Divine Christmas Blessings -- Lectionary Reflection for Christmas 2B (Ephesians 1)
Ephesians 1:3-14 New Revised Standard Version
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14 this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
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It’s
still Christmas, at least for a few more days. We still have Christmas carols that
either haven’t been sung yet or need to be sung one more time before we move on
to the next season. If we are being strict in our liturgical observance the
magi won’t arrive until January 6, though since we have two Sundays in the
Christmas season of 2020-2021 it’s perfectly okay in my mind to jump the gun a
few days early and use the Sunday before Epiphany to celebrate the coming of
the magi. However, if you wish to stick with the readings for the Second Sunday
after Christmas, then the second reading from the lectionary takes us to
Ephesians 1, which has parallels to the Gospel reading from the Prologue to the
Gospel of John (John 1:1-18). The
reading from Ephesians 1 celebrates Jesus as the one through whom God pours out
spiritual blessings on those whom God has adopted as children of God. These
blessings are part of our inheritance as God’s children.
You
might notice some similarities between this reading and the reading from
Galatians 4:4-7 that we encountered the previous week. Both passages speak of
our adoption and the inheritance that we receive in Christ, though this reading
from Ephesians 1 is much more expansive than the reading from Galatians. Thus,
the message of a week earlier is being reinforced. The point then is that in
Christ, we find union with God and that leads to our redemption in Christ.
Whenever
we come to the Ephesian letter, we have to acknowledge that there is
disagreement as to the author. Is it Paul? Or is it not? I will confess that I
haven’t made up my mind, so I leave it open (I did this in my participatory study guide on Ephesians and I’ll do the same here). One thing to take note of
is that—whatever your view on authorship—is that this passage is all one
sentence in Greek. In fact, this is the second-longest sentence in the New
Testament. Fortunately, our English translations help us out by breaking this
lengthy sentence into more digestible sentences!
In this
passage, if we were to read it as one long sentence, the subject is God the
Father (vs. 3) while the verb is “chose” (vs. 4). The remainder of the passage
is made up of relative clauses and prepositional phrases that expand on that
declaration. Lynn Cohick notes that in Greek the “phrases, terms, and synonyms
flow rhythmically and produce a ‘chantlike effect’” [The Letter to the Ephesians, NICNT, pp. 85-86]. With this rhythm working in the passage, we
can hear the message of God’s work in time and space through Christ and in the
Spirit. God is the primary actor. God blesses, chooses, adopts, redeems, and
makes those chosen and adopted in Christ heirs of God. The God who does all of
this is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, linking definitively Jesus
as a son to the father. You can understand why this has certain Trinitarian
resonance, especially since the inheritance is sealed in the Holy Spirit (vs.
13).
As in
Galatians 4, this mystery has been revealed in the fullness of time so that God
might gather up all things in [Christ] (Eph. 1:10). In other words, none of
this is happenstance. God had a plan developed before the world was created.
Now, in Christ, in the fullness of time, God has implemented that plan. God chooses
to act at this moment in and through Christ according to God’s wisdom. Thus,
according to Paul (I will speak of the author as Paul), “in him we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to
the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.” (Eph.
1:7-8a). When it comes to God choosing (remember that in Greek this is the
primary verb in the sentence), we need to pause for a moment and consider what
Paul has in mind. Is this a matter of God determining who is in and who is out
of the kingdom, whether by way of single or double predestination? Or is Paul speaking
of God’s choice to redeem us in Christ? The latter is my preference.
Most
importantly, it is God who does the choosing and the word we hear from Paul is
that God chooses us in Christ. This act of choosing is rooted in love. By this
act of choosing to redeem us in Christ, we receive forgiveness of our sins. As
Karl Barth notes that “in love, God determined that we should be his children
through Christ.” Thus, taking on the role of the electing God, God’s “act of
electing must be understood as an entirely absolute action from beginning to
end, is revealed in Jesus Christ as love” [The Epistle to the Ephesians, p.
100].
What is
the result of this act of revelation in Christ? God will “gather up all things
in him, things in heaven and things on earth,” and as a result gives us an
inheritance in Christ. All of this is sealed by the mark of the Holy Spirit,
which I take to be baptism. If we embrace our chosenness in Christ, which is
sealed in baptism, we can now give glory to God our Creator. Is this not a
Christmas blessing?
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