Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 20; Psalm 21; Isaiah 25:1–9; Revelation 1:9–20; John 7:53–8:11

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)

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First the bad news, then the good news. Isaiah 25 paints one of the most hope-filled pictures of the future anywhere in Scripture. To appreciate it, though, we have to see the horrid backdrop of the previous chapter. In Isaiah 24, the prophet foresees the earth being ravaged by human-created pollution: “the earth lies polluted under its inhabitants, for … they have violated the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth dwindled, and few people are left” (Isaiah 24:5–6). Does this sound at all like the world we live in? 

Lawlessness rules in the streets: “The city of chaos is broken down, every house is shut up so that no one can enter. There is an outcry in the streets for lack of wine; all joy has reached its eventide; the gladness of the earth is banished. Desolation is left in the city” (Isaiah 24:10–11). Does this sound at all like the year we are just closing out? 

Heavenly powers as well as earthly rulers have conspired against Yahweh (Isaiah 24:21–23). Yahweh’s response has been to “open the windows of heaven” (as he did in Noah’s day) and unleash a storm of judgment. He overthrows earthly rulers, displaces heavenly powers, and establishes his own rule: “for the Lord of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his elders he will manifest his glory” (Isaiah 24:21–23).

Isaiah 25 is the manifestation of that glory. When the storm of judgment has passed, Yahweh will be shown to “have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress” (Isaiah 25:4). Because of the coming of Yahweh, “the song of the ruthless was stilled” (Isaiah 25:5). 

On the far side of that storm of judgment want gives way to plenty, and death gives way to life. 

Want gives way to plenty. Just as, during the exodus, Yahweh gathered the elders of Israel on Mt. Sinai to feast in his presence (Exodus 24), on one great day in the future, “On this mountain (Mt. Zion) the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear” (Isaiah 25:6). The Hebrew of this verse is quite difficult to render into English, but it has a beautiful assonance:

mishteh shemanim,
mishteh shemarim,
shemanim memuchayim,
shemarim mezuqqaqim 

Trying to preserve at least the feel of the text’s assonance and poetic parallelism, I render the text this way: 

a feast of filet,
a feast of cabernet,
filet mignon,
cabernet sauvignon 

Whatever the precise meaning of the terms, the sentence would have been mouth-watering to Isaiah’s listeners. What lies ahead of us is a feast beyond compare!

Death gives way to life. 

… he will destroy … the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever — Isaiah 25:7–8a. Gone is the sense of inevitability and finality that hangs like a death pall over our lives. In Canaanite religion, there was always a fear that Mot, the god of death, would prove stronger than Baal, the Canaanite’s fertility-deity, and that ultimately death (Mot) would swallow up life (Baal). Isaiah says, to the contrary, Israel’s Lord, Yahweh, will swallow up death. The pall of death that seems to condition all of life—the sense of tentativeness and fear of death we all live with—will one day surrender to life that has been secured by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

That is why every funeral service for believers in Christ is a celebration of resurrection-life. That is why our funeral palls are resurrection-white. Our shrouds are temporary, our burial sheets are just helping us to mark time. We are merely renting our coffins and burial places or our columbarium niches. One day, we won’t need them any longer. 

… Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces… — Isaiah 25:8b. Gone are the grief and the sadness. Isaiah anticipates the apostles Paul and John. We do grieve, “but not like the rest,” says Paul (1 Thessalonians 4:13). As John brings the Bible’s story to a close in the Book of Revelation, he incorporates words from Isaiah: “he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). 

… and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth — Isaiah 25:8c. Gone are the shame, the guilt, the remorse, the sense of “being found out.” In the movie On the Waterfront, Marlon Brando’s character Terry Malloy sees the potential for a promising boxing career end when he lets himself be intimidated into throwing a fight. In what has become a classic cinematic moment, he looks back in despair: “You don’t understand! I could’a had class. I could’a been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.” There’s at least a little bit of Terry Malloy in all of us. Always a question mark: did I cut too many corners? did I make the grade? did I do enough? Am I good enough, pretty enough, “cool” enough? In the movie, thanks to the intervention of a faithful priest and the power of “true love,” Terry Malloy experiences a sort of redemption. In real life, redemption comes from a greater faithful High Priest and from the source of Love itself. 

Isaiah’s promise is that our every bad decision is overruled, and is, in fact, woven into a tapestry of all things being made right. “Behold, I make all things new!” (Revelation 21:5). 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 124; Jeremiah 31:15–17; Revelation 21:1–7; Matthew 2:13–18

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)

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Feast of Holy Innocents (transferred). In the tradition of the Christian Year, December 28 is a day to commemorate the Holy Innocents.  This year, the Feast of Holy Innocents transfers to December 29, because the Feast of St. John was transferred from its normal December 27 to December 28. 

From a sermon by St. Quodvultdeus, 5th century bishop of Carthage (and student of St. Augustine) (Sermo 2 de Symbolo: Patrologia Latina 40, 655) 

A tiny child is born, who is a great king. Wise men are led to him from afar. They come to adore one who lies in a manger and yet reigns in heaven and on earth. When they tell of one who is born a king, Herod is disturbed. To save his kingdom he resolves to kill him, though if he would have faith in the child, he himself would reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come.

Why are you afraid, Herod, when you hear of the birth of a king? He does not come to drive you out, but to conquer the devil. But because you do not understand this you are disturbed and in a rage, and to destroy one child whom you seek, you show your cruelty in the death of so many children.

You are not restrained by the love of weeping mothers or fathers mourning the deaths of their sons, nor by the cries and sobs of the children. You destroy those who are tiny in body because fear is destroying your heart. You imagine that if you accomplish your desire you can prolong your own life, though you are seeking to kill Life himself.

Yet your throne is threatened by the source of grace, so small, yet so great, who is lying in the manger. … While you vent your fury against the child, you are already paying him homage, and do not know it.

If I were to make a list of “Top Ten Losers” in the Bible, near the top of my list would be Herod the (so-called) Great. Our Christmas ornaments aren’t even down, and these readings remind us of the darkness and dastardliness of Herod’s slaying of innocent children in Bethlehem. Today’s readings protect Christmas from being reduced to tinsel and decorations. The Feast of Holy Innocents is a stark reminder that Jesus has come into an evil-beset world to take on that evil face-to-face.

Historians debate whether this incident actually took place. Unfortunately, it is totally in character for Herod. His achievements were many. Though only half-Jewish, he rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem with a magnificence that far outpaced Solomon. He had secured his alliance with Rome by conquering Jerusalem for Rome with an army of 30,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, and by executing forty-six members of its Sanhedrin. Nonetheless, he was maniacally paranoid. He thought his wife was trying to poison him, so he had her killed. Thinking that two of his sons were conspiring with her, he had them killed too—prompting Caesar Augustus to quip, “Better to be Herod’s pig than his son.” (As a half-Jew, Herod would not eat pork.) Not long after the slaying of the innocents in Bethlehem, Herod became so ill it was clear that he was going to die. So hated was he by the population and so determined was he that there would be mourning at this death, he ordered that the “most illustrious men of the whole Jewish nation” be corralled and executed at his death. Happily, that order was allowed to expire once he was no longer around to enforce it. 

The unimaginable cruelty of which the human heart is capable is what has necessitated the birth of Baby Jesus in the first place. The Feast of Holy Innocents reminds us how consequential that birth is. Jesus comes to undo the basest of human cruelties. The “tears of Rachel weeping for her children” (Jeremiah 31:15) will be wiped away—every one of them, when death itself dies (Revelation 21:4). Every Herod will receive his reckoning, and the Baby who escaped that day’s carnage will “make all things new” (Revelation 21:5). 

In Christian tradition, the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem are often referred to as infant martyrs: They cannot speak, yet they bear witness to Christ. They cannot use their limbs to engage in battle, yet already they bear off the palm of victory (Quodvultdeus). In silent testimony, they prompt us to remember all the martyrs of every age—boy and girl, man and woman, young and old, rich and poor. Moreover, Bethlehem’s Holy Innocents remind us acutely of all the little ones who die of cruelty and neglect for whatever reason, martyrs of life itself: pre-born babies in the United States, little ones born to refugees in Central America or the Middle East, Uighur children in Chinese concentration camps, young girls and boys in Africa who are pressed into trafficking or into children’s armies. Lord, have mercy. 

Collect for the Feast of Holy Innocents. We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ 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+

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 92; Exodus 33:18–23; 1 John 1:1–9; John 21:19b–24

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)

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Feast of St. John (transferred). In the tradition of the Christian Year, December 27 is a day to celebrate the life and ministry of St. John, Son of Zebedee, Beloved Disciple, and author of the Fourth Gospel, 1,2,3 John, and Revelation. Because December 27 falls on a Sunday this year, the Feast of St. John gets transferred to today, December 28. 

John’s is the gospel in which Jesus unveils his divine nature—most especially, it appears, to John the Beloved Disciple. The early church’s choice of the soaring, majestic “eagle” to represent the Gospel according to John seems altogether appropriate. In this gospel, despite the all too familiar struggle of the disciples to understand, Jesus’s glory and majesty are unwrapped in high-altitude language. John begins: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” From the outset, we are put on notice that we are in a rarified atmosphere. 

One of the profound ironies of this gospel is that while it is unparalleled in its portrayal of the unambiguous divinity of Jesus, it has some of the most poignant cameos of his humanity. It also provides vital hints as to the course of his earthly ministry. Jesus has “compassion” all over the place in the synoptics, but this is the only gospel in which one of his associates is called “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7,20). Here are reflections of one whose words leap off the page: “What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us!” (1 John 1:1b–2). And while Peter’s call is to bear the keys of the kingdom and to go the way of martyrdom, John’s call is to live long and to meditate deeply on the life and words of the One who loves him especially—and to make Him especially real to us.  

Because John’s Jesus is so preeminently divine, he is for that same reason so sublimely human. It is only in John’s gospel that he stands before a friend’s tomb and angrily weeps at the tragedy and awfulness of death (John 11). He attends a wedding (John 2). He accepts an interview with a member of the Sanhedrin (John 3). Instead of, as in Luke, talking about a Good Samaritan, here he actually befriends a Samaritan woman rejected even by her own folk (John 4).

Maybe there’s a message in this point alone: the tendency of the church to pit Jesus’s humanity and divinity against one another is altogether wrong. In reality, the closer you get to his divinity, the more striking are his human features. He has forever wedded his eternal divine nature to our finitude, and promises us a share in his glory. It was John’s Gospel in particular that inspired early church theologians to assert, “He became what we are that we might become what he is!” 

Yesterday’s gospel reading from John included this staggering claim: “And the Word became flesh and (literally) pitched a tent among us” (John 1:14). The eternally existent “I AM” who sent Moses to Pharaoh has now done more than make an appearance in a burning bush before which sandals must be removed—he has now walked the earth himself and sanctified it with his sandaled feet. In the past, the Bible’s great “I AM” (Yahweh) pictured his presence with the tent of the tabernacle that followed a pillar of cloud and fire. Now he has become the tent—and his life lights up the world. In the past, Yahweh displayed his “I AM-ness” in ten judging plagues. Now he has unpacked his “I AM-ness” with seven predicates of blessing:

The Bread of Life and the True Vine (John 6 & 15). Having once provided manna from heaven, he now becomes bread from heaven. He provides the nourishment a man as crippled by his sloth as by his useless legs needs in order to stand and flourish (John 5). Not only is he food, he is drink as well: “if anyone is thirsty, let them come to me” (John 7:37). But he offers not just water. As True Vine, he offers a wine of celebration and joy. Somehow Jesus knows that the truly thirsty person at the well in Samaria is the woman who needs words of life and welcome and truthfulness from him. For every one of us who is joyless and famished and dying of thirst, here is food and drink. 

The Light of the World (John 8–9). For the darkness of the man born blind, there is light; for the pretended sight of the blind teachers, darkness (John 9). For the shame of the woman caught in adultery, there is the bright new day of being forgiven and being given a new start (this is why, I think, this independent story found its way to its home at the beginning of John 8). For the pseudo-righteous who would cast stones, there is the glaring light that exposes their own stonable offenses. For every one of us stumbling in the dark, especially the darkness of self-destructive behavior and guilt and shame, here is the light of pardon and a new direction. 

The Door of the Sheep (John 10). The door of the sheepfold both protects the sheep from predators and provides them their only access to their pasture. From a world that would savage us, there is, finally, protection. To places where our souls can feed, an opening—no, the opening. For lepers who have to live outside the gates, for demon-possessed and smelly beggars whom nobody wants to be around, here is a door into a fellowship where we are really wanted. 

The Good Shepherd (John 10). On the one hand, the old covenant promised that a Shepherd King in David’s line would rule. On the other, God himself—so said Ezekiel—would need to come: “I will feed my flock and I will lead them to rest,” declares the Lord God. “I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick; but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment” (34:15-16). For a Nicodemus, the great teacher of Israel, who needs a new birth so he can understand the point of the story, here is the point of the story: in one and the same Person, the King has come and God has come. For every person to whom the Bible is a closed book—even for every lost soul in seminary or Bible college or Sunday school, here’s the point: the King has come and God has come, for you! 

The Resurrection and the Life (John 11). So captivated is John by the glory of the resurrection that it governs his perspective on the death of Jesus. The Good Shepherd will sovereignly lay down his life for his sheep (John 10). Jesus is a friend laying down his life for his friends (John 15). At his arrest—can you even call it that? —, his thrice-repeated “I AM” (John 18:5,6,8) throws his would-be captors to the ground. On the cross, instead of Psalm 22:1’s plaintive “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (as in all three synoptics), John records something like Psalm 22:31’s triumphant “He has performed it.” At John 19:30, Jesus says “tetelesthai = it is finished.” And as if to offer an inclusio on the sayings about the shepherd giving his life for his sheep, about no one taking his life, and about the friend giving his life for his friends, John says Jesus “gives up” his spirit. The “lifting up” of Jesus on the cross is simultaneously his “lifting up” to resurrection, to ascension, to glory. For every person who knows their so-called “life” is but a walking death, Jesus is resurrection, and he is new and everlasting life. 

The Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14). He is the Way: not a set of principles about how to discern the correct path among the many choices in a given situation, but a person who leads. Not a map, but a personal guide. Jesus is the Truth: not abstractions about how to get to truth among the various claims for normativity, but a person who teaches. Not a rulebook, but a coach. Jesus is the Life: not a leap into an existential mystical goo or a brave assertion of personal worth, but a presence that makes alive. Not a dead end to “personal authenticity,” but a friend who takes up life in and with you. 

We remember this day “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” I pray you know your measure of that same love, and are able to answer it: “A new commandment I give you: love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Sunday Worship

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 2; Psalm 85; Zechariah 2:10–13; 1 John 4:7–16; John 3:31–36

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)

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Mercy and truth have met together;
righteousness and peace have kissed each other — Psalm 85:10. 

Truth. The truth is that we are sinners: inveterate truth-twisters and self-seekers. We are fully worthy of the wrath under which the Bible says we stand. The truth is that we do not wish there to be a straight line against which our lives will be measured. We are, as C. S. Lewis might put it, “bent,” and do not wish to be straightened, or even to acknowledge that there is a “straight” against which our “bentness” could be measured. We do not want anyone telling us that there is a true right and a true wrong, or that there is but one God, and one way to approach that God. That’s the truth about us. 

Mercy. Christmas means one staggering thing above all others: the truth about our sinfulness did not collide with our lives in the horrible and crushing way that it might have. The psalmist says that “truth” met with “mercy.” We did not get what we deserved—and this, at bottom, is what “mercy” means. Earlier, the psalmist says to Yahweh, “You have forgiven the iniquity of your people and blotted out all their sins. You have withdrawn all your fury and turned yourself from your wrathful indignation” (Psalm 85:2). 

John’s way of putting this glad truth is that “God loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10b). Here is mercy meeting with truth. The Greek term hilasmos, which the NRSV translates “atoning sacrifices,” is one of the richest words in the Bible. Its root meaning has to do with laughter and joy (as in the English term “hilarity”). For that reason, older translations render hilasmos as “propitiation,” meaning to restore joyful concord between God and us: “... [God] sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (KJV). 

Psalm 85:2 presents facets of God’s meeting the truth of our sinfulness with his propitiating mercy. In the mercy of Christ’s sacrifice, our iniquities are taken away from us—the base meaning behind the word “forgiven” is “to be made to go away” (apheinai). In the mercy of Christ’s sacrifice, our sins are “blotted out”—the Hebrew of Psalm 85:2 is literally, “covered,” meaning the punishment that should have fallen on us fell on our substitute. The motive behind God’s sending his Son is his love for us; the result is that the frown that the truth about us deserves turns to a smile. God delights in us through the sending and the sacrifice of his Son. A deep and rich and mysterious mercy begins its approach to us at Christmas. 

Righteousness. We all know that all is not “right” in the world. The rules don’t seem to apply equally to all. Many “haves” shouldn’t have. Many “have nots” should have. “Rightness” is, of course, basic to who God is. So is making all things right. Christmas brings God’s “rightness” into the world. In his words—like the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) and the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6)—Jesus teaches us how to live rightly … and soberly and in godly fashion. At least that’s how Paul puts it in Titus 2:11–12: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly.” He makes us right with God, and then begins to make us right within. And that leads to … 

Peace. Well, that leads to … the kiss of peace. Jesus gives us not just words about right living, he provides deeds that show peace come to earth. To be sure, he brings a “sword” against sin and evil and death (Matthew 10:34). But his ultimate weaponry is, ironically, his touch of healing and forgiveness. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he says, “for they will be called children of God” (Matthew 5:9). Psalm 85:10 speaks of “righteousness” and “peace” kissing, despite the fact that that is not necessarily an obvious coupling. Many seek to enforce their vision of “rightness” through violence, manipulation, and intimidation. Jesus brings “rightness” differently. He makes all things right through absorbing violence, and letting the manipulators and intimidators seem to have their way. The demands of righteousness and the way of peace coalesce in his life and collide on the cross. And in the end, they kiss. “Heaven’s peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love,” as the hymn paraphrases today’s verse. 

I pray you find yourself at Christmas’s intersection of truth and mercy. I pray you experience the sweet kiss of righteousness and peace. Merry Christmas. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Christmas Eve Holy Eucharist - 11 p.m. (with 10:30 p.m. Carol Concert)

Christmas Eve Holy Eucharist - 8 p.m.

Christmas Eve Holy Eucharist - 4 p.m.

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; Psalm 46; Isaiah 35:1–10; Revelation 22:12–17(18–20)21; Luke 1:67–80

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)

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Isaiah and hope: the song that never ends. From time to time our Old Testament readings remind us that despite all the travails and the judgments that Israel experiences, the message she bears for the world is ultimately one of hope. In Isaiah 35, the prophet receives an unusually—even for him!—uncanny picture of the salvation that is to come. On the far side of the denuding of the land and the decimation of the population by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, good things await. God’s people can expect their covenant-keeping God to pour his Spirit of life and fertility on their desolate land and to provide healing and life for their ailing and broken people. That’s who he is—that is his long-term commitment to them.  

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
    and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
    and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy (Isaiah 35:5–6). 

The child born in a manger this night will grow up to enact these very promises. For it is precisely in these terms that Jesus will answer the imprisoned John the Baptist as to whether he, Jesus, is in fact the one who is coming to redeem and rescue God’s people: ““Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them” (Luke 7:22). 

Something to remember as we prepare to welcome his birth: though he is a unique singularity (“your only and eternal Son,” as the Eucharistic prayer goes), Jesus does not come in isolation. It’s just as Isaiah said it would be (though Isaiah put it in symbolic terms): “For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water” (Isaiah 35:6b,7a). The “bright morning star” and “the dawn from on high” do not come without bringing with them the full light of day (Revelation 22:16; Luke 1:78). 

Jesus’s coming is accompanied by the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. His anointing at the River Jordan as Israel’s true Prophet, Priest, and King comes at the hand of no mortal. As all four gospel writers note, it comes by the descent of God’s Holy Spirit from God the Father, in the form of a dove (Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:21–22; John 1:32–33). It is in that power that he defeats Satan in the wilderness; exorcises demons; raises the dead; and gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, strength of limb to the lame, and speech to those who cannot speak. It is a whole new order of peace, joy, and healing—the Age of the Spirit—that Christ’s birth ushers in. 

And it is that very life that Jesus breathes into his disciples at his resurrection. It is that very life that he says pours out of himself into his followers: 

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’’’ Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:37b–39). 

Prepare! Come! On Christmas Eve it is appropriate to note that the New Testament’s story begins and ends with words of invitation. In the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, John the Baptist is born to call people to prepare for their rescue and for the gift of the forgiveness of their sins (Luke 1). Our story opens thus, with John the Baptist coming to baptize with the water of repentance. In the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, we read, “the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come’” (Revelation 22). They invite everyone who is thirsty for that rescue and its forgiveness to come and to drink. Our story—indeed, the whole Bible’s story—closes with “the Alpha and the Omega” providing “the water of life as a gift” (Revelation 22:13,17). 

John the Baptist shouts, Prepare! 

The anointing Spirit and the beautified Bride urge in tandem, Come!

Prepare! Come! 

Collect of the Nativity of our Lord: Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Daily Devotions with the Dean

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 72; Isaiah 28:9–29; Revelation 21:9–21; Luke 1:26–38

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)

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Luke. Today’s gospel reading was the lectionary reading for this past Sunday, and I preached on that passage. I thought it was worth paying attention to the way Gabriel spoke to Mary of the joy she was to help to bring into the world, of the utter grace that was being bestowed upon her and upon all who learned to receive that same grace, and of the fact that the Lord’s presence in and through her meant she would never be alone: “Greetings (literally, “Rejoice”), favored one (literally, “she who has received grace”)! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). The recurrence of this passage in today’s Daily Office provides occasion to reflect on resonances with rich Scripture passages.

Psalm 72. This psalm “of Solomon” (verse 1 in the Hebrew) celebrates the reign of David’s son. King Solomon was the last to govern a united kingdom, and this psalm sees his rule as being characterized by long duration, by care for the needy, by international fame for Israel, and by productivity of the land. 

Christians have always read in Psalm 72 an anticipation of the reign of Christ, who described himself as “greater than Solomon” (Matthew 12:42). His resurrection (not to mention his pre-existence) means that he will be “established” even longer than “the sun endures” (compare with Revelation 21:23–243 — “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it”). 

As the heir of David that Gabriel promises to Mary, Jesus unites not only Samaria and Judah, but Jew and Gentile (John 4:22–24; Acts 1:8; 8:4–8; Romans 15:7–13; Ephesians 2:11-22). He preaches good news to the poor (Luke 4:18). He receives “all authority under heaven and on earth,” sending his disciples to the ends of the earth to make disciples, that is, to claim citizens for his kingship (Matthew 28:18–20). And at his return, believers expect him to usher in a completely new creation, where the tree of life brings healing to the nations (Revelation 22:1–22).  

Psalm 72 was, accordingly, one of the most obvious psalms for Isaac Watts (1719) to recast in Christ-centered terms:

1 Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
does its successive journeys run,
his kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
till moons shall wax and wane no more.

2 To him shall endless prayer be made,
and praises throng to crown his head.
His name like sweet perfume shall rise
with every morning sacrifice.

3 People and realms of every tongue
dwell on his love with sweetest song,
and infant voices shall proclaim
their early blessings on his name.

4 Blessings abound where’er he reigns:
the prisoners leap to lose their chains,
the weary find eternal rest,
and all who suffer want are blest.

5 Let every creature rise and bring
the highest honors to our King,
angels descend with songs again,
and earth repeat the loud “Amen!” 

With Mary’s “Let it be done unto me,” she assents to bringing into the world and to nurturing this very reality. Praise be! 

Isaiah. Because of Israel’s idolatries—her “covenant with death”—Isaiah promises a storm of judgment: “hail will sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters will overwhelm the shelter” (Isaiah 28:17). That indeed, was the effect of the Assyrian and the Babylonian armies as they unleashed their fury against God’s people. Nonetheless, Yahweh promises that he is using the process to lay “in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation” (Isaiah 28:16). In the midst of storm, faithful Israelites who put their trust in Yahweh will find one piece of solid ground upon which to stand. 

Mary is one such faithful Israelite, saying “Yes!” to the Lord’s overture to her. And so Edward Mote’s (1834) hymn is as true for her as it is for you and me: 

In ev’ry rough and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the vale.
When all around my soul gives way,
he then is all my hope and stay. 

On Christ the solid rock I stand,
all other ground is sinking sand…

Revelation. Today’s passage presents the next to last mention in the Bible of God’s bride: redeemed humanity. The church. Here is the culmination of a massively glorious theme we have seen developing for months in our Daily Office readings. Prior to the Book of Revelation, the theme has been especially prominent in the prophet Hosea and in the Song of Songs. Then, from Revelation 12 forward, Scripture accelerates this theme toward its destination: the magnificent marriage of the Lamb. In Revelation 12, the church, in the figure of a woman, is rescued and whisked into the wilderness for protection. In Revelation 19, the church is made ready as a bride for her wedding. Now, finally, she is shown in her full glory: “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:9). And the vision consists of the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God perfected: “And in the [S]pirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:10). 

At this point, we just have to stand back and ponder, maybe even wordlessly, the magnificence of the imagery John is given. Back in Revelation 19, we are told that the bride who has made herself ready, “‘to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure’—for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints” (Revelation 19:7–8). There the “righteous deeds” by which she has prepared herself are “fine linen.” Here, those “righteous deeds” take on the features of a beautiful symmetry of construction—the balancing of twelve tribes of Israel and twelve apostles of Christ (Revelation 21:12,14). And instead of linen, we behold valuable stones and precious metals. What seem to humble believers to be the feeblest attempts to honor Christ in this life bear promise of being eternally majestic ornaments. That’s about all I know to say. Except to repeat Revelation 19’s fourfold, “Hallelujah! … Hallelujah!! … Hallelujah!!! … Hallelujah!!!! 

Oh, Mary, did you have any idea what you were saying “Yes!” to?

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Midday Eucharist