Celebrating the Greater Wedding to Come - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 3/10/2025 •
Week of 1 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Deuteronomy 8:11–20; Hebrews 2:11–18; John 2:1–12 

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

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

For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one…. That is a literal rendering of the first phrase in Hebrews 2:11. Translators find a number of ways to bring out what the expression “from one” means: “of one Father,” “of one family,” “of one stock.” The point the writer to the Hebrews is making is that Jesus is our brother, and we have a shared life with him.  

The benefits and the significance of the life that Jesus shares with us are inestimable. But that does not keep our eloquent writer from pursuing the idea. In his exploration of the topic, he leads with a wonderful litotes (understatement, by expressing a negative): “Jesus is not ashamed to call them (us!) brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:11). The affirmation that lies beneath this understatement is that Jesus delights in the fact that he is “bring[ing] many children to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). He has become what we are, to cite once again the ancient theologians, that we might become what he is. And as the writer to the Hebrews notes in chapter twelve, his work on our behalf has brought him joy. He disregarded the shame of the cross “for the sake of the joy set before him”—that joy being us! (Hebrews 12:2).   

There follow three lovely quotes from the Old Testament, all of which the writer to the Hebrews puts in the mouth of Jesus himself. It’s an extraordinary combination of truths:   

“I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the great congregation I will praise you.” — Hebrews 2:12 (from Psalm 22:22). When we gather, the ascended Jesus is somehow present to us and alongside us as a fellow worshiper. He leads us in worship by making God’s Word come alive in our hearts and by being the chief voice in our singing of the Father’s praise. For good reason, an ancient way of singing the Doxology was this: “Glory to the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit.”  

“I will put my trust in him.” — Hebrews 8:13a (from Isaiah 8:17; 12:2). Over and over again in the Old Testament, God’s message to his people was: Trust me! Listen to me! Don’t forget me! Remember me!  

In fact, three times within the ten verses of today’s passage in Deuteronomy, Moses warns God’s people not to forget Yahweh, and he tells them to remember him once—Deuteronomy 8:11,13,18,19. The NRSV translates the last verse of today’s passage from Deuteronomy as a warning that the people would perish if they would “not obey” Yahweh’s voice. That passage in the original Hebrew language states it is because they would “not listen to” Yahweh’s voice. Israel’s hardness of heart was really hardness of hearing. Because they didn’t listen, they couldn’t trust.  

At long last (“in these last days”), in Jesus, maintains the writer to the Hebrews, there is one true Israelite who trusts the Father. Finally, in Jesus, there is one Child who obeys. Finally, in Jesus, there is one Son who listens. Finally, in Jesus, One of us doesn’t forget. The wonder of it is that God’s Son does all this trusting and obeying and listening on our behalf. Some theologians refer to Jesus as exercising “vicarious faith.” Later, the writer to the Hebrews says, “he ever lives to intercede” for us (Hebrews 7:25). Jesus prays that his faith becomes our faith, his obedience ours, his patience ours, his endurance ours … his trust ours.  

Even when—maybe especially when—we feel we can’t trust God, we can trust Jesus’s trust for us. When our prayers feel feeble and ineffectual, as though they were simply bouncing off a concrete ceiling, we can count on Jesus’s prayers for us at the Father’s right hand. When we doubt our worthiness as sons and daughters, we can count on God’s Son, our Brother, continuing to call us what we are: “My brother! My sister!” When our grip on God loosens, we can count on Jesus’s grip on us not loosening, long enough for us to regain our grip.  

“Here am I and the children whom God has given me.” — Hebrews 2:13b (from Isaiah 8:18). Jesus takes our humanity to himself so that by dying as one of us he can cover our sin and release us from the finality of death (Hebrews 2:14–15). Our merciful and faithful High Priest experiences and resists temptations for us and dies for us. And because death cannot hold him, and because we live in him, death no longer brings the end for us; it merely marks a change. As the Eucharistic prayer in Commemoration for the Dead puts it: “For to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended; and when our mortal body lies in death, there is prepared for us a dwelling place eternal in the heavens” (BCP, p. 382).  

When the medieval Italian painter Giotto renders the scene of the Marriage at Cana (from today’s reading in John 2), he places the Eucharistic elements on the table. That simple table in Galilee becomes, for the redeemed Christian imagination, a symbol of the future Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Jesus turns vessels of water-purification into vessels for wine. In doing so, he celebrates not just the wedding of that day, but a greater wedding waiting at the end of time.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

All Things New - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 3/7/2025 •
Week of Last Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; Deuteronomy 7:12–16; Titus 2:1–15 (and Saturday’s Titus 3:1–15); John 1:43–51 

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 fifth week of the Epiphany of Christ, and the beginning of Lent.   

Paul’s letter to Titus is a powerfully good read for the days right after Ash Wednesday. We wear Ash Wednesday’s ashes to confess, along with the people to whom Titus ministers, that we are confused about who God truly is, that we hurt one another, and that we are victims of our wrong desires. We, like them, apart from God’s own intervention, are “always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons” (Titus 1:12). We bear Ash Wednesday’s ashes because we want to put to death a life of dissolution, destructiveness, and despair. We want to die to all that (ultimately losing) way of living.   

Towards the end of the second chapter of Titus, Paul shares the good news of how “the grace of God” (i.e., Jesus) appeared in order to teach us how to deny all those things, and how to live lives that are “self-controlled” (that is, not as “lazy gluttons”), “upright” (that is, not as “vicious brutes”), and “godly” (that is, not as “liars” [about God]—Titus 2:11–12). All this, because Jesus “gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). His working in us transforms us from where the destructive life begins: from the inside. 

At the beginning of the second chapter of Titus, Paul describes something of what this looks like on the home front. When we treat the ones with whom we live with love and deference, with respect and even reverence, we “adorn” (Paul uses the Greek word from which we get “cosmetics”—Titus 2:10) the gospel. We make it more attractive, more accessible, more plausible. It’s of a piece with what Paul says in 1 Timothy (a letter he writes at about the same time) when he describes the church as the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Timothy 3:14). With Jesus, when we die to ourselves and our selfish agendas, and live for others in him, we become the best argument for the truth of the faith.  

Image: “Behold, I Make All Things New” by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

A few verses into the third chapter of Titus, Paul further describes Jesus not merely as the appearance of God’s “grace,” but also as a manifestation of God’s “goodness” and his “loving kindness” (the Greek for “loving kindness” is philanthropia, literally “man lovingness”—Titus 3:4). Christ’s coming shows God’s fundamentally loving disposition towards people. Remarkable!  

We don’t have to find or manufacture a stairway to heaven, which is what the people of Crete were trying to do. God came, in person, down to us. We don’t have to climb up to him. God loves us not “because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his own mercy” (Titus 3:4). In Christ, God washes away the defilement and deadness of our being with the life-giving waters of baptism and graces us with the renewing energy of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5–6).  

We saw how, in the second chapter of Titus, Jesus’s power as the “grace” of God shapes our home lives. In the third chapter (slated for Saturday’s reading), it is by equipping us for life in the public square that Jesus displays God’s “goodness” and “loving kindness” (or, to put it another way, God’s “affection for humanity”—Titus 3:4). “Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show every courtesy to everyone” (Titus 3:1–2). We say a lot about who God is when we show respect to rulers and authorities, when we demonstrate a readiness to do our part for the common good, and when we engage in public discourse with courtesy and with agreeability (the Greek word that the NRSV translates as “be obedient” is peitharchein, which means “be persuadable”). Dear God, what pertinent words for our day! 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

In Christ We Are Loved - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 3/6/2025 •
Week of Last Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 37:1–18; Deuteronomy 7:6–11; Titus 1:1–16; John 1:29–34 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Thursday of the last week of Epiphany, the “manifestation” of God’s glory in Jesus Christ, and the beginning of Lent.   

“What do I have to do to get her to love me?” That was the soundtrack of my early- and mid-teen years. I never seemed to be good looking enough, cool enough, or … I don’t know … whatever.  

Finally, a minister friend wondered aloud if perhaps I had made a god (maybe a goddess?) out of finding someone to love me. He prompted me to consider that maybe, just maybe, I had been looking for perfect love where it couldn’t be found. And in the meantime, maybe, just maybe, I had been trying to manufacture from within myself worthiness of love, but was coming up with something that was just the opposite. Maybe, just maybe, I was becoming a taker rather than a giver.  

That conversation was a fork in the road that led me soon thereafter to finding the love of God in Jesus Christ. Here was a love that came as pure gift, unearned, unmerited. A love I didn’t have to charm my way into, be cool enough to attract, or good enough to merit. It was so freeing, and still is.   

Image: “Church of Saint Titus, Pl. Agiou Titou, Heraklion, Crete” by Mølterland is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

Deuteronomy. Yahweh expresses his desire that his people understand he has this kind of freely given, unearned, unmerited love for them. He loves them not because they are so numerous (and, of course, he could have listed any number of possible attributes—Deuteronomy 7:7). Rather, he loves them because, well, because he loves them. There’s no deeper reason. There’s no hidden agenda. There’s simply his love. He responded to their cries in slavery because he loves them. He leads them because he loves them. He will give them an inheritance because he loves them. He commands them because he loves them, and because his commands bring their character into sync with his and make possible a reciprocal, intimate relationship…of love.  

Titus. People on the island of Crete, where Paul has sent Titus, were as confused about love as I was in my teens. They looked for love in a god who was a projection of themselves. When Paul quotes the Cretan prophet, “Cretans are always liars” (Titus 1:12), he has one particular lie in mind. Around the Mediterranean basin, Cretans were famous for claiming that the Greek god Zeus had originally been a man whose birthplace and tomb were on Crete. A famous (non-Cretan) prayer to Zeus says, “Cretans are always liars. For a tomb, O Lord, Cretans build for you; but you did not die, for you are forever” (Hymn to Zeus 8–9).  

This Cretan prophet whom Paul quotes admits that his fellow Cretans have refashioned God in their own image, and in loving him are loving an image of themselves. The result is not just confusion about the true nature of God, but loveless cruelty among themselves (thus, “vicious brutes”) and appetites that are out of control (thus, “lazy gluttons”—Titus 1:12). They claim to know God, Paul says, but by their actions they deny him (Titus 1:16).  

In this first chapter, Paul begins his letter to help Titus communicate to the Cretans that religion based on a lie will not help them. They need leaders who can teach and model the truth (Titus 1:5–10). They need to stop listening to false teachers who are using even the stories of the Hebrew Scriptures to fabricate myths about great heroes (“Jewish myths”). Instead, as Paul will show in chapters 2 and 3, they need to hear about the promises God had made through Israel for a redeemer who would show God’s “grace,” and his “goodness and loving kindness” (Titus 2:11–14; 3:4–8). By knowing Christ, they will know “the hope of eternal life that God, who never lies, [had] promised before the ages began” (Titus 1:2).  

There is one very important practical takeaway from reading this first chapter of Titus during Lent. This chapter invites us all to reflect on whether we love the God who truly is, or a god of our own fashioning. This chapter is a call to reflect on and repent of an approach to God that smacks of self-adoration, of wish-fulfillment, of self-help, or of loving ourselves in an image of our own fantasy.  

John. Jesus is the perfect antidote for our attempts to make ourselves worthy of love or to pretend that God is merely us, only imagined as bigger. He is that antidote because he is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). And because it is upon him that the Spirit of God descends and remains (John 1:32); for he then bestows that same gift—the living presence of the Living God—upon those who love and follow him (John 1:33). Here, in Jesus, is what it is to be loved and to love. Here, in Jesus, is what it is to live.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

He Shows Us Joy on the Far Side - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 3/5/2025 •
Ash Wednesday 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 32; Jonah 3:1–4:11; Hebrews 12:1–14; Luke 18:9–14 

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 Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, here, in the middle of the last week of Epiphany. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

The juxtaposition could not be more exquisite. At the beginning of the epistle to the Hebrews, Jesus is the “Son” who is the radiance and representation of God’s very being (Hebrews 1:1,3). Here, towards the end of the epistle, Jesus is the exemplar of a kind of faith that will despise the shame of the cross, and yet endure it for joy on the far side. As though he were a disobedient son (which he is not), Jesus undergoes a death that at one and the same time purifies others’ sin, and models for them how to endure a training in obedience that comes only through suffering. The writer to the Hebrews presents us with a staggering complex of truth. His Jesus is truly God and truly man, the only One who can meet us right where we are and take us where we need to go.  

During Lent, we focus on the way that, in his sufferings, Jesus meets us where we are.  

Throughout this epistle, the writer to the Hebrews treats Jesus’s suffering as necessary to the cleansing of the conscience of guilty sinners (Hebrews 10:22). He became like us in all respects, except sin (Hebrews 2:11,14,17; 4:15), for one overriding purpose. He did so in order that his sacrificial death could be a once-and-for-all perfect covering of the transgressions of people who know they are otherwise worthy of eternal separation from God. “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God,’ … For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. … he also adds, ‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’ Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin” (Hebrews 10:12,14,17,18).  

Like him, we learn the obedience of “sons” (for whether we are male or female, we are all adopted as favored “sons”). Unlike us, however, his learning of obedience was from one level of obedience to another: “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him…” (Hebrews 5:8–9). Unlike him, we have to learn (sometimes through hard discipline) obedience on the far side of disobedience.  

Lent is a time to take stock. Thus, Psalm 32’s “Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sin is put away! … Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and did not conceal my guilt” (Psalm 32:1,5). And also, the eloquent and powerful “Litany of Penitence” in the Ash Wednesday service: “We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives, We confess to you, Lord….” In its totality, Ash Wednesday’s “Litany of Penitence” gives us specific words to name our pride, our self-indulgence, our anger, our envy, our intemperance, our dishonesty, our sloth, our indifference, our lovelessness, and our wastefulness (BCP, pp. 267–269).  

Prayer along these lines is perfect for those of us who recognize ourselves to be in need of the disciplining work of “the Father of spirits.”  It is perfect for those of us who long for the life that he is more than willing to give (Hebrews 12:9). Praying this way is to adopt that posture which befits those who are looking for help to “lift … drooping hands and strengthen … weak knees,” so that we run the race towards that “holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). When we pray this way, we find Jesus right alongside us, holding us, strengthening us, and pointing us to the same joy he has come to know on the far side of his own sufferings.  

Be blessed this Ash Wednesday, 

Reggie Kidd+  

A Greater Salvation - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 3/4/2025 •
Week of Last Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 26; Psalm 28; Deuteronomy 6:16–25; Hebrews 2:1–10; John 1:19–28 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Tuesday of the last week of Epiphany, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

Deuteronomy: a great salvation. How appropriate, on this last day after Epiphany, to be reminded of that great epiphany of God that took place at the exodus. Moses reminds the children of Israel of the “great and awesome signs and wonders” by which Yahweh had delivered them: the plagues, the parting of the waters, his protection of them, and his provision for them during the wilderness journey. Moses, accordingly, urges obedience to the “commandments of the Lord your God, and his decrees, and his statutes that he has commanded” (Deuteronomy 6:17). In the land promised to their forebears, the well-being of Yahweh’s people depends on their faithfulness to his covenant with them. “If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, we will be in the right” (Deuteronomy 6:25).  

John: but that salvation was doomed to failure. The people, as we know, did not “observe this entire commandment,” and did not show themselves to be “in the right.” Israel’s life fell into an extended dysfunctional pattern of rebellion, punishment, repentance, rescue, restoration. Throughout the period of the judges, the period of the united monarchy, the period of the divided monarchy, the period of the Assyrian exile, the period of the Babylonian captivity, the period of the Second Temple, it was “Wash, rinse, repeat.”  The pattern extended all the way to the time of John the Baptist. Here was a new voice in the wilderness, calling yet again for an exodus: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’” (John 1:23).  

Image: "Fire flower" by @Doug88888 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0  

John the Baptist’s mission was to point to a greater Epiphany with a greater salvation, a better exodus: “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal” (John 1:26–27).  

Hebrews: a greater salvation. As great as was the mediation through angels under Moses, the mediation of the Son is greater. As great as was the parting of the waters in the exodus, greater is Christ’s tasting death for everyone at Calvary on Good Friday. As great as was the power demonstrated over Egyptian false gods in the plagues, so much greater is Jesus’s resurrection at Easter. Breaking the bonds of death, Jesus has destroyed the power of the one who, since the Garden, has robbed us of the proper dominion over “all things” for which we were created (Hebrews 2:14–15). As Twila Paris used to sing, “All that has been taken, it shall be restored. This eternal anthem, for the glory of the Lord.” The beautiful thing is that the glory of the Lord is manifest in the “bringing [of] many children to glory” by the making of “the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10).  

It follows, then, that as weighty as was the obligation under the covenant of Moses to “trust and obey” (to use the language of an old hymn), so much weightier is the responsibility, says the writer to the Hebrews, to “pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away” from “so great a salvation” (Hebrews 2:1,3).  

I pray that during this upcoming season of Lent, we step more deeply into what Paul calls “the fellowship of [Christ’s] sufferings” so that we may taste more wonderfully “the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Jesus Carries Our Burdens - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 3/3/2025 •
Week of Last Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 25; Deuteronomy 6:10–15; Hebrews 1:1–14; John:1–18 

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

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

I don’t know anybody who has not experienced the past few years as tumultuous and challenging. Some of us have buried loved ones. Some of us have lost friends over politics. Some of us have lost jobs or fortunes. All of us have had the opportunity to find new depths in today’s psalm: 

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; 
my God, I put my trust in you; * 
let me not be humiliated, 
nor let my enemies triumph over me (Psalm 25:1).  

In two days, we come to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, forty days of preparation for the Passion’s solemnity and Easter’s joy. Lent prepares us to experience anew Christ’s humiliation on our behalf and his triumph over our enemies of sin and death. Lent invites us to “self-examination and repentance; … prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and … reading and meditating of God’s Word” (BCP, p. 265).  

This year’s readings in the Daily Office provide some of the richest material in all of Scripture for the Lenten journey.  

Deuteronomy. This week and next week, the early chapters of Deuteronomy take us back to Moses’s final instructions to Israel as they prepare to enter the Promised Land. God’s servant reminds the children of Israel just how much Yahweh’s love has been on display for them in his powerful deliverance of them from slavery and in his provision for them in their wilderness wanderings. Moses reminds them of their covenantal obligation to love Yahweh in return, to heed his instructions, and to form their lives to mirror his holiness and justice.  

In today’s passage, in particular, Moses warns against forgetfulness and presumption. When they enter the Promised Land, they will find themselves in possession of cities they had not built, houses they had not filled, cisterns they had not dug, and vineyards and olive trees they had not planted (Deuteronomy 6:10–12). It’s possible—in fact, it’s likely—that they will wrongly credit themselves or alien gods for their good fortune (Deuteronomy 6:13–14). Moses says, in effect, “Don’t do that! Don’t forget that it’s all Yahweh’s gift. Don’t presume to take credit for yourselves, or to attribute it to gods that are no gods!”  

Image: "Fire flower" by @Doug88888 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0  

Hebrews. Moses’s reminder was one of the “many and various ways” that, according to the writer to the Hebrews, God had spoken to his people in times past (Hebrews 1:1). The epistle to the Hebrews is an extraordinary docent for our Lenten journey because it reminds us that “in these last days [God] has spoken to us” even more directly. He has spoken to us by his Son, “the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being”—that is to say, by one who both partakes of God’s own being, and also represents him perfectly (Hebrews 1:2–3).  

Looking ahead in this extraordinary epistle, we will be reminded that because he came in our very likeness, Jesus is able to shoulder our infirmities and bear our weaknesses (Hebrews 2:17). But in this first chapter of Hebrews, the writer reminds us that Jesus is truly God, and therefore worthy of our worship. If angels must worship him (Hebrews 1:6), how much more must we! If he founded the earth and sustains its existence, and if he will outlast its present form (Hebrews 1:3,10–11), how much more is it incumbent upon us to render him the full service of our lives and care for his creation? 

John has his own way of making the same point that Hebrews makes: as God’s living Word, Jesus is both very God and in relationship to God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Same as God, and in communion with God. A holy mystery, resolved in the love that is shared between the persons of the Father and of the Son, as they are bound together by the person of the Spirit who is love.  

I pray that during this Lent, we receive the grace to bring the tumult and the challenges of our lives to Jesus Christ. He entered the valley of the shadow of death for us. He did so back then, and he continues to do so even now. Together, Hebrews and John will show that Jesus is completely one with us in his humanity—and he is completely here for us in the power of his divinity.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Thinking Large - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/28/2025 •

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.   

Sing a Widescreen, HD Paradise 

I am unutterably grateful when a Christian artist enables me to see spiritual reality in widescreen, high-definition. Ephrem the Syrian, a brilliant hymn writer for his era (ca. 306-373), does that for me. His lyrics – especially his Hymns on Paradise– still captivate.  

The beauties (of Paradise) are much diminished  
by being depicted in the pale colors  
with which you are familiar.* 

* All quotations from Ephrem are in Ephrem & Sebastian Brock, St. Ephrem: Hymns on Paradise (St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1998).

Sing the Power of Metaphor 

Ephrem trumpeted the mystery of Christ’s incarnation. He resisted the demands of those who “over thought” the faith. They insisted on a straightforward explanation of Christ’s person, one that fit normal categories of reason: God or Man? Which is it?  

One group wanted to make Christ just like us, merely human. OK, maybe not merely human, but certainly more human than divine. A different group wanted to make Christ so divine that his humanity was nothing more than apparent – “drive-by” at best.  

Ephrem’s response: God doesn’t give us neat, tidy definitions. Instead, he provides a profound relationship with Someone the Bible describes in elegant metaphors and similes: 

[God] clothed Himself in language, 
so that he might clothe us 
in his mode of life. 

In one place He was like an Old Man 
and the Ancient of Days, 
then again, He became like a Hero, 
a valiant Warrior. 
For the purpose of judgment He was an Old Man, 
but for conflict He was Valiant. 

Grace clothed itself in our likeness 
in order to bring us to the likeness of itself. 

He gave us divinity, 
We gave him humanity. 

Sing the Whole of the Human Story 

Ephrem celebrated the scale and sweep of Christ’s mission. He refused the heresy of mystical Narcissism. Back then, many were looking for a personal experience of “mystery,” just a little spiritual “somethin’ somethin” to help them get through. Today their spiritual descendants turn to Jesus as some sort of “rabbit’s foot,” a personal avatar they can enlist to make their lives (of which they remain firmly in control) turn out better.   

To counteract the spiritual Narcissism of his day, Ephrem wrote his Hymns of Paradise against a backdrop that includes the whole of the human story. My salvation comes with everybody else’s; everybody else’s includes mine. Thus (though it rather stretches the actual biblical text), Ephrem built on Hellenistic Jewish notions about Adam’s name coming from a Greek acrostic:  

“A” (Anatolē = East)  
“D” (Dusis = West)  
“A” (Arktos = North)  
“M” (Mesēmbria = South).  

[God’s] hand took from every quarter  
and created Adam, 
so has he now been scattered in every quarter… 
For progression is from the universe to Adam, 
and then from him to the universe.  

The old Adam is all of us (“from the universe to Adam”); the new Adam came for all of us (“from him to the universe”). For this reason, Christ’s followers come from all quarters of the globe and our mission is to go to all quarters of the globe.  

Sing the Whole of Christ’s Work 

And while then as now, many well-meaning believers whittle down Jesus’s work to one manageable dimension, Ephrem challenged believers to think large so they can thank large.  

Thus, Ephrem sings redemption’s story across a wide canvas: from original Paradise to a new, pristine Paradise. From the loss of Adam and Eve’s original “Robe of Glory,” to the Second Adam’s “putting on the body” from Mary, to His laying the “Robe of Glory” for us in Jordan’s baptismal waters, to our “putting on Christ” in our baptism, and finally to our being “Robed in Glory” at resurrection. Ephrem sings that the angel’s sword barring us from the Tree of Life becomes a centurion’s lance opening the way into Paradise:   

Whereas we had left that Garden 
along with Adam, as he left it behind, 
now that the sword has been removed by the lance,  
we may return there. 

Sing Widescreen, HD 

At the invention of the small-screen, black and white, low-definition television, who could have imagined today’s widescreen, color, HD home theatre systems? Today’s experience makes yesterday’s seem, to use Ephrem the Syrian’s terms, “diminished” and “pale” by comparison.  

Ephrem offers us a glimpse into a reality that “has come” and “is coming” where the colors are even more vibrant and the definition even sharper than we’ve yet begun to imagine.  

May God grant the grace to grow in our capacity to worship in yet bolder colors, more vibrant textures, sweeter sounds, and sharper shapes. The reality is that good.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Happy Little Trees - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/27/2025 •

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.   

“Happy Little Trees” 

On her birthday Meg’s husband told her he didn’t love her and wasn’t sure he ever had. Seven months after the divorce became final, he married his girlfriend. By a happy coincidence Meg was out of town visiting my family the day of her ex-husband’s wedding.  

How to spend that day? We discovered that the late Bob Ross, host and star of the TV show  The Joy of Painting, had established a teaching studio in nearby New Smyrna Beach, FL. His students still teach people how to paint “happy little trees.” The promise was that in a 3-hour session we could learn the basics, and each student would walk away with a personally completed work of art. We signed up for a class. 

Image: "Bob Ross FD3S" by zanthrax-dot-nl is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

It was amazingly fun. We happened to sit on the back row. We couldn’t help but notice the two teenage girls in front of us who didn’t fit the middle-class profile of most of the people in the room. They were accompanied by someone who carried herself like a softer version of SNL’s “church lady.” Nobody in the class was having more fun, or experiencing more delighted surprise, at what was showing up on canvas, than these girls.  

At the end of the class, we were all given the opportunity to pay a little extra to have our paintings framed – right there on the spot. Who wouldn’t want to do that after discovering they could actually paint something not just recognizable, but really kind of cool?!  

I failed to catch the wistfulness on the two girls’ faces as they watched classmates’ paintings being framed. But Meg noticed. Quietly, she asked the proprietor if she could pay for the girls’ frames. Stunned, he obliged. The girls were thrilled.  

My throat tightened. I knew that Meg’s divorce had strained her in every way, financially as well as emotionally. Yet as deep as the sorrow she carried within her was, her spiritual resources were deeper. On a day in which she could have nursed bitterness, she created joy for someone else.  

Meg’s act was horizontal worship. The Gospel changes us from self-centered to other-centered. Vertical worship teaches people that they are profoundly loved; the bread and wine that they take in makes them different people. As theologian Alexander Schmemann quips: “At this meal we become what we eat.” That day Meg did a lot more than paint “happy little trees.” She became bread and wine to two girls, a shop owner – and me.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Welcome to Transformation - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 2/26/2025 •

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.   

Undressed for Church 

Jesus tells a parable about a man who accepts a king’s invitation to a wedding banquet but who shows up without clothes appropriate to the occasion (Matthew 22:11-14). Noticed by the king, he is kicked out.  

Whenever I read the parable, I think of myself in the early and woefully immature days of my faith – and of how my first pastor, Mort Whitman, related to me. I think of the several times I sensed in Mort’s sad eyes the King’s expectation: “Do you understand Who invited you? And to what an amazing occasion it is that you have been invited?” There were both sadness and tenderness — both a rebuke and a further invitation — in Mort’s gaze.  

Room to Grow 

Every time I caught that look, I felt undressed, and was reduced (as was the fellow in the parable) to silence. Unlike the parable, though, strong arms didn’t grab me and throw me out. Happily, the King gave me time and space to move from a sullen to a teachable silence. Over time, the kindness with which Mort’s eyes answered my spiritual childishness melted my cold heart. 

Mort welcomed me past the entrance, and into the expansive living spaces of God’s Kingdom palace. He did so by reminding me of the worth of the faith that I had embraced – or that had embraced me (I’ve never fully sorted that out).   

Early Church 

Mort’s method was a lot like that of Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem (mid-4th century). In Cyril’s Jerusalem, becoming a Christian was the “deal.” The huge and elegant Church of the Holy Sepulchre had just been built over the site of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection (replacing a pagan temple to Venus).  

The city was awash with pilgrims and new residents. Many were flirting with the faith. Many sought baptism, the prerequisite for inclusion at the Christian Feast (Communion). Some sought baptism because they genuinely believed; some because they thought baptism might help them get a job; some because they thought baptism might help them find a mate; and some out of sheer curiosity.  

Cyril asked candidates for baptism a cautionary question: “Do you expect to see without being seen? Do you think that you can be curious about what is going on without God being curious about your heart?” (Procatechesis 2).*  

This is not just any occasion, so not any old clothes will do. The One in whose honor this feast is being held, after all, is “Bridegroom of souls.” Cyril reminds the candidates of the parable of the man who dressed wrongly for the king’s wedding feast: “If your soul is dressed in avarice, change your clothes before you come in…. Take off fornication and impurity, and put on the shining white garment of chastity.”  

Overdressed 

Cyril wasn’t asking people to clean themselves up so God would accept them. As they would eventually discover, no matter what they wore, on the day of their baptism they were going to have to strip – yes, literally (in the dark, men and women separately) — and undergo baptism without benefit of any clothing! As Christ hung naked in his crucifixion, Cyril explained, so we go naked into the baptismal waters where we share our co-crucifixion with Christ. As Adam and Eve were originally garbed in nothing but their innocence, so, in Christ, we rise as those to whom innocence has been restored! Cyril’s message was: don’t think you can take your greed and impurity with you into the baptismal waters; he loves you too much to let you hold on to that stuff! 

When the newly baptized emerged naked from the waters, they were wrapped with new, white robes. The message: in place of whatever clothes we start with, Christ offers “a shining garment,” “the garment of salvation,” and “the tunic of gladness.”** The newly baptized wore those robes during the next week, when they received daily teaching about the mysteries they had just experienced and about the baptized life that now lay before them.  

Welcome to Transformation 

The King has sent for everybody, “the evil and the good” (Matthew 22:10). But the One who invites insists on meddling. He refuses to rubber-stamp the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs we bring with us. Our “Bridegroom of souls” insists we surrender the right to define who we are – all of who we are: our occupational, our musical, our political, our sexual selves. Jesus, insists Cyril, calls us to welcome people all the way into baptismal waters, where grace transforms everything.  

My take-away from Mort’s penetrating gaze and Cyril’s challenging words: worship worthy of the Feast is welcoming worship that helps us all understand that a change of clothes will be necessary.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

* References are from Edward Yarnold, S.J., Cyril of Jerusalem (Routledge, 2000), pp. 79,80,85,180-181. 

** (Procatechesis 16; Mystagogy 4.8; the latter two phrases, quoting Isaiah 61:10) 

The Peace of the Lord - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/25/2025 •

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.   

High-Touch Worship: “The Peace of the Lord” 

“Christian worship has always been a “high-touch” affair. “Greet one another with a holy kiss,” Paul told worshipers (2 Corinthians 13:12). Peter urged those gathered for the reading of his letter, “Greet one another with the kiss of love” (1 Peter 5:14). Accordingly, from the 2nd century on we find Christians exchanging signs of mutual affection and reconciliation before they go to the Table.  

I think that’s a good thing.   

There’s a genuine artistry to the way the classical liturgy makes the passing of the peace a part of worship. In the 4th century one of the great voices of the ancient church, Cyril of Jerusalem, explained why believers exchange a kiss of peace just before they approach the Lord’s Table.  

Next let us embrace one another and give the kiss of peace. Do not think this is the kiss which friends are accustomed to give one another when they meet in the marketplace. This is not such a kiss. This unites souls to one another and destroys all resentment. The kiss is a sign of the union of souls.  

That was Awkward.  

Recently, an advice columnist responded to a complaint about being forced to greet fellow attendees in church. The columnist countered that in a world as disjointed as ours, we should be grateful that the church tries to bring people together. I agree! But I also feel the sense of artificiality and of being put upon when there’s a “meet & greet” that is no different than what I might experience at the Chamber of Commerce.  

To me it’s a wonderful thing to be asked to look my neighbor full in the face and wish him or her Christ’s peace. That makes me (along with all my fellow believers) a priest who offers God’s healing touch. Respectfully, though, it’s a turn-off to be told to smile, turn to the person next to me and say, essentially, “How ya doin’?”  

The first act invites Christ into the moment and makes us family; the second makes two awkward strangers even more awkward about not knowing each other. At least the Chamber of Commerce encourages us to exchange business cards.  

Welcoming Peace 

When I coached Little League, a friend and “master coach” gave me some good advice: “Kids this age have too many challenges, and not enough encouragement. Every practice you should go to each player, put a hand on their shoulder, look them in the eyes, and say, ‘I’m glad you’re on this team. You make a big difference for us.’”  

When I come to worship I never know what sort of pain my neighbor is in, how much it can help him or her to be touched and to be reminded: whatever the deficit, whatever the enmity, whatever the trouble, whatever the funk, Christ speaks his peace into it.   

Healing Peace  

Benjamin Barber writes that we live in a world split between the centripetal force of McWorld (the forced unification of a global market) and the centrifugal force of Jihad (the fracturing of the human race around tribal loyalties). We all, I think, feel those wounds in one way or another.  

Followers of Christ believe that if there’s any hope for overcoming the evil twin forces of McWorld and Jihad, it’s living and telling the subversive story of God’s invasion of the planet through his Son. In Jesus, as the song goes, “Heaven’s peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love.” When we pass the peace of Christ to one another, heaven’s peace becomes embodied once again. Then at the Table we taste how Jesus even now “unites souls to one another and destroys all resentment.” 

Possible applications: 

Some of us are in churches where it might be worth opening up the following conversation: ”Are we so respectful of people’s privacy, of their personal space, that we miss the opportunity to let them know that this is a place – no, the place — where the lonely, the estranged, the fearful, and the broken, can be touched and can hear that God has come near to them?” 

Others of us are in churches where it might be worth opening up a different conversation: “When’s the last time we asked people to think about what a holy and healing thing it is that they do when they offer the Lord’s peace?” 

The peace of the Lord be always with you, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Game-Saving Wisdom - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/24/2025 •

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.   

From Centerfield: Athanasius, the Psalms, and Making the Right Play 

I once attended a college baseball game in which the crowd cheered a spectacularly dumb throw from deep centerfield to home plate. The throw itself was quite a feat (though it had no chance of catching the runner). But it was dumb, because it gave the game away by allowing what would become the tying run to get to second base. What could have saved the game would have been a less impressive throw to second base, keeping that runner at first. 

Four Ecumenical Councils took place between A.D. 325 and 451. They exemplified game-saving wisdom, of the sort the college centerfielder should have shown. 

Those Councils made four statements in response to spectacularly dumb things that were being said about Christ. The Councils’ statements can be crisply put, and their implications are profound: first, Christ is fully divine, since only God can save. Second, Christ is fully human, since “only that which is assumed can be healed.” Third, Christ is one integral person, since a bi-polar Savior could not restore us to inner wholeness. Fourth, Christ’s divine nature does not eclipse his human nature, since he came to glorify our humanity and not diminish it. 

A small often overlooked letter on the psalms by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria and one of the inspirers of the Councils’ statements, sheds light on the origins of such spiritual and theological insight. 

A friend named Marcellinus wrote to Athanasius looking for guidance on how to get to know the psalms better. In his response, Epistle to Marcellinus, Athanasius sounds the very themes the Councils will later apply to Christ. 

Divinity 

In the Incarnation, God has funneled his fullness to us through one Man; in the Psalter, God has concentrated for us the whole Bible in miniature. Each of the other books, says Athanasius, “is like a garden which grows one special kind of fruit; by contrast, the Psalter is a garden which, besides its special fruit, grows also some of those of all the rest.” In Genesis, for example, we read about the creation; in Psalms 19 & 24 we celebrate creation in song. Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy recount the exodus from Egypt; in Psalms 87, 105, 106, and 114 we “fitly sing it.” Impressively, Athanasius shows how virtually every theme of the Bible shows up somewhere in the Psalter. Through the psalms, God’s great cosmic story becomes our personal story as well. 

Humanity 

The psalms aren’t just a way into God’s story; they provide a mirror for our soul. In them, “you learn about yourself.” They describe us better than we can describe ourselves. Moreover, while other portions of Scripture tell us what to do, the Psalter shows us how. Elsewhere, for instance, Scripture tells us to repent, but the psalms “show you how to set about repenting and with what words your repentance may be expressed.” Elsewhere, Scripture tells us to bear up under persecution, but the psalms describe “how afflictions should be borne, and what the afflicted ought to say, both at the time and when his troubles cease.” 

Integrity 

Most of us can identify with the horrible split the apostle Paul experienced between his inner self and his outer self: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. … Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:19,24). Paul’s answer, of course, is Christ. The Councils affirmed, therefore, that Christ himself was unified, rather than split, in his Person. Otherwise, there’d be no hope for the splits within us. In the same vein, Athanasius encourages – no, urges – us not merely to read the psalms, but to sing them. When we sing, our inner being and our outer being work together: our “usual disharmony of mind and corresponding bodily confusion is resolved.” The result is that when we sing psalms, Christ heals our inner brokenness. 

Dignity 

Do you get the sense that some believers think that when Christ comes into their lives he replaces their souls? Do you know spiritual zombies you can’t even have a conversation with because all you get is Bible verses or spiritual clichés? 

Athanasius must have known people like that too. One of the most impressive things he does in his epistle is comment on almost every psalm, and invite Marcellinus to look – really look – at whatever life-situation he might find himself in and ask how that psalm could fortify him: “Has some Goliath risen up against the people and yourself? Fear not, but trust in God, as David did, and sing his words in Psalm 144.” 

The message: God wishes to meet you in your life, not give you some sort of escape button to get you out of your life. The psalms – like Christ himself – are here to enhance, not diminish, what it is to be fully human. 

Through practice and scrimmage and games and, well, simply breathing baseball, a centerfielder should know where to throw, without even having to think about it. Through worship and prayer and study and, well, simple immersion in the faith of the psalms, may we absorb their “game-saving wisdom.” 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+