1’s exhortation to be “strong and courageous,” and alongside Hebrews 11’s tribute to those whose faith had made them just that: strong and courageous.  

Joshua 1 (and Numbers 14) and the Call to Courage. Forty years prior to Yahweh’s challenge to Joshua to be “strong and courageous,” Joshua had shown exactly this sort of mettle when he and his fellow spies returned from their reconnoitering of the Promised Land. As a kind of first fruit of what that land had to offer, the scouts brought back with them a cluster of grapes so large that it took two men to carry it: “…they…cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them” (Numbers 14:22). Ten of the returning twelve scouts were cowed by the challenge of taking the land. Two—Joshua and Caleb—saw the promise. It was as though they could taste already the goodness of the land and the sweetness of the wine that these grapes promised. Because Yahweh had promised to give them the land, Joshua and Caleb had shown fortitude and resolve. Unlike the other ten men, they are ready to move forward. Distrusting that promise, the others displayed cowardice and sloth.  

In John’s Gospel, the last of Jesus’s great “I AM” sayings—Jesus’s claim to be “the True Vine”—is a challenge to us to embrace the same kind of resolve that Joshua and Caleb had displayed. In the Eucharistic wine, not only do we “drink the blood” of his sacrifice for our sins, but we celebrate in advance the marriage supper of the Lamb. The Eucharistic wine looks back and it looks forward. We remember our exodus, and we anticipate our entrance into “the glory about to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). In Jesus, therefore, we find strength and courage to walk by the same sort of faith exemplified in Joshua and by the saints of Hebrews 11—Gideon, Barak, Samson, et al.  

Most of all, we find here at the Table of the True Vine the persevering courage to follow Jesus himself, “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).  

John 15 and the Command to Love. Nowhere, perhaps, is such courage and strength more necessary than in finding the capacity to love each other with the love that Jesus commands at the end of today’s passage in John: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:12–14). We are his friends, he says, so our motives are no longer slavish fear of punishment. Now our motives are the genuine confidence of knowing the affection of the one who has called us friend—and who has laid down his life for us. This friend calls us to do for one another what he has done for us.  

I am grateful—relational coward that I can be—for examples in my life of people who have loved me this way. I pray that you have friends like that, friends who have shown that “the way of the cross” is “the way of life.” Regardless, our Heavenly Friend—the great “I AM” who has come in sandaled feet—has loved us enough to lay down his life for us. He chose us. We didn’t choose him. And he chose us to be his friends (John 15:15–16). Now he has appointed us, he adds, to bear this fruit: to love others as he has loved us. And so I pray that this next year, God grants all of us the strength and courage to love as we have been loved.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Burning Bush - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 1/4/2023 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 85; Psalm 87; Exodus 3:1–12; Hebrews 11:23–31; John 14:6–14 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

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 week in which Epiphany takes place, 13 days after Christmas, on January 6.  

The Feast of St. John , which took place on December 27, provided the opportunity to consider the soaring perspective of John’s written portrait of Christ. John details how the Bible’s great “I AM” takes onto himself a human body, and comes among us with sandaled feet. For the days that immediately follow January 1’s Feast of the Holy Name, the Daily Office lingers over some of Jesus’s “I AM” statements in John’s Gospel. 

John. Today’s reading reminds us that Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). As the Way, Jesus doesn’t simply point us in a certain direction. He guides us along the way. As the Truth, Jesus doesn’t just hand us a book of truths. He becomes our teacher. As the Life, Jesus doesn’t merely accessorize our life. He becomes our life. I am so grateful for that grand reality.  

Exodus and Moses. Our understanding of Christ is always enhanced when we see him against the backdrop of the Old Testament.  

Exodus. Moses first encounters the great “I AM”—Yahweh himself—in the burning bush on Mount Sinai. His feet are on holy ground, and so he must remove his sandals. Yahweh promises deliverance for the people whose sufferings at the hands of their oppressors have moved him. What is striking to me is that the “sign” he gives by which his people will know that they are finally free is that they will be able to return to this wilderness-mountain to worship him: “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain” (Exodus 3:12). 

The whole point, then, of gaining freedom is not to win accountability-free, consequence-free self-expression, but to enter into a relationship consisting of worship, service, and obedience to the great “I AM” himself. “Freedom” is not making up our own rules. Freedom is being won over by the amazing love of God, and loving him in return … and our neighbors as ourselves.  

Oh, Dear Jesus, give us grace in this coming year to taste the freedom of finding our way to the Father through you—the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  

Hebrews. And the means—the way—to this freedom is faith. The way to the Father goes through Christ. And the way to Christ goes through faith. In the heart of today’s gorgeous paragraph from Hebrews 11, the writer claims that millennia before Jesus Christ came to this earth, faith in him already motivated Moses: “[Moses] considered abuse suffered for the Christ to be greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to the reward” (Hebrews 11:26).  

All the Old Testament heroes and heroines of the faith—(in today’s reading, Moses’s parents, Moses, the people who “passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land,” and Rahab the prostitute of Jericho)—all these could only look ahead “by faith” to a Christ whose features they could barely glimpse from afar. It is as though they were looking through the wrong end of a time-telescope.  

Our great privilege is that for us the telescope has been turned around. We “see” the one who has come in the flesh. The challenge to live by faith is still ours. But now we have not only the examples of those who came before, but also the living support of the Christ who has come and who right now “ever lives to intercede” for you and for me (Hebrews 7:25).  

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic that began in early 2020, members of our sister church, All Saints Episcopal Church in Winter Park, Florida, encouraged their neighbors with this sign in their front yards: “You Are Not Alone.” That is so true.  

I pray that “by faith” you know the presence of the great “I AM.” I pray that Jesus is, or will become, the Way, the Truth, and the Life for you, all the way through the challenges and opportunities of the coming year.    

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+