Living Into The Mystery
Ephesians 3:1-12 3:1 This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles– 3:2 for surely you have already heard of the commission of God’s grace that was given me for you, 3:3 and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, 3:4 a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. 3:5 In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: 3:6 that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. 3:7 Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given me by the working of his power. 3:8 Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, 3:9 and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; 3:10 so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 3:11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 3:12 in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him.
Notes:
- Here we are at the beginning of a new year. Many of us are glad to get beyond 2020, for all the challenges and hardships it brought. Our hearts are heavy, however, for the fact that some who are dear to our hearts had to be left behind in 2020 and now we journey on without them. Christmas has come and gone and there are those who would like to pack Jesus up with the other Christmas ornaments to get neatly tucked away until next year. We have come to Epiphany Sunday, the day the church recognizes and celebrates the revelation that Jesus the Messiah is for everyone, not just the Jews.
- Our text to help us explore that issue today is from Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus that he wrote from prison. He starts out in the first chapter overflowing with praise and thanksgiving and suggests that an attitude of gratitude is the way to begin to embrace the mystery of God’s tremendous gift to everyone in Jesus Christ.
- Mystery—this usually brings to mind novels, movies, and tv shows involving a criminal, usually a murderer, and a plot that needs to be solved by the detectives and us, the audience. Paul’s mystery is not that kind of drama. His mystery is not about catching criminals, but our being caught by Christ.
- In 3:1, Paul declares that he is a prisoner for Christ for the sake of the Gentiles (us). His epiphany came when he realized that all the while he had been pursuing who he thought were criminals (the followers of Jesus), he was himself being pursued by God.
- One of the mysteries of faith is exactly why would God pursue us—after all, we’re not like the saints we read about in the Bible who lived heroic lives for God or maybe even other people we know in our families, church, or community who just seem like they have or had it more together than we do? Why would God care about us? The Epiphany comes when we realize that we are the work of his hands, we are his beloved, and Jesus would have come and died on the cross for any one of us, if we were the only one to be saved.
- I suspect Paul, like many of us, struggle to embrace God’s divine view of us. We feel like we have to keep pushing and pushing to achieve perfection in our spiritual life. Before Paul became a devout follower of Jesus and advocate for Christianity, he had been a zealous antagonist and persecutor of the early church—tracking down who he declared to be criminals, without realizing that all his pressing was for the wrong goal. Nevertheless, he was striving for what he viewed as perfection. All this striving can cause a lot of anxiety.
- We will always have sin creeping around the back door of our own hearts despite our ingenuity to outpace or outrun it. The answer to this problem— Jesus! And with that realization that we don’t have to be perfect, that we don’t have to have everything worked out and all the questions answered, comes Epiphany.
- Such an epiphany should bring relief and a sense of freedom. Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn’t because to live into this epiphany, this realization, we would have to surrender. Surrender our will, our understanding, to God. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” Is 55:8. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him, and he will direct your paths.” Prov. 3: 5-6
- Surrender is not the same as triumph and we have a problem with that. Surrender, even to God, to many sounds like failure, defeat, or the admission of some level of inadequacy. But to the contrary in this context. This highlights the mystery of faith again.
- That which the world would define as weakness is strength; that which seems limiting is actually freeing.
- The very Spirit of Christ enables us to confess our faith as we do when we reflect on the Apostles Creed. We put our faith and trust in a God who was with God in the beginning of all things, is with us at our beginning, at our end and when the world is made anew.
- Our declaration inspired by our personal epiphanies should be manifested in the life of the church through acts of service, generosity, and prophetic proclamation. Recent examples at South Shore UMC are found in those who have worked on the building fund campaign, holiday food drive, hospital frontline worker food program and those who have given generously to those efforts, and the words spoken on the street by the clergy who gathered with the new commander and officers of the 3rd District CPD.
- Finally, we experience Epiphany through the sacraments—today we celebrate communion which we describe as a holy mystery. God’s Spirit moving mystically upon the elements we consume brings us closer to God and closer to each other, making us the body of Christ still visible in the world.
- We look back on 2020 and don’t know how we got over, just that we did. We look forward to 2021 and can move forward with confidence that God’s got this too.
- An attitude of gratitude is the key to the mystery of our faith and the helps buoy our experience of Epiphany. We may not get all our questions answered, but we have solved the who-dunit. His name is Jesus and he’s the only answer we really need. Amen