The True Vine - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 1/5/2023 •

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

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

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Thursday of the week in which Epiphany takes place, 13 days after Christmas, on January 6.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Burning Bush - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 1/4/2023 •

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

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Wednesday of the week in which Epiphany takes place, 13 days after Christmas, on January 6.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

God Intervenes - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 1/3/2023 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 117; Psalm 118; Isaiah 59:15–21; Revelation 2:8–17; John 4:46–54 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we 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 Tuesday of the week in which Epiphany takes place, 13 days after Christmas, on January 6. Today, I happen to be contemplating passages that are normally read on January 8, two days after Epiphany: Isaiah 59:15–21; Revelation 2:8–17; and John 4:46–54.  

John: an Epiphany of healing words. The “second sign” that Jesus performs in John’s Gospel manifests (we are talking about the season of Epiphany, after all!) the power of his spoken word. The Word became flesh, and the very words of that Word restore life. Jesus does not even have to go to the place where this dying son of a royal official lies. “Go; your son will live,” and it’s done. The boy begins to recover at that very hour. As a result, the father and his whole household believe in Jesus. The words that come from the Word create their own world of hope and life.  

Isaiah: an Epiphany of covenant words. Into his own world in which “truth is lacking,” Isaiah speaks on behalf of the Word who will centuries after him be manifest in the flesh. Where there is no truth, Isaiah says, there is no justice. The doing of right doesn’t exist in a world without truth: “Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice” (Isaiah 59:15). Where there is no truth there is no standard of right and wrong; only personal whim and tribal interests. Isaiah would be quite familiar with a world like ours, a world in which you choose your news network depending on what you want the news to say!  

Isaiah counters with the power of God’s own words. Into the prophet’s mouth God places words from the Spirit—words that enforce the irrevocable covenant that God has made with his people and anticipate God’s own intervention. Words insisting that God is not aloof and uncaring: “He … was appalled that there was no one to intervene” (Isaiah 59:16a). Words promising that God himself will personally enter the fray against evil and for the good (which he literally did in the incarnation of his Son): “[H]is own arm brought him victory … He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head” (Isaiah 59:16b–17). Words demand a hearing: “[M]y words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth … from now on and forever” (Isaiah 59:21). You and I need not—indeed, dare not—let ourselves be led around by self- and tribe-serving truth-spinners, but by God’s own Word and the Spirit of discernment.  

Revelation: an Epiphany of sustaining words. The Word’s words were spoken ahead of time through Isaiah. They came from his flesh and blood lips when he walked the earth. And in the Book of Revelation, the Word speaks from on high, as the “first and the last, who was dead and came to life” (Revelation 2:8). The words that Jesus speaks as ascended Lord give believers in Smyrna the power to endure intense trials—even unto death at the hands of those who should know better (members of the parent faith whose resistance to Jesus as Messiah has turned devilishly deadly—Revelation 2:9–11). Lord, have mercy!  

And if we listen closely enough despite whatever confusion surrounds us (in Pergamum, pagan-influenced heresy and debauchery were being promoted in the church! Like that would never happen now, right!?), we can hear Jesus whisper the “new name”—the new identity—he gives to each of us personally and intimately: “To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it” (Revelation 2:17).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Wedding in Cana - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 1/2/2022 •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 103; Psalm 114; Isaiah 52:3–6; Revelation 2:1–7; John 2:1–11 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we 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 week in which Epiphany takes place, 13 days after Christmas, on January 6. Today, I happen to be contemplating two passages that are normally read on January 7, the day after Epiphany: John 2:1–11 and Revelation 2:1–7.  

The Wedding in Cana. As we were reading through John’s Gospel last August, we came upon this account of the wedding in Cana. Now we read it through the lens of the season of Epiphany. This is the first of seven “signs” that Jesus performs in John’s Gospel—illustrations of his “epiphany” or “manifestation.”  

For your further investigation, here is a list of the seven signs (as traditionally numbered—some scholars offer slightly different reconstructions): 

• Turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1–11—“the first of his signs”)   

• Healing of the official’s son in Capernaum (John 4:46–54—“the second sign”) 

• Healing of the paralytic at Bethesda (John 5:1–15) 

• Feeding of the five thousand (John 6:1–14) 

• Walking on water (John 16–24) 

• Healing of the man born blind (John 9) 

• Raising of Lazarus (John 11) 

Though some of these events are explicitly named “sign,” others are not. Each points up distinct aspects of Christ’s person and work. They are pointers to his glory, manifestations of the “grace and truth” he has brought into the world.  

As to the first of these signs: the turning of water into wine at the wedding banquet in Cana, here is what I find noteworthy and exciting:  

• “My hour has not yet come” — John 2:4. “The hour” for which Jesus has come into this world is the hour of his being lifted up on the cross. That “hour” will, ironically, be his “glory.” In that act he will take away the sin of the world, defeat Satan, and reunite in fellowship with himself a fractured human race (John 12:20–33). At the wedding of Cana, despite the fact that his “hour” has not yet come, Jesus graciously assents to provide this “first sign” of his “glory.” Jesus provides a glimpse into the amazing spectacle of what he has come to do for us.   

• … the steward tasted the water that had become wine … — John 2:9. What happens is that water set aside in jars for purification turns to wine that will fill goblets of celebration. These were huge jars—six of them, each able to hold twenty to thirty gallons. It must have been quite the wedding party! Because the Lamb of God has come to take away the sin of the world (as announced at Jesus’ baptism in the previous chapter of John), our baptism will not only purify, it will lead to the Eucharist of joy. Cinderella doesn’t just get cleaned up, she gets invited to the ball!  

• … there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee … — John 2:1. Jesus’s blessing of this wedding in 1st century Galilee echoes the profound biblical theme of God’s wedding his people to himself. For that very reason, John’s larger story line unites his Gospel to his Book of Revelation. Changing water into wine at the wedding at this point in time, Jesus foreshadows an invitation for us to join him at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb at the end of time: “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. … The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come’” (Revelation 21:2; 22:17). Our Eucharist is not just a remembrance of what the Lamb of God has done in taking away our sin. Our Eucharist is a foretaste of a heavenly banquet. Alleluia, amen! 

• “But you have kept the good wine until now” — John 2:10. The Lord of History shows himself to be the ultimate host who has saved the best wine (his Son) for last: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16 KJV).  

To the Ephesians. One quick note, in closing, from Christ’s letter to the Ephesian church in Revelation: “But I have  this  against you, that you have  left your first love” (Revelation 2:4 NASB). Though it is valuable, theological accuracy is not a substitute for love. The Ephesians policed themselves well when it came to fighting off heresy, but not so much when it came to guarding their hearts against lovelessness. And so, Jesus urges the church to return to its “first love.”  

That’s one very good reason for us to remind ourselves that “the first sign” Jesus performs is at a wedding banquet, not a lecture hall. This truth suggests a powerful corollary to Thomas Cranmer’s adage, “What the heart wants, the mind justifies, and the will chooses.” The corollary is this: Engage the heart, and the mind (and the will) will follow. May God grant us the grace to love him first, foremost, and always — all else will follow.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Holy Name of Jesus - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 12/30/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 103; Psalm 148; Genesis 17:1–12a,15–16; Colossians 2:6–12; John 16:23b–30 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you here in Christmas Week.   

One more piece of lectionary-juggling. Today, I treat passages prescribed for January 1, the Feast of the Holy Name.  

In the Christian Year, the first day of the calendar year is the Feast of the Holy Name. This feast falls on the eighth day of Christmas, in recognition of the fact that, as Luke records, “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:15).  

It is Matthew who explains why the baby is to be given that particular name: “…for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21 — the Hebrew Yeshua means “Yah saves!”). The cutting of his foreskin in this eighth day ceremony symbolizes how it is that Jesus is going to save us from our sins.   

Three decades later, Paul explains how the one “in whom the fullness of deity dwells bodily” experienced a second circumcision. Paul calls Jesus’s being nailed to the cross “the circumcision of Christ” (Colossians 2:11). On the cross, Jesus’s whole being—not just a tiny piece of his flesh—is cut off from the land of the living. His death brings pardon for us, and his resurrection brings, right now, life from spiritual death for us, and, at his return, resurrection from physical death. And this amazing gift is precisely in line with what Isaiah had prophesied: “For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. … When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days …”(Isaiah 53:8,10). 

The wonderful thing is that “the circumcision of Christ”—his being “cut off from the land of the living”—becomes our circumcision when we are plunged beneath the symbolically drowning waters of baptism: “In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision … when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:11–12).  

In celebrating the Holy Name of Jesus, we also celebrate his naming us anew. Because he has saved us from our sins, we are no longer “Sinner,” but “Saint” (1 Corinthians 1:2)! No longer “Polluted,” but “Washed” (1 Corinthians 6:11)! No longer “Destined-for-the-Scrap-Heap,” but “Treasured” (Deuteronomy 7:6)!  The Vineyard Ministries song writer D. Butler put it magnificently in these lyrics, and rendered here by the Nesbitt family: 

I will change your name. 
You shall no longer be called: 
Wounded, Outcast, Lonely, or Afraid 

I will change your name. 
Your new name shall be: 
Confidence, Joyfulness, Overcoming One,  
Faithfulness, Friend of God, One who seeks my face.  

The whole thought is consistent with the renaming that takes place when God first gives the gift of circumcision in Genesis 17. There are new names and new identities for Abram who becomes Abraham, and for Sarai who becomes Sarah. His name will no longer mean simply “Exalted Father,” but “Father of a Multitude.” Hers will no longer mean (perhaps) “Mockery,” but “Princess.”  

No matter what the past looks like, I pray your future will be shaped by your “new name”—the one you received in your baptism in Christ.  

Collect of The Holy Name. Eternal Father, you gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

He Makes Things New for All - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday, 12/29/2022 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you here in Christmas Week. 

Allow me to juggle the Daily Lectionary readings slightly. If you are following the Book of Common Prayer, you will notice that today I am meditating on a reading prescribed for December 30. That passage is Isaiah 25:1–9.  

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+ 

Holy Innocents - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 12/28/2022 •

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) 

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 December 28th, the Fourth Day of Christmas.  

Feast of Holy Innocents. In the tradition of the Christian Year, December 28 is a day to commemorate the Holy Innocents.   

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+ 

The Eagle - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 12/27/2022 •

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) 

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 December 27, the Third Day of Christmas.   

Feast of St. John. 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.  

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!”  

Christmas Day’s gospel reading from John includes 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).  

Collect of Saint John. Shed upon your Church, O Lord, the brightness of your light, that we, being illumined by the teaching of your apostle and evangelist John, may so walk in the light of your truth, that at length we may attain to the fullness of eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Stephen the First Martyr - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 12/26/2022 •

Feast of St. Stephen • Year One •

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 28; Psalm 30; 2 Chronicles 24:17–22; Acts 6–7 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This is Monday of Christmas Week.  

While everybody else is taking down the Christmas decorations and sending Santa on his merry way back to the North Pole, Christians who follow the Christian year are just beginning the party. We celebrate twelve days of Christmas. Through Advent, it’s been all about anticipation. Now for a season of celebration.  

Characteristic of Christian joy, however, is a tinge of pain. Jesus’s incarnation brought the Second Person of the Trinity all the way into the mess he had come to redeem: murder in the name of God, lovelessness among the “godly,” callous disregard for life’s “little ones.” The Christmas year acknowledges this reality with what I think of as “A Christmas Triptych.” We remember Stephen and his martyrdom on December 26, the apostle John and the commandment of love on December 27, and the “Holy Innocents” and the need to protect the vulnerable on December 28.

Collect of Saint Stephen: We give you thanks, O Lord of glory, for the example of the first martyr Stephen, who looked up to heaven and prayed for his persecutors to your Son Jesus Christ, who stands at your right hand; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. 

Few of us are asked to take up our cross as severely as Stephen. However, in many parts of the world, losing your life for your faith is not uncommon. As a professor, I was humbled by the risks some of my students took in coming to the US for training in ministry. At least one student won a martyr’s wreath upon his return to his homeland.  

But there are other kinds of deaths besides crucifixion or stoning. They vary from lost job opportunities, to rejection by spouses or family members, to subtle and not so subtle snubs by former associates or friends. We can use these experiences to be reminded by St. Stephen that “the fellowship of the sufferings” of Christ is part of the privilege that comes with the Incarnation.  

The Christian story is one of forgiveness, forgiveness, always forgiveness. Stephen’s “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:50b) is both a lovely echo of Jesus’s own forgiving prayer from the Cross, and also a powerful call to Christ-followers to resist the haters by not hating them back. It is a call to translate loss, rejection, and snubs into thankful praise for the new friendships and for the newly opened doors that always seem to follow the doors that get slammed in your face.  

Most importantly, Stephen teaches us that above it all, always, is Jesus: “But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’” (Acts 7:55–56). By his death Jesus destroyed death, and by his life he destroys our fear of death—every kind of death, the big ones and the little ones. As Lord of all, he is lord even when (as was the case with Stephen) deluded people are running the show and have you in their power. You never know when (as was the case with Stephen—see Acts 8:1) there’s a Saul/Paul in the wings observing, if uncomprehendingly in that moment, your equilibrium, your faith, and your undeniable love.   

I pray that as the Collect invites us to pray, we may know the absolute supremacy of Christ over every hand of opposition that comes against us or voice of criticism that we hear. I pray that the power of forgiveness and grace has the upper hand in our lives, and that it overflows to those around us.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Truth and Mercy, Righteousness and Peace - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 12/23/2022 •

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) 

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 fourth week of Advent, as we begin a new year (Year 1) of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

Today, I’d like to ponder with you one of the psalms appointed for the morning of Christmas Day: Psalm 85.  

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 sacrifice,” 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+ 

Invitation to Come and Drink - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 12/22/2022 •

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Thursday of the third week of Advent, as we begin a new year (Year 1) of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

And today, we are taking a look at the readings for the morning of Christmas Eve: Isaiah 35:1–10; Revelation 22:12–20; and Luke 1:67–80.  

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+