God’s New City - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 11/23/2023 •
Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105; 1 Maccabees 4:1–25; Revelation 21:22–22:5; Matthew 18:1–9 

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. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 28 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Maccabees: continuing God’s victory. Today is the next to last day of our brief introduction to the intertestamental book of 1 Maccabees. Fittingly, the Daily Office commends the reading/singing of “The Song of Moses” following the reading of today’s passage, 1 Maccabees 4:1–25. In this reading, Judas Maccabeus couches his hard-won triumph in terms that recall the victory of the people of God under Moses over Pharaoh and his army: “Remember how our ancestors were saved at the Red Sea, when Pharaoh with his forces pursued them” (1 Maccabees 4:9). Judas Maccabeus sees the Israel of his day carrying forward the great story of God delivering his people, and so he leads them in the psalmist’s refrain, “For he is good. for his mercy endures forever” (1 Maccabees 4:24; see Psalm 136, throughout).  

Image: Hannah Cohoon - made in 1845, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Revelation: God’s new city. Today also happens to be the next to last day of our survey of Revelation, a peek into the final chapter of God’s grand story of reclamation, redemption, and renewal. Symbolic details flesh out what it is for God finally to dwell among us: God himself (the incarnate God-Man) is the temple. Thus, the new city that has come down from heaven has no temple in it. God’s very presence provides all the light anybody needs, so there’s no need of sun or moon. With all enemies vanquished, city gates will never need to be closed. Access to “the tree of life” that had been denied at the Fall in the Garden of Eden is opened in this new Edenic city. A “river of the water of life,” flows through it, nourishing trees that bear leaves “for the healing of the nations.” Where curse had ruled for millennia, now there’s life and health and peace.  

Personal benefits that John lists, well, honestly, they outstrip my capacity to imagine them. What does it mean to “see the face” of the invisible God, unless, perhaps John means we see his image bearer, Jesus Christ, God-incarnate (Revelation 22:4)? God’s name on our foreheads (Revelation 7:3; 14:1; by way of contrast, see 13:16;17:5) means we will have been forever claimed as God’s cherished possession. And the notion that we will “reign forever and ever” can only mean that life in the new Jerusalem will not be static; in a vast universe emerging from the cloud of dissolution and decay, we will have dominions to explore and tasks that renew the mandate to our original parents to “subdue … and have dominion” (Genesis 1:28).   

Matthew: readiness for life in the city of God. In Matthew 18, Jesus elegantly lays out the path to preparedness for life in the new Jerusalem. To “see God” in the new Jerusalem when it comes, we must see the face of Christ in the little children now. “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:5).  

To prepare ourselves to bear the name that declares his permanent proprietorship on our brow, we monitor our lives in the now, looking to purge our hearts of desires that would take us where errant eyes or feet or hands would otherwise take us: “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble…” (Matthew 18:8–10). We exercise equally diligent care in preparing ourselves to live in a place where “nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood” (Revelation 21:27). Readying ourselves, in other words from Revelation 21, to “bring into it the glory and honor of the nations”—specifically, offering ourselves as living sacrifices.  

It follows, then, that to ready ourselves for whatever dominion is ours in the hereafter, we must learn to rule ourselves in the here and now. We learn that the school of greatness is the school of lowliness: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3–4).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+

From Shadow to Reality - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 11/22/2023 •
Wednesday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109; 1 Maccabees 3:42–60; Revelation 21:9–21; Matthew 17:22–27 

Further thoughts on Revelation 21:9–21 from 11/23/2020 at https://tinyurl.com/e4xt5xzy 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Wednesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 28 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

The juxtaposition of 1 Maccabees and Revelation. In 1 Maccabees, Judas Maccabeus piously and passionately prepares to preserve and purify Jerusalem and its sanctuary. Throughout the waxing and waning of Israel’s fortunes, its people see themselves as stewards of a sacred treasure. In Revelation, John is shown, by contrast, a heavenly Jerusalem, “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:10b). From the perspective of the early leaders of the Christian church, the earthly Jerusalem and the physical temple (built by Solomon, rebuilt by Ezra-Nehemiah, reclaimed by Judas Maccabeus, and expanded by Herod the Great) are “shadows” that must eventually give way to “reality.” That reality is the heavenly Jerusalem, “the bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:10a).  

The perspective that God would have John communicate to us is that through all the tribulation, the strife, and the turmoil in the church’s experience here “below,” there is being prepared for her a glorious ending. Indeed, as blemished as the church itself can be, God is working to beautify her and prepare her for her wedding day. We will eventually hear the Lord commending her for her “righteous deeds” (Revelation 19:8). As confused and as error-prone as the church’s own stewards seem to be, the Lord is building her according to his own design, out of valuable materials, with perfect symmetry, and at an unimaginably huge scale. That is the encouragement John receives in the vision of a city with gates named after the twelve tribes of Israel, and foundations named after the twelve apostles (Revelation 21:12–14). All are built with fantastic proportions and measurements (Revelation 21:15–17), and are constructed using precious stones for building materials (Revelation 21:18–21).   

Matthew: Jesus and the temple tax. In his relationship with his lead disciple Simon Peter, Jesus shows how the Good Shepherd (John 10) cares for a shepherd-in-training.  

What whiplash Simon Peter has been experiencing in our last couple of days of readings in Matthew! He is given the “keys to the Kingdom” for recognizing Jesus as Messiah; then he’s rebuked as a “Satan” for questioning Messiah’s plan to carry out his mission via death and resurrection. In the Transfiguration of the Lord Jesus, Peter is treated to a vision of the future of humankind’s glorification.  His bumbling attempt to memorialize the experience gets unceremoniously shut down by a bright cloud of theophany (God’s presence).  

Along with the other disciples, Peter is chided for not having enough faith to perform miracles. The next thing he and the disciples know, Jesus is talking again about the death and resurrection of the Son of Man. Understandably, “they became greatly distressed” (Matthew 17:23b).  

With all this to sort out in his heart and his head, Peter gets accosted by the local “revenue service”: “Your teacher does pay the temple tax, doesn’t he?” (Matthew 17:24 my translation). In the law of Moses (Exodus 30:11–16), every male twenty years old and up was required to pay the tax “for the service of the tent of meeting; before the Lord it will be a reminder to the Israelites of the ransom given for your lives” (Exodus 30:16). Peter answers, “Yes.”  

Rather than take us into the swirl of thoughts in Peter’s head, Matthew notes instead that before Peter can say a word in reporting the encounter, Jesus takes him aside for a private moment. Jesus reminds Peter of two simple truths:  

Jesus still is Messiah. “From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?” When Peter said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the children are free” (Matthew 17:25b–26). Despite all the hard news about his upcoming sufferings, Jesus affirms that he is “greater than the temple” (Matthew 12:6). Peter’s faith in him as Son of God and Messiah is not in vain. Jesus assures Peter that he (Jesus) is, indeed, Son of God and, as the writer to the Hebrews is later to write, Lord over the house (Hebrews 3:6).  

Meanwhile, things that are temporary and provisional are still worth taking care of. Though the Jerusalem temple is but a “shadow” destined to give way to “reality” when Jesus establishes a new temple made of “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5), he and Peter can give due honor to the earthly temple while it is still standing. “However, so that we do not give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me” (Matthew 17:27). Sometimes, because we know “the rest of the story,” we can make concessions to provisional, temporary, and even seemingly trivial constraints.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

All Things New - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 11/21/2023 •
Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; 1 Maccabees 3:25–41; Revelation 21:1–8; Matthew 17:14–21  

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 28 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

To me, one of the most memorable moments of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ occurs when Jesus stumbles while carrying his cross to Calvary. Gibson imagines Jesus’s mother coming to help him up, as he utters these words from Revelation 21:7: “I make all things new.” Not exact history, but perfect theology. Each of today’s passages brings its own reminder that things are horribly wrong in our world and in our lives. Our best attempts to address them are partial, ambiguous, and temporary at best. There’s a need for a massive “reset.”  

Image: Seedling, Matthew Fang, Creative Commons 2.0 

1 Maccabees. After Mattathias’s death, his son Judas emerges as the leader of the Jewish rebellion against Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Hellenist imperialists. For his military prowess and for his success in freeing Jerusalem from pagan control, Judas earns the nickname “Maccabeus,” which means “Hammer.” In early campaigns, he defeats Antiochus’s generals. Israel has a hero. Antiochus despairs of making Israel over into a showcase of Hellenistic enlightenment. He orders the annihilation of the Jewish population. We know that Antiochus will fail, that Judas Maccabeus will win, and that he and his fellow Israelites will rededicate their temple.  

But we also know the story continues: the Herodian dynasty will, in its own opulent way, fatally pollute the temple and the Romans will finally level it. Into our own time Jewish people endure pogroms and “final solutions.” Around the world and across time, other people groups too undergo oppression and campaigns of ethnic cleansing: from the 2nd century BC’s Carthagians to today’s Uyghurs and Tigrayans. It will not end until Christ is seated, as Revelation 21 depicts him, and declares “I make all things new.” Even so, we believe it is the cross and resurrection that have already secured that final renewal.  

Matthew. Jesus comes to take our diseases to the cross: “He took our weaknesses and carried our diseases” (Matthew 8:17, quoting Isaiah 53:4). Further, he gives his immediate circle of disciples healing powers like his—if only they will believe. Over the long haul of the church’s life, evidence of direct healing powers like those is muted. Since then, the “mustard seed” faith Jesus planted among his disciples has produced a sequoia-size tree of faith in the power of Christ to inspire compassion for the sick and to develop all sorts of healing ministries. Christians take medicine into the most disease-ridden places on the planet. They spawn networks of hospitals given, as the motto of one such network puts it, to “being the healing hands of Jesus.” Christians who have found a measure of Christ’s emotional and relational healing in the ministration of competent counselors and therapists seek out training so they can be “as Christ” to others. In the now, Christ “makes all things new” in ways that mostly are indirect, incomplete, and anticipatory of final healing.  

Revelation 21 promises that one day that complete “reset” will take place. All things will be made finally and completely new: 

God himself will be with them;  
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 21:3d–4). 

Meanwhile, we wait, we work, and we pray this Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and ordination prayer:  

O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquillity the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen (BCP, pp. 280, 291, 515, 528, 540) 

And, perhaps, with Big Daddy Weave, we sing, “All Things New”  

From the ashes, from the dust, 
I will rise up, rise up. 
Out of darkness into the light 
I will rise up, rise up. 

You make all things new, 
You make all things new. 
God of mercy and love, 
Do what only You can do,  
And make all things… 
All things…  
You make all things new. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Lord God Omnipotent Reigns! - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 11/20/2023 •

Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week After Pentecost (Proper 28) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89; 1 Maccabees 3:1–24; Revelation 20:7–15; Matthew 17:1–13 

More on Revelation 20:1–10 from 12/21/2020 at https://tinyurl.com/ykprytyz 

More on Revelation 20:11–21:8 from 12/22/2020 at https://tinyurl.com/w98nee47 

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 Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 28 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Revelation. The first half of Revelation 20 (Saturday’s reading) is one of the most debated passages in the New Testament. I share my considered conclusions, and they are based largely on two observations. The first has to do with the image of “binding Satan,” the second is prompted by John’s explanation that the binding has the effect that Satan “would deceive the nations no more” for a thousand years.  

Binding. Over time as I’ve wrestled with the New Testament as a whole, I’ve come to see the “binding” (and the throwing of Satan into a pit, locking him in it, and sealing it over him) as a way of describing what Christ accomplished during his earthly ministry. Jesus, in fact, specifically says he has the power to exorcise demons because he has first “bound” the strong man: “But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.” (Mark 3:27 ESV). That “binding” began when Jesus defeated the tempter in the wilderness (Matthew 4; Luke 4). Miracle after miracle following that wilderness encounter demonstrated the loosening of Satan’s grip on people’s lives. On the cross, Jesus broke the back of Satan’s power. No longer was the devil able to condemn; no longer was death a fear to those who trust Christ.  

What John calls “binding, throwing, locking, and sealing,” the apostle Paul calls “erasing, setting aside, nailing to the cross, disarming, making a public example, and triumphing over.” Paul describes the dynamic of Christ “erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:14–15). The writer to the Hebrews says that this breaking of Satan’s power over sinners is why Jesus became a man: “…so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14b–15).  

1,000 years of gospel progress. The thousand years of that “binding,” I believe, symbolize the entire era in which the gospel goes to the nations. In John’s vision the binding has one purpose: to prevent Satan from keeping people from hearing that good news and bending the knee to King Jesus. This era is at one and the same time a “short” period of suffering and persecution for the church (the three and a half years of Revelation 11:2,3; 12:6; 13:5), and it is also a “long” period of the church seeing countless numbers of people being, as Jesus put it to Paul, turned “from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). It’s a season in which sinners enslaved by evil are “rescued…from the power of darkness and transferred…into the kingdom of his beloved Son,  in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13b–14).  

Satan’s last power grab. The sobering thing is that before heaven and earth become one, and before all evil is vanquished for good, there lies ahead one last conflagration. Shortly before Christ returns, Satan will be let loose to do his worst: “When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations…” (Revelation 20:7–8a). The parallel passages in Revelation (especially 6:12–17; 11:5–18; 14:14–20; 16:14–21; 19:19–21) suggest the horrific nature of those events to come. Satan, the personification of evil, will mount one last battle against the Church (all these passages are referring to that battle: 16:14; 19:19; 20:8). Even leashed as he is now, Peter likens him to a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). We know he is mortally wounded; and when he is unleashed, his desperate raging promises to be terrible.  

The good news is that with one blast of his mouth, Jesus will end the battle at his glorious return: “From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations … the rest were killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth” (Revelation 19:16,21). The unholy trinity of Beast, Antichrist, and false prophet go into “the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:10). From his “great white throne” God will bring justice to an earth that has been morally askew since the Garden of Eden. Resurrection, the settling of all accounts, and the making new of all things will follow directly. Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

An Eternal Redemption - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 11/17/2023 •
Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 27) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; 1 Maccabees 1:41–63; Revelation 19:11–16; Matthew 16:13–20 

From Saturday’s readings: 1 Maccabees 2:1–28; and Sunday’s: 1 Maccabees 2:29–43,49–50 

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 in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 27 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Maccabees: Mattathias resists a faux unity. “Then the king wrote to his whole kingdom that all should be one people, and that all should give up their particular customs” (1 Maccabees 1:41–42). Antiochus IV Epiphanes manifests the Hellenistic aspiration for a united human race. However, it is unity on Hellenists’ terms: their language, their customs, their institutions, their philosophy, their worship, their hegemony. The forcible “civilization” of Jews required the destruction of Jewish culture: no offerings in the temple, no sabbath-keeping, no circumcision, no reading of the Torah. Instead, Antiochus imposed the sacrifice of swine on pagan altars in the land. He executed  families that practiced circumcision, forced the Jews to eat unclean foods, burned the Torah scrolls, and decreed a “desolating sacrilege on the altar of burnt offering” (likely an image of Olympian Zeus).  

The “enlightenment” being imposed—as is often the case—is brutal. Predictably, the reaction within the Jewish population is mixed. “Many even from Israel gladly adopted his religion; they sacrificed to idols and profaned the sabbath” (1 Maccabees 1:43). At the same time, “many in Israel stood firm and were resolved in their hearts not to eat unclean food. They chose to die rather than to be defiled by food or to profane the holy covenant; and they did die” (1 Maccabees 1:62–63).  

In protest of the ruinous paganization of the holy city, Mattathias ben Johanan, a priest, moves with his family of five sons to his hometown Modein, some 19 miles west of Jerusalem. When the king’s officers show up to impose the apostasy there in the hinterlands, Mattathias responds with the zeal of Phinehas (see Numbers 25:7–11). He slays both a Jew being forced to offer a pagan sacrifice and the king’s officer who is forcing the sacrifice (1 Maccabees 2:25–26).  

Mattathias and his family and followers then flee into the wilderness. There they refuse to defend themselves when troops from Jerusalem attack them on a sabbath. After a thousand of their company are massacred, the survivors vow to fight on the sabbath if necessary: “Let us fight against anyone who comes to attack us on the sabbath day; let us not all die as our kindred died in their hiding places” (1 Maccabees 2:41). An army of resistance gathers around Mattathias in the wilderness, and as the day of his death (apparently of natural causes) approaches, he urges his sons to continue the resistance: “Arrogance and scorn have now become strong; it is a time of ruin and furious anger. Now, my children, show zeal for the law, and give your lives for the covenant of our ancestors” (1 Maccabees 2:49–50).  

Revelation: John sees the rider on the white horse. At least in some way, Mattathias prefigures the great Christus Victor who fights a final battle to defeat his people’s enemies, freeing them from the pollution of idolatry and all that defiles and destroys life.  

“Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11). In my (and others’) understanding of the structure of the Book of Revelation, this vision forms a wonderful inclusio with John’s first vision of a conquering rider on a white horse (Revelation 6:2).  

In Revelation 6:2, the rider on the white horse depicts Jesus in his earthly ministry, winning an eternal redemption for his people. Here in Revelation 19, Jesus reappears in his full glory to win ultimate victory. With finality, the one whose name is “Faithful” and “True” returns to fight one last battle (spoken of at Revelation 16:14; 19:19; 20:8). In this battle, he will put down the vast army of unregenerate humanity and the mock trinity of evil: Satan the Dragon (Revelation 20:7–15), the Antichrist Beast (Revelation 19:19–20a), and the lying spirit who animates the deceitful prophet and the rebellious kings of the earth (Revelation 16:12–21; 19:17–21).  

While many of the details of the Book of Revelation are elusive, and promise to remain so until Christ returns in power and glory, there is one matter that is not elusive at all. As is often said, the way to handle the Book of Revelation is to approach it with this philosophy: “We’ve read the end of the book, and we win!” And we win because, and only because, of the figure who stands at its center, the rider on the white horse who “is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11). 

Matthew: Peter recognizes the Messiah. For all his confusion about everything else, Simon Peter gets this one thing right in the singular most important conversation in all of Jesus’s earthly ministry. When Jesus asks the disciples, “But who do you say that I am,” Peter speaks up with the correct, the decisively correct, answer, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Peter has much to learn about what that means, but he’s on the right track. Same for us. We have a lot to learn about how the details of history and our lives will play out. But there’s only one thing we really need to know to get there: Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God … Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.” He will set all to rights.  

Be blessed in the wonder of that knowledge this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

“Hallelujah” and the Bride of Christ - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 11/16/2023 •
Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 27) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 34; 1 Maccabees 1:1-28; Revelation 19:1–10; Matthew 16:1–12 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 27 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Revelation 19. Many people are surprised to discover that the word “Hallelujah!” (which means “Praise Yah!”) does not occur in the New Testament until Revelation 19. All four incidences of the word in the New Testament lie here in this chapter—nowhere else. Neither the angels nor the shepherds use it at Jesus’s birth. The disciples don’t use it at Jesus’s resurrection or at Pentecost. Peter and Paul don’t use it at the Gentiles’ acceptance of the gospel.  

It’s as though the Holy Spirit were holding the term back to signal the events of this special moment: the downfall of the whore of Babylon at the end of time, and the simultaneous elevation of the Bride of Christ.  

Throughout the New Testament, “Hallelujah” awaits the demise of the “City of Man,” because “Hallelujah” depends upon the destruction of humanity’s seduction by sin.  

“Hallelujah! 
Salvation and glory and power to our God, 
2     for his judgments are true and just; 
he has judged the great whore 
    who corrupted the earth with her fornication, 
and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants” (Revelation 19:1b–2). 

Throughout the New Testament, “Hallelujah” awaits the bringing forth of the “City of God” like a radiant bride. “Hallelujah” depends upon Christ’s bride being freed from external persecution, purged of internal division and error, and forever united in marriage to Christ her Groom.  

“Hallelujah! 
For the Lord our God 
    the Almighty reigns. 
7 Let us rejoice and exult 
    and give him the glory, 
for the marriage of the Lamb has come, 
    and his bride has made herself ready; 
8 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 19:6b–8).  

The only response to the glory of this picture I can think of is the words of the hymn writer: “And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll.…”  

1 Maccabees: introductory thoughts. In just over two weeks, we begin the season of Advent, a time of “leaning in” to hope. It is, first, hope realized, for Jesus has already come in humility. It is, second, hope yet-to-be-realized, for Jesus will come a second time in power and great glory.   

In preparation for that season, the daily lectionary takes us on a tour of the events that led to the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, the rededication of Ezra and Nehemiah’s temple following its desecration by pagans in the middle of the 2nd century B.C. The inter-testamental Book of 1 Maccabees recounts how the successors of Alexander the Great sought to undermine Israel’s mission of being a people set apart to the service of the Lord. And it’s the story of how Jews faithful to God’s covenant successfully resisted. It’s impossible to understand the climate of the times of John the Baptist’s emergence to call for a new exodus and rescue from slavery without understanding how these Jews of a previous generation had also looked to God for deliverance.  

Jesus will eschew the violent sort of resistance to oppression that the heroes of 1 Maccabees mounted, but his zeal more than matches theirs. And it is not difficult to see in 1 Maccabees the kind of expectations that contemporaries of Jesus pinned on him. They hoped he would recreate against the Romans a military campaign similar to the one Judas Maccabeus had mounted against the Greek defilers of Jerusalem and the temple.  

Matthew: Jesus always offers a third way. Just like everybody else, Jesus’s disciples play the short game. They think Jesus feeds the multitudes because he’s interested in bread for the masses. Jesus had already settled that question in the wilderness with Satan: “Man does not live by bread alone….” Instead, Jesus offers a bread that feeds the soul and remakes lives.  

When his disciples panic because they’ve forgotten to bring food for a journey, he reminds them that they ought to know from his feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000, that he’s perfectly able to take care of a lack of bread. But then, in what must have led to their even greater astonishment, he warns them of the “bread of the Pharisees” and the “bread of the Sadducees.” What he means, I think, is that the “bread” the Pharisees serve (similar to the Maccabean separatists) will not satisfy; nor will the “bread” the Sadducees offer (similar to the Maccabean assimilationists).  

Jesus is the third way between separation and accommodation. Jesus came to be the Temple, the place where God dwells with his people. He did not come to purify a building. He came to purify a people. He came in “tenting” fashion at first, a frail newborn, but later fully capable of dying for sinners. He will come again in his glorified state, to be “God-with-us” permanently. And the Bread he offers is his own life for the world.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Interpreting the Word of God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 11/15/2023 •
Wednesday of the Twenty-fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 27) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; Nehemiah 7:73b-8:18; Revelation 18:21–24; Matthew 15:29-39 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Wednesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 27 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Dimensions of worship. The daily lectionary’s three-week-long exploration of reform under Nehemiah as governor and Ezra as priest and scribe closes today with a snapshot of people at worship. Though there are several important features of worship in this passage, I found myself making notes on the reading and interpreting of Scripture in worship (on another occasion, perhaps we can explore other dimensions of worship in this passage, like congregational participation, the nature of historically informed sacred actions, and provision for the needy).  

Reading the Word of God. “[T[he priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly … He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday … and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law” (Nehemiah 8:3b). He may have read for what? four to six hours?!  

After Ezra and Nehemiah’s day, the practice of lengthy Scripture reading carried over into Jewish synagogue practice. I love the way the Christian church in second century Rome took their cue from this prioritizing of Scripture reading: “And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits…” (Justin Martyr, First Apology 67). There are many ways in which countless churches around the world honor this principle today—they gather to take in the story. However, sadly, many churches, even churches that vigorously defend the authority of the Bible, seldom actually read much of the Bible in worship. I wish churches in the latter camp would reconsider. I love the fact that the Sunday readings in the church I now serve consist of (often quite generous) portions of the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Epistles, and the Gospels … and that we stand for the Gospel.  

Interpreting the Word of God. As we are all acutely aware, everything in the Bible is subject to interpretation. It’s never really been as simple as, “The Bible said it, I believe it, that settles it.” Godly and competent and wise interpretation has been necessary from Day One. As Ezra reads, he is flanked by thirteen priests who along with thirteen Levites “helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (Nehemiah 8:7b–8).  

Again, the early church learned from Jewish practice that preaching and teaching were necessary to explain the text and to help us figure out its meaning for our lives. Here’s Justin Martyr’s explanation of what kind of preaching would follow the reading of the memoirs of the apostles and the prophets in the second century Roman church: “…then, when the reader has ceased, the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good things” (First Apology 67). The church didn’t gather to take their marching orders from a self-proclaimed policy wonk with a divinity degree, nor from a community organizer with a collar. They didn’t come from far and wide to find secrets to narcissistic self-actualization from a self-help sage with a stole. The ancient church knew, as Ezra and Nehemiah knew, that what people longed for was help to inhabit and orient their lives around the story being told, around the vision being painted, around the song being sung … in the Scripture being read. 

Take aways: read and interpret.  Our new drama troupe at the Cathedral Church of St Luke recently presented Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. Those familiar with Marlowe’s rendering of the classical Faust story know that in the end Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus’s belief is that God is all power and no love, all justice and no mercy. And so, while Faustus can imagine how “one drop” of Jesus’s blood, even “a half a drop” of his blood could save him, he just.can’t.bring.himself.to.ask! As one character chastises him: “… miserable man, That from thy soul exclud’st the grace of heaven.”  

Early in the play, Marlowe offers two factors that contribute to Faustus’s self-damnation.  

“Read, read the Scriptures…” Faustus finds enchantment in magic, but he can’t find the enchantment of the story that Scripture tells. A “Good Angel” exhorts him, to no avail, to put away the blasphemous books that enthrall him, and give the Bible a chance to re-engage his imagination. “Read, read the Scriptures … that [book of magic] is blasphemy!” But Faustus has decided he knows everything the Bible could possibly teach him, and is ready to move “beyond” it to magic and necromancy. But as we shall see, he’s only read the Scriptures partially, and badly at that.  

Interpret well, or things won’t go well. As he contemplates making a deal with the devil for his soul, Faustus recalls what he’s learned from the Bible. He remembers the first half of Romans 6:23, “The reward of sin is death….” The best he can conclude from this verselet is: “That is hard.” He can’t bring himself to recall the second half of the verse: “…but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  

Faustus then recalls 1 John 1:8, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there’s no truth in us,” from which he infers that the Bible’s message is death and condemnation: “Che serà, serà. What will be shall be? Divinity, adieu!” Once again, Faustus reads only partially, and badly. He forgets that 1 John 1: 8 is the setup to 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  

I pray that unlike “accursed Faustus, miserable man,” and instead like the joyfully redeemed children of the generation of Ezra and Nehemiah, like the second century Christians of Rome, and like countless believers around the world today, we read the Scripture and read it well. May we find in God’s Word not confused ideas about God, a disenchanted picture of reality, and condemnation of our souls, but rather a robust view of God, a re-enchanted world, and abundant mercy for our souls through Jesus Christ our Lord.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Even the Dogs Get to Eat the Crumbs that Fall Off the Table - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 11/14/2023 •
Tuesday of the Twenty-fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 27) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78:1–39; Nehemiah 9:26–38; Revelation 18:9–20; Matthew 15:21–28 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 27 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Nehemiah: back in the land but still in Egypt. At Advent, we hear again John the Baptist quoting Isaiah in the wilderness: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3). We take these words for granted, I think. Instead, we should be bowled over by them! When Isaiah forecasts God’s people’s exile for their sin, he characterizes that exile as a slavery just like that from Egypt under Moses, perhaps a millennium before his time. The Babylonian exile, says Isaiah, will require a second exodus. With his “Prepare the way of the Lord,” Isaiah offers hope for that second deliverance from slavery.  

John the Baptist’s premise is that his listeners are in the same position: in slavery in exile in a “Babylon” or an “Egypt,” and in need of rescue. Physically, they are in the Promised Land; and despite Roman occupation, there is no small level of prosperity and ease (at least for some) thanks to the expansive architectural ambitions and political finesse of the Herod dynasty. And yet, John the Baptist knows that his listeners understand they are still in an exile, still in need of a desert highway to home. His message strikes such a chord with people that they flock to him in the wilderness to receive his baptism of repentance in preparation for a new exodus.  

What is extraordinary about today’s reading in Nehemiah is the confession that the generation of Ezra and Nehemiah make: “Here we are, slaves to this day—slaves in the land that you gave to our ancestors to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts” (Nehemiah 9:36). Newly returned from the Babylonian exile Isaiah had predicted, newly “second exodus-ized” just as Isaiah had promised, they nonetheless confess themselves still to be in exile, in slavery, in need of the kind of exodus that four centuries later John the Baptist will announce.  

The response that Ezra and Nehemiah lead is worthy of note: there is deep confession, and a covenanting together of the people to renew their love for the God of forgiveness and redemption: “[W]e make a firm agreement in writing, and on that sealed document are inscribed the names of our officials, our Levites, and our priests” (Nehemiah 9:38).  

Image: Ilyas Basim Khuri Bazzi Rahib , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons;  

This folio from Walters manuscript W.592 contains an illustration of Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Date: 1684.  
1931: bequeathed to Walters Art Museum by Henry Walters 

Matthew: a moment of pregnant silence. As we saw in the first half of Matthew 15, Jesus maintains that the things that make us “unclean” do not come from outside us, but from inside us. What defiles us is not external dirt, but internal sin. The implication is that once the inside of a person has been made clean, that is, once a sinner has been made right, they are clean indeed.  

Now, in the second half of Matthew 15, Jesus launches a mission into territories inhabited by “unclean” people, Gentile “dogs.” First, he brings his disciples west to the land of classical Phoenicia. Following this leg of the journey, he will take them east across the River Jordan into the Decapolis, the land of classical Syria.  

What’s he doing? Jesus is showing how God plans to work among Gentiles to make sinners into saints. Jesus is demonstrating how faith in the gospel will transform the “unclean” into “clean.” He’s preparing his disciples for the day when he will send them to make disciples of all nations, a mission that has already been foreshadowed in the coming of “wise men from the East” to worship him in infancy (Matthew 2 and 28).  

I think that the reading of today’s account of the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21–28), requires attention to two things: 1) the fact that Jesus has brought his disciples into pagan territory right after teaching that “uncleanness” lies within the human heart; and 2) a pregnant silence. Let’s keep reading. 

The only person we meet here on the coast of the Mediterranean is a woman of “the district of Tyre and Sidon” (Matthew 15:21). King Solomon had made a matrimonial alliance with the Sidonians, bringing idolatry into Israel (1Kings 11:1,33). King Ahab’s wife Jezebel, devotee of Baal and persecutor of the prophets, was a Sidonian princess (1 Kings 16:31). At the same time, the prophet Elijah had sojourned with a Sidonian widow and raised her son from the dead (1 Kings 17:9–24). In today’s reading, this pagan woman calls out to Jesus, “Lord, Son of David” (Matthew 15:22). Regardless of whatever influences are in her past, somehow she recognizes Jesus as Israel’s Messiah; and, not only that, but as the only hope that her daughter might be rid of a demon that has possessed her. This pagan woman asks Israel’s Messiah for mercy. Hers is a remarkable confession, a lightning bolt out of the blue.  

Jesus’s response is astounding. He says nothing: “But he did not answer her at all” (Matthew 15:23a). What’s he doing? He’s going to let his disciples make the next move. Do they understand? Do they “get it” that he has brought them over here to show them that any and every person can be made “clean” by faith in Messiah.  

What do they do? They say, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us” (Matthew 15:23b). To them, she’s an inconvenience and irritation. And so, Jesus, in full sarcastic mode, says (if I may paraphrase), “Well, gentlemen, you’re right. I have no idea what we’re doing over here. I only came for the lost tribes of Israel. Forget the fact that I brought you out of Israel over here into pagan territory” (Matthew 15:24). What’s going on in this conversation? She gets it, and presses in: “Lord, help me!” You can almost see the two of them make eye contact and smile. He says, “Surely you don’t expect me to take the children’s bread and give it to the dogs.” (In my head, I see, the “air quotes” he puts around “dogs,” a horrible term of disparagement that “clean” Jews used for “unclean” Gentiles.) She presses further in: “Well, look, even the dogs get to eat of the crumbs that fall off the table.” It’s as though she can see the smile in his eyes and hear the playfulness in his voice. He sees the smile in her eyes, and he lauds her faith. “Then Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed at that moment” (Matthew 15:28). 

Takeaways. When we are trapped in prisons of sin, addiction, bad habits, and patterns of hurtful relationships, may we have the courage and honesty of the generation of Ezra and Nehemiah (as well as of those who came to John the Baptist). May we confess our imprisonment and ask for a new exodus.  

No matter your background, no matter your “Babylon” or “Egypt,” no matter what demon oppresses you or what temptation tempts you, I pray you know that Jesus the Son of David has the power to heal and to make you “clean” … and the mercy to will it so.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Living Wisely - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 11/13/2023 •

Monday of the Twenty-fourth Week After Pentecost (Proper 27) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; Nehemiah 9:1–25; Revelation 18:1–8; Matthew 15:1–20 

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 Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 27 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Matthew: “God commanded,” versus “But you said.” Commandments of God override traditions of men. Here is an important point in principle: we can’t improve on God’s requirements. Whenever we do, we do so either to dismiss or exaggerate. Either way, there’s diminishment. When we dismiss, we substitute our own desires. When we exaggerate, we hide God’s heart behind a wall of legalism. 

Jesus warns against drawing near with our lips while moving farther and farther away with our hearts. Jesus offers, as an example, dedicating to the Lord resources that are necessary for the care of elderly parents. There are lines you’d think pastors promoting stewardship would not cross; but I was once a part of a church where the senior pastor told people to give to the church even if it meant holding back their mortgage payment. If that’s not vain worship “teaching human precepts as doctrines…” (Matthew 15:9)!  

Image: "Prophet with a Scroll" by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0  

Then there’s the issue of blind spiritual guides. Jesus says God didn’t appoint them, and we should leave it to him to remove them: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit” (Matthew 15:13–14). How prescient of Jesus to anticipate clueless church leaders who are blind to spiritual reality and who teach, for instance, that resurrection is incompatible with science, that only the gullible believe in miracles, and that activism substitutes for prayer. If we’re not responsible to call out and remove blind guides, we sure can spend every effort not to allow ourselves to be dragged into their pit of religious error, ethical confusion, and intellectual dissembling.  

Clean versus unclean. People today tend to think that the categories of “clean” and “unclean” don’t count anymore. That is unless you express an out-of-favor opinion about abortion, sexual ethics, or the Second Amendment. You find out quickly that some things are “clean” and others are “unclean.” Even people who have declared war on the sacred in the name of “desacralization” have boundary markers. Is nothing sacred, indeed? Well, some things clearly are.  

Jesus has hard words for those who place the boundary marker between “clean” and “unclean” in the wrong place: “For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:19). We, it seems, are the problem.  

Nehemiah: Israel’s call to priesthood. The people of Israel had, in fact, been set aside to a holy end, that is, to be themselves a boundary marker between “clean” and “unclean.” “For I am the Lord your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44). As God’s holy people, they were to be the incubator of God’s plan to bring redemption into the world, to reestablish holiness, to make clean again a world polluted by sin.  

That’s why Israelites were called to separate themselves from the nations during that incubation period—that is, during the era of the Old Covenant. That is why people in the era of Ezra and Nehemiah, as today’s passage says, “separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors. 3They stood up in their place and read from the book of the law of the Lord their God for a fourth part of the day, and for another fourth they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God” (Nehemiah 9:2–3). As a kingdom of priests, the returning Israelite exiles acknowledged their failings and submitted themselves to God’s Word. In doing so, they reasserted God’s original call on them as his people.  

Revelation: the church versus Babylon. Revelation 17 (Saturday’s reading) had described the unholy alliance between the beast (the antichrist) and unredeemed humanity (“Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations”). The “the mystery of the woman” is that she is at once temptress with abominations and impurities, and also persecutor of the church. She is a symbol of world rulers who unite their power with the beast to “make war on the Lamb” (Revelation 17:4).  

Revelation 18 (today’s reading) promises her demise: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! … [H]er plagues will come in a single day—pestilence and mourning and famine—and she will be burned with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who judges her” (Revelation 18:2b,8).  

At the same time, God’s people, like everybody else, are susceptible to her charms (we’ve just read Jesus teaching that the problem is inside us, not outside us). For this reason, John records: “Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, so that you do not take part in her sins, and so that you do not share in her plagues’” (Revelation 18:4). Until the City of God descends from above, we will necessarily live in the City of Man. But we do not need to allow, indeed we dare not allow, the City of Man to live in us.  

I pray God’s grace for each of us to do the sober self-reflection (which only grace can truly enable) for what is “unclean” within and needs to be brought to the Lord for cleansing. I pray God’s grace for each of us to give ourselves to reading, marking, digesting, and obeying God’s Word. I pray God’s grace for each of us to live wisely as citizens of the “city above” during our sojourn “here below.”  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Joy in Victory - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 11/10/2023 •
Friday of the Twenty-third Week After Pentecost (Proper 26) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 69; Ezra 7:27-28, 8:21-36; Revelation 15:1–8; Matthew 14:13–21 

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 in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 26 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston is supposed to have said, “A boxing match is like a cowboy movie. There’s got to be ‘good guys’ and there’s got to be ‘bad guys.’ And that’s what people pay for—to see the ‘bad guys’ get beat.”  

There’s something primordial and true here. Even if movies and sporting events only give us constructs of “good” and “bad,” they can do so because they are answering to something deep within us. Part of what it is to bear the imago dei is to long for good to prevail and evil to be repulsed.  

Image: Medieval, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Revelation: joy in victory… That said, it can be challenging to get our heads around the dual fact that redemption of the earth has a bright side and a dark side. Heaven cannot hold back its joyful song celebrating the combining and the consummating of Old Covenant promise (“the song of Moses”) and of New Covenant promise (“the song of the Lamb”).  

“And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. 3 And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: 

Great and amazing are your deeds, 
    Lord God the Almighty! 
Just and true are your ways, 
    King of the nations!  
4 Lord, who will not fear 
    and glorify your name? 
For you alone are holy. 
    All nations will come 
    and worship before you, 
for your judgments have been revealed” (Revelation 15:2–4). 

…and joy in wrath. The concluding note of the exuberantly joyful song of Moses and of the Lamb is that “your judgments have been revealed.” God is setting right what had become twisted and broken. The obverse side of redemption is the consummation and completion of God’s wrath against the wickedness that has infected his creation: “Then I saw another portent in heaven, great and amazing: seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is ended … Then one of the four living creatures gave the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever; 8 and the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were ended” (Revelation 15:7–8).  

God is not an “it.” We dare not emotionally neuter him or robotize him. Nor is he a mere Big Buddy in the sky, a patsy who winks at evil. The God of the Bible loathes the dissolution and corruption that have taken hold in his creation. Therefore, part of what it is to be redeemed is to share God’s own repugnance at all that is evil and unjust and godless—beginning, of course, with that which is evil and unjust and ungodly within ourselves. But then, all that has corrupted everything around us in the political realm, in economics, in church life, in international relations, in misuse of communications technology—in whatever destroys human lives or the creation over which he made us stewards. We dare not be emotionally neutral about any of that, because our God is not! 

Part of what it is to share the heart of Jesus is to “hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matthew 5:6). Part of doing so is hungering and thirsting for the day when God’s wrath does away with everything that has defiled his creation. In addition, part of doing so is putting ourselves on the side of all that is right in the here and now, for, as Micah said,  

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; 
    and what does the Lord require of you 
but to do justice, and to love kindness, 
    and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Choose Wisely - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 11/9/2023 •
Thursday of the Twenty-third Week After Pentecost (Proper 26) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 71; Ezra 7:1–26; Revelation 14:1–13; Matthew 14:1–12 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 26 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Unholy trinity. In Revelation 13 (delicately skipped over by the Daily Lectionary), an “unholy trinity” has risen up against God, the Lamb, and his people. Empowered by the dragon Satan, a beast comes up out of the sea (the sea is often a symbol of chaos in the Bible). The beast is a parody of Christ: he appears to have been killed but was healed. He leads the world in worship of the dragon, and then himself receives worship along with the dragon. This beast’s words (in perfect mockery of the true Christ—see Matthew 11:25–30), are proud and blasphemous (Revelation 13:5). The beast that emerges from the sea appears to be the figure John refers to in his epistles as “Antichrist” (1 John 2:18,22, 4:3)

While most interpreters focus on what this horrible imagery means for the future of the church and the world, it is important to notice, I think, that the season of the rule of this first beast is forty-two months (the symbolic length of time for the persecuted church). As John says in his epistles, “antichrist” and many embodiments of “antichrist” are already among us (1 John 4:3; 2 John 7).  

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hartsell/2766008839/ Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License. 

Meanwhile, a second beast emerges that has the power to give life to the image of the first beast, and to work miracles—deluding, deceiving miracles. There arises full throttled rebellion by the anti-trinity of dragon, first beast, and second beast. This rebellion will at some future date launch a concentrated attack, but it’s a rebellion with which the church must contend throughout this age of “already and not yet.”  

In view of the campaign of the dragon and the two beasts, what’s called for from us, says Revelation 13:10, is endurance and faith. Today’s reading in Revelation 14 underscores, and indeed, heightens this point.  

A church united in suffering and praise. In Revelation 14, John reprises the joint picture he had painted in Revelation 7 of a church comprised of the full number of faithful Israelites and of the myriad from all the nations to whom the eternal gospel is proclaimed. Even while soberly recounting the tribulations they undergo, John finds them joining the song of victory that resounds in heaven.  

The great choice in life is whether or not to receive the name of the Lamb and his Father on one’s forehead: “Then I looked, and there was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion! And with him were one hundred forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads” (Revelation 14:1).  

It is not inconsequential, I think, that in the ancient church, anointing oil would be applied to the forehead at baptism, when a person is sealed in Christ, declared “child of God,” and given their “new name.” As first fruits of God’s new creation, the baptized bear God’s name and announce his “eternal gospel” to the world.  

Choose wisely. By contrast, those who do not receive that sacrament will find themselves receiving an ugly parody of chrismation: “Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands…” (Revelation 14:9b). In addition, they will find that because they refused Jesus’s offer of the Bread from Heaven and the Cup of Salvation, “they will also drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured unmixed into the cup of his anger…” (Revelation 14:10a).  

The same choice lies before all of us as lay before characters in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: “Choose wisely.” A cup of death, or a cup of life.  

John is shown that Babylon (a symbol of the human quest to overthrow God) will fall, if not immediately, then nonetheless inevitably. In the meantime, believers of every time and place (from the 7 churches of Revelation to the churches of our own day, and beyond) are given a threefold challenge:  

Endure. Obey. Believe. “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus” (Revelation 14:12). Our challenge is, first, to endure with grace and courage all that comes our way, second, to obey God’s Word rather than our own predilections, and, third, to believe in the finished work of Jesus on the cross and his ongoing work in our lives and in our world.  

And we are given a singular promise: our deaths are neither wasted nor to be lamented: “And I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them’” (Revelation 14:13).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+