Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Day 277: Advent in the First Churches EPHESUS


DAY 277

                              Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic                     
A series of daily reflections for people of faith
by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor
Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland
pastorrobert@paxpres.org
Week Forty    Wednesday 16 December 2020

Advent in the First Churches: Ephesus
Seven churches – seven letters – seven days.

Ephesians 1:3-10
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put in effect when the times reach their fulfillment – to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.”

For the Ephesians, the awareness of the second coming of Christ was caste in the concept of fulfillment, the Greek word here meaning complete, made full: “When the times reach their fulfillment.” Paul places this future event in juxtaposition to the beginning of everything, “before the creation of the world,” so their lives are framed by the ultimate acts of God at the beginning and ending of time.

Being chosen by God before the creation of the world defies reduction to words – it grasps us but we cannot grasp it, only lean into it with the weight of our existence and trust that it us so, trust a synonym for faith. Such an experiential awareness sheds a different light not only on our celebrating of the first advent of Christ at Christmas but on the second, the stated purpose of which being “to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.” Choosing to live consciously in the light of this time of future fulfillment will inform the choices we make now.

Reflective question: As you ponder these things in your heart and mind, how does living between these two great acts of God help inform who you are today, as you live in the light of the first advent of Christ and live equally in the knowledge the second one is coming?

Reflective hymn: “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” – Aurelius Prudentius (348-413)
The oldest traditional Advent hymn
Of the Father’s love begotten, e’er the worlds began to be,
He is Alpha and Omega, He the Source, the Ending, He
Of things that are, that have been, and that future years shall see,
Evermore and evermore.

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