A Gift and Sacrifice for Sins - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 5/22/2023 •
Week of 7 Easter  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89:1–18; Ezekiel 4:1–17; Hebrews 6:1–12; Luke 9:51–62 

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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 Seventh Week of Easter, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

Ezekiel as judgment-bringer. By God’s command, Ezekiel creates a replica of the city of Jerusalem. He then sets up an iron plate between himself and the model to demonstrate how God’s people’s sins have created a barrier between themselves and their God. Ezekiel proclaims God’s resolve to exercise judgment against his disobedient and rebellious people by destroying Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonians. This prophetic action is a perfect embodiment of the prophet’s task as “prosecuting attorney”— in Yahweh’s covenant lawsuit against his people.  

Image:  Statue of Ezekiel on the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral, UK. Richard Avery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. 

Ezekiel as sin-bearer. Then again, Ezekiel isn’t just a prophet -- he is a priest as well. It is a priestly calling, as we saw in last week’s reading in Hebrews, to be “taken from among the people and appointed to represent them before God, to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins” (Hebrews 5:1). 

So for over a year, Yahweh requires Ezekiel to lie on his left side: “and so you shall bear the punishment of the house of Israel” (Ezekiel 4:5). Then for forty days, Yahweh requires him to lie on his right side: “and bear the punishment of the house of Judah” (Ezekiel 4:6). Ezekiel lies bound to the ground by cords, first on one side, then on the other, representing the people before God. Ezekiel himself becomes a gift and sacrifice for sins. It’s one of the most extraordinary “Easter eggs” in the Old Testament. It is a fantastic preview of Jesus Christ, bound to the cross, more by love than by nails, offering himself as gift and sacrifice for the sins of the whole human race. Praise be! 

As priest, Ezekiel represents God to his people and the people to God. As a prophet, he bears God’s word of judgment to them. In his symbolic acts, Ezekiel blends both priestly and prophetic roles. But Ezekiel isn’t finished … there’s a prayer dimension to his ministry.  

Ezekiel as mercy-supplicant. . God’s command to eat food cooked over human excrement (disgusting and unclean according to the Law — Deuteronomy 23:12–14) is an index of his disgust with his people’s sinfulness. Ezekiel’s revulsion at the thought is certainly more than understandable. His reaction (I paraphrase: “Dear God, don’t make me do that!”) opens to us one of the mysteries of prayer. Ezekiel takes his complaint to God, and God listens. God accommodates his sovereign will to his prophet-priest’s protest because God has made his point: sin disgusts him. It is sufficient for Ezekiel’s bread to be cooked over cow dung instead (cooking over cow dung was not an uncommon practice). God is totally in charge, but he takes our longings and thoughts into account. He wants us to pour our hearts out to him. And he delights to do his sovereign will in response to us! When, as the psalmist says, “a cry goes up from the poor man, … Yahweh hears, and helps him in all his troubles. … How good Yahweh is—only taste and see” (Psalm 34:6,8 Jerusalem Bible).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Sweet as Honey - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 5/19/2023 •
Week of 6 Easter 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 85; Psalm 86; Ezekiel 1:28–3:3; Hebrews 4:14–5:6; Luke 9:28–36 

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

Today’s Scriptures bring us three gifts. 

Luke and Hebrews: The Father’s initiative. Somehow, people can slide into the notion that God is a grump whose Son has to cajole him into accepting us. Maybe it’s because people have their own father-issues. (Well, I mean, who doesn’t? I’m sure my own kids do; to this day they tease me by calling me “Bad Dad.”) But the architect of our redemption was not the Son. The architect was the Father. “Today I have begotten you” (Hebrews 5:5b). “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!” (Luke 9:35 NASB NET). Hebrews and Luke agree with John: “God so loved the world that he gave…” (John 3:16).  

God has appointed us a High Priest, and has sent him as Apostle of his love (Hebrews 3:1). Deep down each and every one of us knows we need someone to represent us, and to bring us both mercy (the withholding of our just deserts) and grace (the gift of goodness we have not earned—Hebrews 4:14, and see below). Hebrews and Luke, along with John, go out of their way to say that God the Father has supplied what we need.   

Hebrews: A friend in a high place. The one who has “gone through the heavens” (a reference to Christ’s ascension to the right hand of the Father) is one who can “sympathize with our weakness” because he was here among us as one of us, “like us in every way—except for sin” (Hebrews 4:14,15). As one of us, he was set upon by every temptation. On our behalf, he responded the way we were designed to. He said “No!” And his “No!” counts for us!! 

We need to have every confidence that our prayers do not fall on deaf ears. The Son brought the mercy we needed: we have not received the judgment we deserve. The Son brought the grace we needed: we have received a life we did not merit. What’s more, we are encouraged, with the Son’s mediation, to come continually to ask for the additional mercy and grace that we need for each day, and for each moment of each day. “Therefore let us [keep] draw[ing] near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16 NRSV slightly edited).  

As we keep coming to the throne of grace, we do so knowing that our High Priest is already there, praying even harder than we, for “he ever lives to intercede” (Hebrews 7:25). Until we have arrived safely at home, we will still need mercy (to be delivered from what we deserve) and grace (to be provided with that which we cannot earn).  

Image: Icon of Ezekiel, 17th cent., North Russia, AnonymousUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Ezekiel: A word that comes alive in us. There’s an ironic twist in Ezekiel’s call. He’s thirty years old. He should be taking up his priestly duties in the temple, as that is the calling into which he was born. Thirty is the age at which aspiring priests normally begin their priesthood duties (Numbers 4:3). But Ezekiel is in an alien land, far from the temple. God touches him with the gift of prophecy instead. Not just any gift of prophecy, though. Yahweh gives him some of the most surreal visions in all the Bible (as we’ve just seen in the first part of Ezekiel 1), and calls him to some of the strangest prophetic actions in all the Bible (like lying on his side for over a year, and eating food he first cooks on human feces—Ezekiel 4:4–17). 

It was a difficult call to take up, comprising a mixture of the severest warnings at the beginning of his ministry, then containing the sweetest promises toward the end. So Yahweh’s Spirit prompts Ezekiel to listen and speak: “As He spoke to me the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet; and I heard Him speaking to me” (Ezekiel 2:2 NASB). Further, Yahweh calls upon him to eat a scroll the words of which are condemnatory, and yet the taste of which is sweet (Ezekiel 2:8–3:3)!  

May you and I trust that the same is true for us. May our confidence in God’s “Thus says the Lord…” (see Ezekiel 2:4) overrule our hesitancy to stand upon God’s Holy Word when we know it won’t be popular. May the Spirit of the Lord prompt us to “hear…, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest,” as the Book of Common Prayer puts it, “all holy Scriptures.” May we find them, as Ezekiel did, to be “sweet as honey” in our mouth (Ezekiel 3:3).   

Collect for Proper 28. Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Yahweh's Battle Chariot - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 5/18/2023 •
Day of Ascension 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 8; Psalm 47; Ezekiel 1:1–28; Hebrews 2:5–18; Matthew 28:16–20 

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) 

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 am grateful to be with you.  

Today is the Day of Ascension, and it seems an especially appropriate time, here in Year 1 of the Daily Lectionary to begin reading the Book of Ezekiel. The vision that first appears to Ezekiel is loaded with symbolic freight for an ascension-imagination, one shaped by the wonder of the fact that Jesus Christ now reigns from heaven and at the same time dwells within his church on earth.  

Anticipation of incarnation. At the end of the vision that launches Ezekiel’s prophetic ministry, God appears to him in bodily form: Ezekiel sees a figure enthroned in God’s battle chariot that looks like a man who has an amber torso, gleaming and fiery, and who has lower parts that look like a burning flame, shining with splendor (Ezekiel 1:26–27). This “figure whose appearance resembles a man” strikes Ezekiel as “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh” (Ezekiel 1:26,28).  

Fra Angelico , Mystic Wheel: The Vision of Ezekiel, Basilica di San Marco, Florence. Public domain 

From a Jewish perspective, the vision is at least borderline scandalous, if not altogether blasphemous. From a Christian perspective, however, the vision is a peek into the day when the glorious Son of God would walk the earth in sandaled feet, and then ascend to heaven to re-take possession of his pre-existent glory. John narrates, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.” And Jesus prays, “So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed” (John 1:14; 17:5).  

Intimation of gospel revelation. Yahweh’s battle chariot displays the faces of four creatures: a human, a lion, an ox, and an eagle (Ezekiel 1:10). Features of these creatures appear also on Babylonian religious statues. Their appearance on Ezekiel’s battle chariot signals that the true Lord and Master of all living things is Yahweh: creatures of the air (eagle), of wild beasts of the wilderness (lion), of domestic livestock (ox), and of humans themselves (man).  

These same creatures appear in a similar vision in the throne room vision in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 4:6–7). Early church tradition associates each creature with a particular Gospel:  

• the man with Matthew, whose gospel begins with genealogies stressing Jesus’s human lineage;  

• the lion with Mark, whose gospel begins with John the Baptist’s voice in the wilderness, the domain of the lion; 

• the ox with Luke, whose gospel begins with Zechariah the future father of John the Baptist carrying out his sacrificial duties in the temple, where on the Day of Atonement an ox would be sacrificed for the sins of the people; and  

• the eagle with John, whose gospel begins with the elevated, “high flying” perspective of Jesus, the Logos of God, being both “with God and God.”  

Doré - Bible Ezechielovo vidění. Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Of course, there’s not a straight line from Ezekiel to this Christian application of his imagery. But the hints of God’s embodiment and the theme of God’s ability to be present to his people wherever they are (next point) make it easy to see how the imagination of early Christians would have adopted these symbols. Jesus, now ascended to the right hand of the Father, ministers his presence to us, in part, through the Gospels that are associated with these figures.  

Lack of geographical limitation to God’s presence. The creatures on the chariot of Ezekiel’s vision have wings that touch one another. In Ezekiel 10, we find that the creatures of Ezekiel’s vision are cherubim. Just like the cherubim atop the ark of the covenant in the Jerusalem temple, their wings touch (Ezekiel 1:9; 2 Chronicles 3:11). The wings give Ezekiel’s chariot-ark mobility, and so do its wheels: “As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, one for each of the four of them … When they moved, they moved in any of the four directions without veering as they moved. … When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose. Wherever the spirit would go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels” (Ezekiel 1:15,17,19,20). The image inspired the spiritual “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel”: 

Ezekiel saw the wheel; 
Way up in the middle of the air. 
And the big wheel run by Faith, good Lord; 
And the little wheel run by the Grace of God; 
And a wheel in a wheel good Lord; 
Way in the middle of the air. 

It is a powerful symbol for every generation of believers who know they are strangers and aliens—from the Babylonian Captivity through the African dispersion, and beyond—that, unlike all the other gods, the God of the Bible is everywhere and anywhere. The absolutely majestic truth of the Ascension of Jesus Christ is that he now has the ability to be here, there, and everywhere. There’s not a moment he is not with us, nor a moment in which he is not superintending all things, “in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Matthew 28:18; Philippians 2:10).  

Collect of the Day: Ascension Day. Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Faithful Dependance on Our Heavenly Father - Daily Devotions with the Dean

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+ 

Do Not Forget the Lord Your God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 5/16/2023 •
Week of 6 Easter 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78; Deuteronomy 8:11–20; James 1:16–27; Luke 11:1–13 

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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 Sixth Week of Easter, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

Deuteronomy: Moses’s warning. Here is one grave cautionary note: “When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 8:12–14a).  

Temptations of the wilderness are one thing. Temptations that come with the Promised Land are another. The latter are not lesser than the former, just different—and no less deadly. It is a risky thing for the Lord to prosper us. It’s all too easy for us to take the credit and forget who got us to where we are.  

A feeling of entitlement is a malady to which those of us in the prosperous Western democracies are especially susceptible.  

Moses’s warning is good for us. As is James’s:  

James’s warning. “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers (and sisters, understood”—James 1:16). It’s a good thing, it seems to me, that the versifiers of the New Testament set these few words off on their own—almost as a standalone thought. They make us stop and wonder. Where might my thinking be upside down? How might I be confused about my actual circumstances? How might I be misreading my own heart? How might God’s face have gotten distorted in the muddle of life?  

James follows with two of the most soul-centering, spirit-settling, positively attitude-adjusting thoughts in all the Bible:  

God gives good gifts. “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:16–17). There’s no good thing we experience that is not worth a hearty and humble “Thank you.” There’s not a trace of whim or caprice in the mysterious mind of God. Wherever we are, whatever we are going through, we can be sure that a benevolent hand is in control. When he blesses us, it’s not to lure us into forgetting him. When he sends us into the wilderness, it’s not because he’s forgotten us or has abandoned us. He does not change his mind about his ultimately kind intentions toward his children, even if his mercies can be, for a time, severe (with a nod to Sheldon Vanauken), or if, as does also happen, his gifts seem to be almost too lavish. Always, the way to avoid self-deception is to give thanks.  

God makes everything new. “In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures” (James 1:18). God himself has stepped into a weary and sin-sick world with power to renew, and with resolve to bring life out of death. Which is why we pray on Good Friday, at the Easter Vigil, and at every ordination: “… by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord…” (BCP, pp.  280, 291, 525, 528, 540).  

Among those things that were cast down and are being raised up, that had grown old and are being made new, and that are now being brought to perfection are our very selves! We, as James says, are here to be vanguard (“a kind of first fruits”) of God’s new creation. That is profound truth of which we cannot remind ourselves enough! So, the first order of thanks is this: “Thank you, generous and gracious Lord, for raising me up, for making me new, and for putting me on the pathway to Christlikeness.”  

Jesus’s dual approach to prayer. Back-to-back Jesus gives us a pattern for prayer in the Lord’s Prayer, and then the exhortation to persist in asking, searching, and knocking. Jesus’s recipe for prayer is both patterned and persistent. Prayer that is just patterned can become rote. Prayer that is just persistent can become rambling and off-point.  

May the Lord’s Prayer focus our priorities around God’s own: the holiness of God’s name and the priority of his Kingdom (“Father, hallowed by your name; let your Kingdom come”); our daily dependence upon him for sustenance and all necessities of life (“give us this day our daily bread”); our constant need to keep our relational slate clean of grievances and offenses (“forgive us as we forgive others”); and our engagement in spiritual conflict (“lead us not into temptation”).  

May the Lord’s call for persistence keep us on our knees in quest, always, of the Father’s face and the presence and power of the Spirit of his Son in our lives: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Inventory of What God Provides - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 5/15/2023 •
Week of 6 Easter  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; Deuteronomy 8:1–10; James 1:1–15; Luke 9:18–27 

Comments on James 1:1–15 from DDD 11/12/2020: https://tinyurl.com/p7ez9f76 

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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 Sixth Week of Easter, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

James: tests versus temptations. To paraphrase a central point in today’s epistle reading: James says, “Embrace tests that come our way, but don’t think they are temptations from God.” Tests come from God, temptations don’t. Tests and temptations may look the same. In fact, clever wordsmith that he is, James uses the same Greek root (peiros-/peiraz-) for both. Tests and temptations can take an outward appearance that’s identical: mistreatment by a boss, an insult from a supposed friend, a slight by a spouse, overhearing gossip about a person we don’t like anyway, or overhearing a joke about people who are “other.” But tests and temptations are not the same thing, though they both show us what we’re made of. Tests come from a God who wants us to succeed, and are his loving way of helping us prove our mettle. Temptations come from a sinister source that wants to take us down and dance on our grave. Tests cheer us on, temptations jeer at us. Tests toughen, temptations entice.  

Image: Reggie Kidd photo 

Today’s passages offer helpful guardrails: 

Deuteronomy: Accept the wilderness. When we find ourselves in a “wilderness” (as Israel did for forty years during the exodus), we can be tempted to ingratitude, or we can accept the test of gratitude (“For the daily bread you provide, dear Lord, I give you thanks”) and of obedience (“The path your Word lays before me, and not the one of my own devising, that is the path I will follow”).  

A wilderness can be distinctly personal: a dark night of the soul, a bitter breakup, a crushing self-revelation. A wilderness can be widely shared: pandemic, war, social unrest. Every wilderness is a place of temptation or a place of testing.  

James: Look for the joy. Throughout it all, James challenges us to find the joy somehow (“whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy”), to embrace the discipline of endurance (“you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance”), to look to Him for wisdom (“If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God”), and to assess our own circumstances by the Lord’s valuation (and not by our culture’s or our own personal proclivities): “Let the believer who is lowly boast in being raised up, and the rich in being brought low” (James 1:2,3,5,9).  

Joy … endurance … wisdom … re-evaluation. The circumstances we go through always give us opportunity to name the things that give us reasons for thanks, that make us stronger, that make us smarter, and that give us new perspective. It might be worth it to take a few moments and make a list …  

Don’t blame the devil. In other places, Scripture points to the demonic source of temptation. I think of the Garden of Eden. I think of Satan’s accusations of Job. I also recall that later in his epistle, James himself speaks of a supposed “wisdom” that is at bottom demonic (James 3:14). But here in chapter 1, he speaks of that within us that makes us susceptible to the hiss of the serpent: our own desires: “But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it” (James 1:14).  

The shocker in James 1 is to discover that we are our own tempters. The devil’s whispers only work because they resonate with something inside us, something like a spiritual death wish. This same truth will be evident in James 3 as well, where James cautions against envy, selfish ambition, boastfulness, a world of iniquity within us, partiality, and hypocrisy—things that provide tinder for the sparks that hell sets aflame (James 3:6,14,16,17). In today’s passage, James says that to give in to these impulses is to surrender ourselves to a kind of death even before we die. He puts this out there for us so we might, say “No!”, and instead, respond to the new life which has, in Christ, taken hold in us: “[The Father of lights] gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures” (James 1:17,18). 

Tough times call for an inventory of what God provides in our lives (gifts like joy, etc.), but also for an inventory of the vestiges of what the apostle Paul calls “the old man” or “the old self”—the self we are called to “put to death,” lest it kill us. “Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry) …  These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth” (Colossians 3:5,7–8).  

Perhaps one of the mercies of finding ourselves in hard times is that we are given abundant opportunity to name the evil that comes to the surface—to name it, confess it, rebuke it, and banish it.   

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

Resurrection Hope - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 5/12/2023 •
Week of 5 Easter 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106:1–18; Daniel 12:1–13; Romans 14:13–23; Luke 8:40–56 

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

Daniel 12 and resurrection hope. Back in Daniel 9, we saw how the Messiah, the Anointed Prince, would usher in God’s Jubilee. He would “put an end to sin, … atone for iniquity, … bring in everlasting righteousness.” He would do so by being “cut off”—that is to say, he would himself become the final and perfect sacrifice for sin (Daniel 9:24,26). This very thing the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished for us on Calvary (Hebrews 9:26; 1 Peter 3:18; 1 John 3:5,8).  

Back in Daniel 7, we also saw how the Son of Man would come before the Ancient of Days and receive all dominion (Daniel 7:13–14). This very thing took place when the resurrected Christ ascended to the Father’s right hand, received the gift of the Holy Spirit, and began distributing his royal gifts to his people (Acts 1–2; Ephesians 4).  

Image: Church of Panagia tou Arakos, nave, center bay, drum, wall paintings, Lagoudera, Cyprus - Prophet DanielWinfield, David, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons 

In Daniel 12, the prophet receives a final glimpse into the effects of the future Messiah’s ministry. His people will first share his sufferings and afterwards his glory. For a symbolic three and a half years (“a time, two times, and half a time”—Daniel 12:7), God’s people will be under attack. Thus, the book of Revelation says that the Church, under the figure of the woman of Revelation 12, is being kept safe in the wilderness, “where she is nourished for twelve hundred and sixty days”—Revelation 12:6). The entire age of the church is summed up in this fashion. In the light of eternity, the season of the travails of God’s holy people is short and limited, no matter how long its temporal span nor how desperate its circumstances.  

Finally, though, when all seems lost (“when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end”—Daniel 12:7), there will be resurrection. Everyone whose name has been written in the book by faith, everyone who has “gone to sleep” in hope, everyone whose life has been purified and cleansed and refined by the indwelling Spirit of Christ “shall awake … to everlasting life” (Daniel 12:1–2,10). They will “shine like the brightness of the sky,” for as Paul will later say, they will bear “an eternal weight of glory” (Daniel 12:3; 2 Corinthians 4:17). 

Daniel’s book thereby closes by dramatically setting before us the great “either/or” of life: “…some [will rise] to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). The Lord Jesus puts his own imprimatur on this truth: “[T]he hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28–29). The destiny of every one of us is, to repeat the memorable line from C. S. Lewis is to “live forever as immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.” It is on each of us to choose well and wisely.  

Luke 8 and resurrection hope. The prospect of resurrection confers profound value upon every human being who ever has lived or will live. The Gospel writers display this truth in their various descriptions of Jesus’s healing ministry. Thus, today’s accounts present the healing power that flows from the hem of his garment (Luke 8:42b–48) and from his mere word uttered from a distance (Luke 8:40–42a,49–56). 

Romans 14 and resurrection hope. And we who love him—we are called to love and value those whom Jesus loves and values in the same way he loves and values them. We know that there are no mere mortals among us. Further, we know that he has come more for the weak than for the strong, and entirely for the unrighteous rather than the righteous. Thus, the apostle Paul outlines the care and circumspection with which we treat one another: “Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another” (Romans 14:13). We treasure and make room for each other—even, or especially, in areas where we may think ourselves better informed or more solidly formed than others. We do so for the sake of the one who loved us when we were unlovely, and we do so mindful of the fact that we are helping one another towards either the most glorious or the most horrendous of prospects: the resurrection of the just, or the awful alternative.  

Collect for the Fifth Sunday of Easter. Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

The Lord’s Anointed Wins - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 5/11/2023 •
Week of 5 Easter 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 70; Psalm 71; Daniel 11:36–45; Romans 14:1–12; Luke 8:26–39 

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) 

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. This is Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter, and I’m grateful to be with you. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

Daniel. 1 Maccabees 6:1–17 and 2 Maccabees 1:14–16; 9:1–29 provide extensive, competing, and exotic details of Antiochus IV’s campaigns and his demise. Daniel, however, concludes his summary of Antiochus’s god-hating exploits with a simple, “He shall pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain. Yet he shall come to his end, with no one to help him” (Daniel 11:45). For all his lust for conquest and his play-acting at divinity, this enemy of Yahweh and his people simply vanishes from history’s stage.  

Some interpreters (I am among them) think that Daniel receives here a glimpse into the distant future. He provides us a symbolic representation of Christ’s final victory over Antichrist, when the “King of kings and Lord of Lords” descends upon “the Beast” (i.e., the Antichrist) who has assembled an army against the Lamb and the Holy City. Christ seizes him, and “throws him alive into the lake of fire burning with sulfur” (Revelation 19, especially verses 16,19,20).  

Image: From Four prophets: Ángel M. Felicísimo from Mérida, España, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

We have followed Daniel’s career from his youth at the beginning of the Babylonian captivity all the way to his senior years at the cusp of the return from exile. We have seen his faithfulness under one pagan leader after another: from Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams of glory to Belshazzar’s writing on the wall to Darius’s demand for worship of himself. We have followed Daniel from one trial after another, from the blazing furnace to the lions’ den. One lesson he has learned above all others: in the end, the Lord’s Anointed wins; and in him, so do his people.  

Psalm 71. Throughout our reading of Daniel, we have witnessed God’s faithfulness. Remember that by the end of the book of Daniel, the prophet is a very old man, probably in his eighties. Though today’s Psalm 71 is anonymous, it certainly could speak for Daniel — and for any of us who discover that we have become old (or who think we may find ourselves in that position someday!):  

9 Do not cast me off in my old age; forsake me not when my strength fails. 

17 O God, you have taught me since I was young,  
and to this day I tell of your wonderful works. 
18 And now that I am old and gray-headed, O God, do not forsake me,  
till I make known your strength to this generation 
and your power to all who are to come.  

May we “Dare to Be a Daniel” in our youth, in our middle years, and in our later years. May we find our God to be a great champion all the way through. In our junior years, may we hide God’s Law in our hearts “that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11). In our middler years, may we not outrun our gratitude to the Father of lights, the giver of “every perfect gift” (James 1:17). In our senior years, may we find that “even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).  

Collect for the Aged. Look with mercy, O God our Father, on all whose increasing years bring them weakness, distress, or isolation. Provide for them homes of dignity and peace; give them understanding helpers, and the willingness to accept help; and, as their strength diminishes, increase their faith and their assurance of your love. This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Church Will Persevere - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 5/10/2023 •
Week of 5 Easter  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 72; Daniel 11:1–35; Romans 13:1–14; Luke 8:16–25 

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 Fifth Week of Easter. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

Daniel. In today’s reading, Daniel receives a detailed timeline of the coming struggle of God’s people who will be returning from Babylon to Israel, “the Beautiful Land” (Daniel 11:16).  

The rest of the canonical histories of the Old Testament (Ezra and Nehemiah) and the latter prophets (Haggai, Zechariah, Zephaniah, Malachi) take us only through about 400 BC. Those books treat the return from exile, the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple, and further messianic expectations.  

Image: The picture is a Greek Catholic icon depicting the prophet Daniel. The icon was written in the end of the 18th century as part of the iconostasis of the Greek Catholic Cathedral of Hajdúdorog, Hungary. Daniel's icon is placed on the third tier of the iconostasis, the so-called Prophets tier. This icon is the first painting from the left. Jojojoe, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. 

Daniel is given a glimpse into the struggle that lies beyond those days. He foretells the intrigues that will allow evil powers under Antiochus IV Epiphanes to overwhelm God’s people in 2nd century B.C. (Daniel 11:1–32a). Further, Daniel heralds the people’s future deliverance when the Maccabees rise up to retake Jerusalem and the temple (165 B.C.—Daniel 11:32b; see 1 Maccabees 1:61–63). Beyond all this, Daniel predicts the season of persecution that will face God’s people immediately prior to the resurrection of the dead (Daniel 12). All this is described beforehand so that Israel, and then the Church, will not lose heart, but will persevere with courage, hope, and faithfulness to the very end, when God’s kingdom and glory will prevail.  

Romans 13. Our faith is not romantically innocent of the power of evil in the world. For that reason, immediately after the apostle Paul tells believers that their task is to overcome evil with good (Romans 12), he also tells them to receive the ministration of governing authorities because of government’s God-given role in enforcing a measure of justice and social equilibrium in this fallen world (Romans 13). Taxes due, even if inconvenient, are to be paid. Respect owed, even to unbelieving governors, is to be rendered (Romans 13:7). There’s not a word offered for de-legitimizing the pagan government under which Roman Christians lived, much less for committing insurrection against it. In fact, when Paul contemplates believers entering the public square, he expects them to be “ready for every good work” (that is, to seek to make a positive contribution) and to “be persuadable” (peitharchein—Titus 3:1; translated “be obedient” in the NRSV, the term connotes something more like, “be willing to listen to those with whom one disagrees, and to weigh counter-arguments and alternative solutions”).  

Luke. Thus, Jesus exhorts his followers not to hide their light under a jar or put it under a bed; rather, they are to put it on a lampstand, so that those who enter may see the light (Luke 8:16). God’s reality will eventually become evident, regardless of how long it takes, and regardless of how doubtful or foggy or confused things seem until then (Luke 8:17). In support of this truth, Luke recounts the way Jesus claims as intimate family not just those who obviously are family by blood, but all those who hear him and follow him (Luke 8:19–21). Also in support of this truth, Luke recalls Jesus’s mastery over the winds and the waves. Regardless of whether our influence seems great or small, we are privileged to represent the One who calls us his own and who is Lord over every situation. We can be confident that sooner or later “nothing that is hidden will not be disclosed” (Luke 8:17). May we walk in the light of this wonderful and life-giving truth.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

A Heavenly War - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 5/9/2023 •
Week of 5 Easter 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 61; Psalm 62; Daniel 10:1–21; Romans 12:1–21; Luke 8:1–15 

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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 Fifth Week of Easter, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

Daniel: a conflict in the heavens. An angelic figure (maybe Gabriel?) appears to Daniel (Daniel 10:2–9), in order to bring word of a great conflict in the heavens (Daniel 10:1). It is a message regarding a battle between God’s protecting angels (Gabriel and Michael) and enemy angels (the “angel of Persia” and the “angel of Greece”). 

Image: Bonifazio Veronese , CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

The conflict Gabriel describes is to take place “…at the end of days” (Daniel 10:14), a reference that seems to have a double meaning: first, what’s to happen following the end of the Babylonian exile of God’s people, when Jerusalem and its temple have been rebuilt; and second, what’s to happen in the remote future, after the completed work of the Messiah (as predicted in Daniel 7 and 9).   

Above our earthly strife and cares, asserts Daniel, a heavenly war is being waged. A lively sense of this reality carries over into the New Testament. Jesus sees a heavenly analogue for the disciples’ ministry, as he exclaims upon the return of the seventy from their successful mission: “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning” (Luke 10:18). Jesus sees his being lifted up on the cross as effecting the devil’s being cast down: “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:31–32). Christ’s cross de-fangs Satan’s forces, according to Paul, and at the same time thrusts us into a battle against those very same powers and principalities (Colossians 2 and Ephesians 6). The risen and ascended Jesus tells Paul that the effect of the gospel ministry among Gentiles will be “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18).  

The final chapters of Daniel’s prophecies are among the several hints the Old Testament gives us that the heavens themselves were divided among evil powers aligned with an arrogant Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12’s “Son of the Morning;” see also Ezekiel 28:1–28; Job 1–2), and the angelic host loyal to Yahweh, the Lord of Hosts. At the Fall, a rift opened between heaven and earth, and it brought with it a rift among us as well. Death took hold of the human race, breaking our relationship with God, and setting us against one another. As a whole, the Bible’s story is all about the putting down of the Satanic rebellion, the healing of the rift between heaven and earth, and the reunification of our fractured human race.  

Romans: our task on earth. I think of these verses in Romans as Paul’s “Desiderata” (“things desired”). And I think of them often, for they are verses worth returning to time and time again. They remind us how distinctive God’s “Desiderata” are—say, in contrast to Max Ehrmann’s poem “Desiderata.” Contrary to what Erhmann says in his poem, things were not “unfolding as [they] should.” Instead, Christ has set at work the power of reconciliation and reunion: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:19). By the mercies of the God who has adopted enemies into his family by giving up his own Son for us (as opposed to our being entitled “children of the universe” who “have a right to be here”), we participate in the reunification of heaven and earth and the restoration of peace among humans. We do so by submitting our bodies, says Paul in today’s epistle, as a “living, holy and acceptable sacrifice, which is [our] spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1).  

In this kind of lifestyle worship, we sacrifice our ego by not thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought (Romans 12:3). We give up our individualism by recognizing that we are mutually dependent members of the multi-faceted Body of Christ (Romans 12:4–5). We lose our envy of others by gratefully and generously stewarding our own particular gift (Romans 12:6–8). We walk away from the toxicity of bitterness by blessing and praying for those who persecute and curse us (Romans 12:14). We give up our need for revenge by putting wrongs done against us into the Lord’s hands. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). 

In all this, well aware of the cosmic struggle that Gabriel revealed to Daniel, we take our part in what Paul calls our own struggle against powers and principalities in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12–20). To be sure, Christ has already disarmed the still-rebellious heavenly powers at work in Daniel’s day, in Christ’s day, in Paul’s day, and even now in ours (Colossians 2:15). One day, those powers will be completely and thoroughly vanquished. In the meantime, by our life in the Body of Christ—brothers and sisters living lives of “mutual affection,” of “outdoing one another in showing honor,” and of “feeding our enemies” (Romans 12:10,20)—we signal to those heavenly powers and their evil Overlord their doom. Living out Paul’s “Desiderata,” we the body of Christ make “known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” the “wisdom of God in its rich variety” (Ephesians 3:8,10).  

Be blessed this day.  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Gabriel's Good News - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 5/8/2023 •
Week of 5 Easter  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 56; Psalm 57; Psalm 58; Daniel 9:20–27; Colossians 3:18–4:18; Luke 7:36–50 

Comments on Luke 7:36–50 from DDD 10/8/2020: https://tinyurl.com/3ur9bzx9 

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); 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 Fifth Week of Easter, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” 

Daniel 9:20–27, the angel Gabriel’s message to Daniel, is one of the places where interpreters diverge wildly. The majority of interpreters read the “seventy-weeks” prophecy as a prediction of desolation, even if they disagree over whether the desolation comes from Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 167 B.C., the Roman general Titus in A.D. 70, or the Antichrist at the end of time. A minority of interpreters read the seventy-weeks prophecy as a prediction of the coming of the Messiah, even if his coming is accompanied by a heightening of evil. (I find myself siding with the Messianic minority.)  

Image: From El Greco, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Seventy weeks. The seventy years of exile, Gabriel explains, are going to open out onto “seventy weeks,” a symbolic 490 years (7 x 7 x 10), at the end of which Messiah (“the Anointed One” of Daniel 9:25) will come, and “make an end of sin, make atonement for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness” (Daniel 9:24). Gabriel’s message: Messiah will bring God’s great Jubilee, the perfect crown of seven cycles of seven years (see Leviticus 25). Similarly, the prophet Isaiah had looked beyond the Babylonian Captivity, when God would institute his Jubilee: “the year of the Lord’s favor, the day of vengeance of our God” (Isaiah 61:2). In Luke 4, Jesus says that he has come to usher in this very thing, God’s Jubilee: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).  

God is always in the process of moving history toward the complete restoration of his creation. He has embedded a sabbath principle in the life of his people, an expansion of weeks, months, and years. It’s a pattern of working and resting, of people piling up debt and then seeing it forgiven, of people slipping into bondage and then tasting liberation, of people losing inheritances and then having them restored. All in anticipation of an age of final rest, of release from every indebtedness and from every bondage, and of a return to a sense of place in “a better country” (Hebrews 11:16).  

The “who” of the Jubilee: Messiah. The bringer of God’s Jubilee is the “Anointed Prince” (Daniel 9:25) whose coming will follow the rebuilding of God’s temple, and who will also “confirm a covenant with many” (Daniel 9:27, my translation; I believe that the “he” at the beginning of verse 27 refers back to God’s Anointed One, though I understand why that may not be obvious to every reader). The verb that the NRSV uses in the phrase “make a strong covenant” and that I render “confirm a covenant” is hig̱bir, and it comes from the same root as Gabriel’s name, “God is Strength.” I think Gabriel is referring not to an Antichrist’s false and broken covenant, but to the resurrected Messiah’s ratification in the church’s life (verse 27) of the covenant he has forged with them by his death (verse 26—see the next point).  

The “how” of the Jubilee: “Cut off.” Isaiah had said that the Suffering Servant would be “cut off from the land of the living” for the transgression of God’s people (Isaiah 53:8). Gabriel’s thrilling message to Daniel is that this is how Messiah “finishes the transgression, puts an end to sin, and atones for iniquity” (Daniel 9:24). That is also why Gabriel circles back in verse 27 to refer to Messiah’s confirming of a “strong covenant with many.” And “the many” with whom covenant is made in this verse resonates with Isaiah 53’s language of the Suffering Servant’s work applying to “the many”: “The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. … [he] was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many” (Isaiah 53:11b,12b).  

So definitive, so consequential, and so exhaustive will this sacrifice be that it will be the final sacrifice. That is why Gabriel tells Daniel one of heaven’s greatest secrets: Messiah will “make sacrifice and offering to cease” — any sacrifice offered after this would be presumptuous. It is why Paul resisted the blood-shedding act of circumcision for Gentiles. It is why Paul exhorts us to offer our bodies as living—not dead!—sacrifices to God (Romans 12:1z-2). It is why the anachronism of the physical temple had to go. As the writer to the Hebrews says, speaking, I believe, of the physical temple which was still standing in his day: “…what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear” (Hebrews 8:13b).  

The “already/not yet” of the Jubilee. God’s magnificent saving work takes place, but not without resistance. God builds, Satan tries to tear down. That is why Gabriel also includes sober notes about how the rebuilding of the temple will happen “in a troubled time” (Daniel 9:25). It’s also why Messiah’s work meets—indeed, prompts—such a harsh response. He is, after all, “cut off,” and the resistance that emerges is horrific: enemies of God’s people will destroy the city and the sanctuary, and there will be an abomination that desolates (Daniel 9:26b,27b).  

Thus, Ezra and Nehemiah had to face their detractors when they built the second temple. Thus, Antiochus did desecrate the second temple, though the Maccabean revolt brought its restoration.  

The Roman general Titus demolished the physical temple despite Herod’s lavish embellishments of it. However, he was unable to crush the even more beautiful spiritual temple, that is, the house of living stones (1 Peter 2:5), that had already begun to emerge through the spread of the good news of Christ Jesus. Ironically, the Roman General Titus’s work put an exclamation point on the fact that blood sacrifice and offering no longer needed to be made.  

“Many antichrists” emerged immediately in the early church to destroy God’s new temple (1 John 2:18,22; 4:3; 2 John 7). Many more will arise until that predicted horrible figure arises who presumes to pronounce his own deity in the new temple, that is, the church (2 Thessalonians 2:3–4). And then the end comes. Simultaneously evil will have reached its full measure, and so will God’s calculation of the salvation of the full number of elect Jews and Gentiles (Romans 11:12,25). Christ will win his final battle, bring the resurrection, and usher in “a new heavens and a new earth.” And death shall be no more, nor sickness, nor sighing, nor tears, nor frustration.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+