“It’s a Battleground Out There” (Ephesians 6:10-17)

 We preachers are always looking for good illustrations for our sermons. I went online recently and it took me hardly a second before I was confronted by a whole boatload of collections of sermon illustrations. They came with titles like The Preacher’s Sourcebook of Creative Sermon Illustrations, Hot Sermon Illustrations, Encyclopedia of Sermon Illustrations, The Ultimate Book of Illustrations and Quotes, 500 Sermon Illustrations for Busy Pastors, 1000 Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching… And if those weren’t enough, there was the blockbuster: 6000 Sermon Illustrations. At a sermon a week, you’d have enough illustrations to see you through more than a century!

 Of course Jesus was the master of the illustration. Who doesn’t remember his parables of the farmer scattering his seed over the various types of soil, of the shepherd who searches high and low for his lost sheep until he finds it, or of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus at his gate?

In our passage from the sixth chapter of Ephesians this morning I can picture the apostle Paul pacing back and forth in his prison cell as he draws towards the conclusion of his letter to the young community of believers living in Ephesus. And I imagine him scratching his brain for an illustration to conclude all that he has been writing—something that would stick in the minds of his readers, something that they would carry away with them, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

In the previous five chapters he has covered a vast expanse of ground. The great nineteenth-century biblical teacher Handley Moule summed it up like this:

He has been telling them, from the beginning onward, of the secrets of eternal grace and love, of the wonder of their salvation from spiritual death, of their peace and life through faith, of their sealing by the Blessed Spirit, of their union with Christ their Head, of his blissful indwelling in their hearts, and then of the resultant life of humility, purity, love, truth, and every gracious duty of social holiness…[1]

When you look back on it, he has given them a whole wagonload of vital truths to consider and challenges to act upon. Now Paul needs to draw all that he has been writing to a conclusion. What can he offer them that will help his readers to retain all this in their minds—and, more importantly, to put into practical action in their daily lives?

I can imagine Paul pacing back and forth in his cell. Then, deep in his thoughts, he pauses for a moment and glances around. And suddenly it comes to him. It was one of those head-slapper moments. Of course! How could he have missed it? The perfect illustration! There it was, staring right at him! It had been within feet of him all along: the Roman soldier standing guard at the door of his cell! As Paul’s eyes rest on the guard, it all becomes clear…

Paul lists six pieces of armour in all: the belt, the breastplate, the boots, the shield, the helmet and the sword. We don’t have time in the space of one sermon to examine them all, so this morning I want us to focus on just three of them: the breastplate, the helmet, and the sword.

The breastplate: protecting the heart

So first, the breastplate. This piece of armour covered the chest and shoulders, and was constructed out of a horizontal series of circular strips of iron fastened together with leather straps. The breastplate was designed to protect all the vital organs. But the most important one, and the one I want to focus on this morning, was the heart.

Were you aware that the word “heart” occurs more than eight hundred times in the Bible? And in almost every occurrence it is referring to something much deeper, and much more vital in many ways, than the physical organ that pumps blood through our bodies. For in the Bible the heart is the seat of the will. In biblical terms, it is the core of your inner being, the source of your emotions, your morals, your sentiments, your courage, your convictions and your resolve. The heart is what makes you “you”.

For this reason the Bible places enormous emphasis on what goes on inside our hearts. Here are just a few of the hundreds of examples you can find if you take the time to look for them:

·    “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:5)

·    “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7)

·    “With my whole heart I seek you…! I have stored up your word in my heart,  that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:10,11)

·    “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind …” (Jeremiah 17:10)

·    “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

·    “Yet even now,” declares the Lord,  “return to me with all your heart … and rend your hearts and not your garments.” (Joel 2:12-13)

·    “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ ” (Psalm 14:1)

The book of Proverbs sums it up well for us when it warns, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23) And so it is that over our hearts we put on the breastplate of righteousness.

Of course the righteousness to which Paul is referring is not our own. That is self-righteousness. That is the righteousness of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, who stood in the temple apart from everybody else and prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” (Luke 18:11).

No, like the breastplate that is put on from without, the righteousness that Paul was writing about is a righteousness that does not come from within, but is conferred upon us. It is not my righteousness; it is Jesus’ righteousness, by which he and he alone protects us from all the evil that can so easily strike to the core of our being. So it is that in the words of John Wesley we are able proclaim,

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness,
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

The helmet: protecting the mind

We move on, then, from the breastplate, which protects our heart, to the helmet, which protects our head. Like the breastplate, the helmet is a vitally important piece of our spiritual armour. And as with our hearts, the Bible has a good deal to say about what goes on inside our heads.

Earlier in this letter to the Ephesians Paul has called upon his readers to “to be renewed in the spirit of your minds” (4:23). Elsewhere he warns, “Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans 8:5-6) And then he cautions us “not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word” (2 Thessalonians 2:2). He challenges us to “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). “Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” he queries. And then he boldly answers, “But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

So what does it mean to have the mind of Christ? Many years ago I was helped in this through a book by a lamentably little known author by the name of Harry Blamires. Blamires was both a student and a friend of C.S. Lewis and he wrote a number of books, one of which was entitled The Christian Mind. Here is one of the things he had to say on that topic:

The Christian mind sees human life and human history held in the hands of God. It sees the whole universe sustained by his power and his love. It sees the natural order as dependent upon the supernatural order, time as contained within eternity. It sees this life as an inconclusive experience, preparing us for another, this world as a temporary place of refuge, not our true and final home.[2]

Blamires was writing more than sixty years ago. Yet I dare to say that the principles he was articulating may be more crucial now in the twenty-first century than they have been at any time in the past. We live in a day when false notions and false ideas proliferate more than ever before—and as Christians we are not immune to them.

Our Lord Jesus himself warned that “false messiahs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matthew 24:24)

Today we are being bombarded from every direction with falsehoods dressed up in the guise of truth, immorality purporting to be virtue, reason being drowned out by emotion. Issues of human sexuality, abortion, and euthanasia are just three areas of many where our society is deeply divided, to the point where it is often difficult (if not impossible) to engage in rational dialogue—and that is only the tip of the iceberg.

What I am saying may seem very dreary and pessimistic, so let me cheer you up with another book I’ve been reading. It’s titled The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God. Its author documents how in recent years a number of leading intellectuals have begun seriously questioning the false assumptions that have taken hold of so much of our western thought, and are finding themselves attracted to the Christian faith. He asks whether we might be seeing the first ripples of a new wave of faith. Pray to God that that might be so!

Whatever the case, we need to have the helmet of salvation fitted firmly over our heads and to be actively seeking the mind of Christ. “Do not be conformed to this world,” Paul wrote to the believers living in Rome, “but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

The sword: our only offensive weapon

We have looked at the breastplate and the helmet. Both are defensive gear, to protect the soldier from attack. Now we turn to the only offensive weapon in Paul’s list—the sword. The sword that Paul’s guard would have carried was not a long, heavy sword like you might imagine in Robin Hood or Braveheart. Rather, it was a little less than two feet long and weighed less than two pounds. It was ground razor sharp on both edges, with a sharp point; and the soldier carried it not at his hip, but over his shoulder, so that he could whip it out at a moment’s notice.

And that is exactly what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of Jesus’ betrayal. Matthew’s gospel doesn’t tell us who the guilty party was, just that “one of those who were with Jesus” reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear (Matthew 26:50).

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews tells us that “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

And here we have the example of our Lord Jesus, who, though he carried no physical weapon, was adept at wielding the sword of the Spirit. When the devil sought to tempt him away from his God-given mission, Jesus’ defence was not with any sophisticated philosophical argument, but with the words of Scripture. Each time his reply began, “It is written…” “It is written…” “It is written…”

Clearly Jesus knew his Bible. And if that was the case for him, how much more for us, as we are confronted with the innumerable falsehoods and temptations with which life in the modern world confronts us. For this reason I can’t recommend highly enough a practice, not only of reading the Bible daily, but of committing it to memory. In my own Anglican tradition we have a prayer in which we ask that we may “hear, read, mark (that is, pay attention to), learn, and inwardly digest” the Scriptures. That means taking the time and the discipline to allow the message of the Bible to soak into us, to become a part of our very being.

Early in my own Christian life I was encouraged to begin memorizing portions of Scripture. I can’t tell you how many times those verses that I committed to memory have been helpful to me, particularly in times of difficulty—and more than fifty years later many of them are still embedded in my memory.

So much of life today is a spiritual battleground, and the weapons aimed against us grow daily in sophistication and menace. So let me challenge you to put on the spiritual armour with which God supplies us—the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of truth, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God—so that in the end you may shout with all the saints, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” .

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[1] Handley Moule, Ephesian Studies, 321

[2]     The Christian Mind, 67

“Born in a Battlefield” (Ephesians 6:10-20)

I am grateful for the opportunity to come and take part in the baptism of our youngest grandchild, Avery, and to Paul Friesen for his invitation to preach once again at St Paul’s after our eleven-year sojourn in the United States. They were a wonderful, spiritually stimulating time for us in many ways, but it is also good to be back in Halifax, which became home for us during my eighteen years as rector here.

Had we been using the old Book of Common Prayer, we would be hearing these words following Avery’s baptism:

We receive this child into the congregation of Christ’s flock, and do sign him with the sign of the cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his life’s end.[1]

It is a source of sadness for me that we haven’t retained these words, or something like them, in our contemporary forms of worship. I wonder if they weren’t dropped because our liturgical revisers sensed an incongruity between a defenseless baby cuddled in its parent’s arms and the blood and gore of a battlefield. If so, I don’t entirely blame them. Yet, when you think about it, that is almost exactly what the apostle Paul does in this morning’s reading from the last chapter of his letter to the Ephesians.

In the latter verses of chapter 5 and the first half of chapter 6, Paul has addressed his words to Christian households, to the relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and slaves. The whole emphasis throughout those verses is on Christ-like submission and service. The nineteenth-century German Lutheran pastor Karl Spitte put the picture of the Christian family into idyllic form in his hymn that includes the words,

O happy home, whose little ones are given
Early to thee, in humble faith and prayer,
To thee, their Friend, who from the heights of heaven
Guides them, and guards with more than mother’s care![2]

Yet suddenly, from that blissful scene Paul drops us into the middle of a battlefield, with the image, not of a peaceful family home but of a soldier fully armed for mortal combat.

The Action

Why the sudden shift? Handley Moule, one of the great scholar-bishops of Durham, wisely observed a century ago that it is a common experience that “the evil powers often win their worst advantages against us Christians on the quiet and common ground of life”.

Where we are least upon our guard they are most upon their watch… Just at home, alas, it is only too easy for the Christian to be inconsiderate in deed and word, to be quick or sullen in temper, to indulge self in small but dangerous ways, while yet a tolerable face of consistency is maintained in more public and exterior matters.[3]

Do you recognize yourself in the good bishop’s words? I can certainly see all too much of myself in them. Even such a one as the apostle Paul confessed to the struggle between good and evil that raged within the confines of his own soul:

I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. (Romans 7:21-23)

The great Russian novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn made much the same observation when he wrote,

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.

And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an un-uprooted small corner of evil.[4]

As difficult as it may be to accept, little Avery has been born into a battlefield. At this stage in his life he certainly is not aware of it. But we ask his parents and sponsors to affirm on his behalf:

Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
I renounce them.

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
I renounce them.

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?
I renounce them.

The Adversary

I don’t know if it was intentional, but those words in many ways reflect the words that we heard from Ephesians this morning. There Paul warns us about the devil’s schemes, about the rulers, authorities and powers of this dark world and about the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

It is important to notice that Paul doesn’t write about evil only in vague, general terms. He speaks quite specifically about the devil. In our post-Enlightenment world we may find the Bible’s references to the devil strange, antiquated, even slightly embarrassing. We may be tempted to set them aside as part of a pre-scientific worldview. If that is the case, then we need to beware.

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils,” wrote C.S. Lewis in the introduction to his spiritual classic, The Screwtape Letters. “One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors…”[5]

C.E.B. Cranfield, one of the leading New Testament scholars of the twentieth century, has written,

Here we are up against something that presents many difficulties to the modern mind, which is apt to dismiss the whole subject as outgrown superstition. It is important to approach it with as open a mind as possible. To suggest that there may be more truth here in the New Testament picture than has sometimes been allowed is not to wish to turn the clock back on scientific progress or to open the floodgates of obscurantism. The question whether the confident spread of the demons’ non-existence has not been their greatest triumph gets tragic urgency from such twentieth-century features as Nazism, McCarthyism, and Apartheid. And lest we should be prejudiced by the memory of such horrors as the burning of witches, it must be said that they were due, not to taking the New Testament too seriously, but to failing to take it seriously enough.[6]

Even a casual reading of the New Testament should leave us in no doubt that to follow Christ will inevitably lead us into conflict with the spiritual forces of darkness. Satan’s desire is to bring us down, to tangle us in a web of lies—and at times those lies can be very powerful and enticing. Yet all the while we must never lose sight of the assurance that “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

The Armour

So how does this work itself out in practical terms? How are we to engage in the fight? Paul uses the image of a soldier—one familiar to everyone in the Roman Empire—to show how it all happens. And it may seem odd, but he begins with the belt. For the belt was possibly the most important component of all. With it the ancient warrior bound together his loose-fitting clothes and so was able to manoeuvre with nimbleness and mobility. When we buckle on the belt of truth, we are encircling ourselves with certain truths about God and about ourselves, truths that we read in Scripture and that we affirm week by week in the creeds. At the same time we are committing ourselves to be men and women of truth, people whose “yes” truly is “yes” and whose “no” is truly “no”, people who really are who we say we are.

The next piece of armour is the breastplate. The breastplate covers and protects nearly all the vital organs, especially the heart. And for the biblical writers the heart stood as the seat of the will. “In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord,” wrote the apostle Peter (1 Peter 3:15a). Though it is the breastplate of righteousness, it is not our righteousness, but Christ’s, that protects us, conferred upon us by the shedding of his blood on the cross (2 Corinthians 5:20,21).

Third come the sandals. Just it was important for a soldier to have proper protection for his feet so that he could cross any terrain no matter how rough without causing himself pain or injury, so too we are to have “our feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace”. And so we are gospel people, good news people, leaving the imprint of God’s shalom wherever we go.

Then we are to arm ourselves with the shield—and the shield in question was a large piece of armour that covered nearly the whole body. That shield, says Paul, is faith. The word for faith in the New Testament is pistis, which can equally mean “faithfulness”. Thus I prefer to think of myself being armed not with my own faith, which is weak and faltering at the best of times, but with the faithfulness of God, which extends to the heavens and endures to all generations.

Fourthly there is the helmet of salvation. Clearly the helmet protects the brain—and how important it is to have minds that are formed and informed by the truths of God. Paul writes elsewhere of being transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may be able to test and approve what God’s will is. He writes of taking every thought captive to Christ (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 10:5). How vital it is that we should be able to think Christianly, to develop our minds in such a way that we can respond effectively to the many intellectual challenges that the world places before us!

Finally, we are presented with the sword of the Spirit, which, Paul tells us, is the word of God. Commentators have long observed that up to this point all the armour has been defensive. The sword is the only offensive piece of weaponry. It was with the word of God that Jesus fought off the attacks of the accuser in the wilderness: “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only…’ ” “It is written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ” “It is written: ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” I well remember an adviser in my university days pointing out that a sword has two edges, but in most cases only one is blunt, and that is the edge facing away from us. We can be very adept at applying the Scriptures to other people, but if we have any right to do so, it will only be after we have learned to apply them to ourselves. And if the powers of darkness are to be defeated in our lives, that is the way it will happen.

All of what I have been trying to say in these few minutes is most profoundly and beautifully expressed in a hymn which we know as “St Patrick’s Breastplate”. And I’d like to use those words to pray for you and for me and for little Avery as he is enrolled as Christ’s faithful soldier and servant in the sacrament of baptism.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.[7]

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[1]     The Book of Common Prayer, 1959, page 528

[2]     Hymn 340 in the Book of Common Praise (1938)

[3]     Ephesian Studies, page 322

[4]     Both quotes are from The Gulag Archipelago.

[5]     The Screwtape Letters, page 9

[6]     The Gospel According to St Mark, 75

[7]     Hymn 812 in the Book of Common Praise (1938)

“I press on” (Philippians 3:4b-16)

If you take a look along the boulevard in front of the church, you will see four fairly decent-sized boulders. They were dug up this past week during the excavation of Ford Parkway and someone thought that they might make an attractive addition to our garden. I understand that people can pay large sums of money to acquire boulders like that to place on their lawns, but we’re going to get them for free!

In Matthew’s gospel Jesus tells the story of a man who is out tilling a field, when suddenly his plow scrapes against something hard. Thinking it’s a rock, he digs down and what does he find? A treasure! Without wasting any time he rushes off and sells everything he owns so that he can have enough cash to buy the field and claim the treasure. That, says Jesus, is what the kingdom of heaven is like. People say, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” That may be true in the financial world. But Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is worth it.

False Confidence

In many ways what we have in this morning’s Epistle reading from Philippians is a real-life version of Jesus’ parable. It was on his way to Damascus that Paul (then Saul) discovered in Jesus the treasure that made all his worldly advantages seem worthless by comparison—and those advantages were considerable. Paul lists them out for us in the opening verses of this morning’s passage. First of all, he had been circumcised on the eighth day in precise accordance with the Old Testament Law. Once in a while I hear people describe themselves (often with a certain level of pride) as “cradle Episcopalians”. Well, Paul was a cradle Jew, raised from birth in the religion of his ancestors. Secondly Paul describes himself as “a member of the people of Israel”—and not only that, but also a member of the tribe of Benjamin, the tribe from which Israel’s first king, Saul, had arisen and the only one of the twelve tribes that had remained true to Judah when the kingdom had split after Solomon.

Added to that, Paul was “a Hebrew of Hebrews”. That is that, although born in southern Turkey, where people communicated in Greek, Paul spoke the Hebrew language. (What he does not mention in this passage, although he does elsewhere, was that his teacher was none other than Gamaliel, one of the leading rabbis of the first century.) And so Paul could claim not only religious and racial purity, but cultural purity as well.

However, the list does not end there. Paul had also been a Pharisee, a strict adherent to the laws and traditions of Israel. His devotion to Judaism had been such that he had been a sworn enemy of the newly founded sect that claimed Jesus as the Messiah, going to great lengths to hound and persecute its followers. Looking back on it all, he could in complete honesty declare that he had fulfilled all the demands of the Law. It was an impressive list, of which he could be justifiably proud—and no doubt it need not have ended there. Paul was still a young man and his star was still rising.

Now let’s just stop there for a moment and think about what Paul has been saying about himself. Have you ever considered how different Paul’s story is from so many of the testimonies that we hear today? It was not as though Paul had been a hopeless alcoholic unable to wrest himself from the lure of the bottle. He had not been a lawbreaker committed to a life of violence and crime. In every sense he had been a model citizen, successful in everything that he undertook. Yet, says Paul, it was those very things, those good things, that he now counts as loss “for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”.

In the nrsv Bibles in our pews we read that he “suffered the loss of all things”. I think the New Living Translation gets closer to what Paul meant when it uses the word “discarded”. Paul didn’t have these privileges taken away from him. He threw them away. Indeed, he says, he considers them rubbish. The word in Greek is skúbala and the seventeenth-century editors of the King James Bible weren’t afraid to translate it with the much earthier word “dung”. It is like something that some careless dog owner leaves behind that somehow finds its way onto the sole of your shoe. You scrape it off and fling it into the garbage. That was Paul’s attitude towards everything that had once brought any sense of significance, any sense of accomplishment, to his life.

Surpassing Worth

Why was this so? Why the 180° turnaround in Paul’s life? The reason was that, like the man plowing the field, Paul had found a treasure of infinite worth. Like the merchant in search of fine pearls, he had found one that was worth cashing in all that he possessed. What Paul had discovered was that he had been measuring his life by the wrong standard. As Paul had once done, our world puts a great deal of store by the accident of birth. Think of all the attention that has been focused on the birth of Princess Charlotte to Prince William and Kate Middleton over the past few months. Adorable as that little baby may be, what makes her more worthy of interest than any other child? Like Paul, our world is often dazzled by personal achievement. We ooh and ah at great sports champions or movie stars—and in many cases their accomplishments are not insignificant. But does that really make them better than other people?

What changed Paul along the Damascus Road was God’s revelation to him that his value, his personal worth, was measured neither by the circumstances of his birth nor by his personal attainments. Rather, it was measured by the only true measure of human worth, which is the cross of Jesus Christ. And the cross tells us, in letters written in the blood of God’s only Son, that you and I are of infinite worth to the one who created and sustains the universe, to the one who knew us before we were formed in our mother’s wombs, to the one who stands with arms outstretched waiting to welcome us into his eternal joy. That’s what Paul means when he writes about “not having a righteousness of my own…, but one that comes through faith in Jesus Christ”.

Scientists like to talk about paradigm shifts—the one that took place in the sixteenth century, for example, when Nicolaus Copernicus and others began to realize that the sun does not revolve around the earth, but vice versa. Suddenly with that discovery everything began to make sense in a way that it never had before. What the apostle Paul experienced and what he shared with believers who had already gone before him and those ever since, could also be called a paradigm shift. But it was also far more than that. It was something that would not merely affect the way he thought about things. It was not just an intellectual choice, but a conversion, an all-engaging process that would affect every area of his being.

Now it does not always occur in such a dramatic fashion as what happened to Paul. For many of us (including most of the apostles) it happens in a quieter, more gradual way. When did Peter’s conversion happen, for example? Was it when Jesus found him by the seashore and greeted him with the words, “Come, follow me”? Was it when he came to the profound realization that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of the living God? Could it have been when he arrived at Jesus’ tomb and found it empty or when after the painful threefold question, “Do you love me?” Jesus invited him again to “Follow me”? Or was it on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit fell upon him and the other disciples in the upper room? Or might it have been a combination of all these things?

There are some of us looking back on our own lives, who can point to a day or even an hour when that happened. On the other hand I suspect that there are many of us who would find it difficult to pinpoint exactly when the paradigm shift occurred. For those brought up in Christian families there may never have been a time when Jesus was not a reality for you. The point is not when it happened or how it happened, but that somehow we have come to perceive our worth in terms of the cross—in terms not of the world’s values or our whatever values we may set for ourselves, but the value that God himself has placed upon us in Christ.

Pressing On

While we may not be able to point to its beginning in our own lives, what we do know is that what Paul is writing about is the preoccupation of a lifetime. And he goes on to describe what it means for him in the final verses of this morning’s reading. “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal,” he writes, “but I press on…” The word is one of earnestness and striving. Paul will use it once again when he writes to his young friend Timothy:

But as for you, man of God…, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called… In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus…, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ…, the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. (1 Timothy 6:11-15)

“Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on,” says Paul for a second time. “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” What Paul had embarked on, what he was inviting the Philippians to join him in, was an adventure that, if they were willing, would involve their whole being—all their physical energy, all their intellectual capacities, all their courage, their imagination, their moral stamina, their tears and whatever else the Holy Spirit might muster within them.

The Christian journey is not for the lazy or the half-hearted. Yet again, like that treasure in the field, like the pearl of great price, and as Paul had discovered in his own experience, there is nothing that can compare with it. “Ours,” wrote Bishop Handley Moule a century ago, “is the happiness of wondering discovery, and rich possession, and ever-opening prospects.”[1]

It has been my privilege to share in that adventure with you over the past ten and a half years. And I pray for you, as I hope you will for me, that by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, you will continue to keep moving forward, to keep pressing on, to explore the vastness of its implications, to let it capture more and more of your mind and heart, to live it out amid all the unexpected twists and turns of life, and that you will never cease to be amazed by the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus.

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[1]     Philippian Studies, 178

“Dead and Alive” (Ephesians 2:1-10)

In three weeks’ time, as the sun is just beginning to show its first rays over the horizon, a little band of us will gather for what has to be one of the most dramatic services of the church year: the Easter Sunrise Vigil. As we gather around the newly lighted Paschal candle and sound the first Alleluia since Epiphany, we will hear once again the remarkable vision of Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones. I can never hear that reading without feeling tingles going down my spine. So allow me to read it to you this morning.

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live…” So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people… And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live…,’ says the Lord.”

Of course Ezekiel’s immediate reference was to the fact that the nation of Judah had been conquered, its people taken from their land and transported into captivity in Babylon. Yet Christians have recognized in that dramatic scene a deeper lesson. It is not just ancient Judah that has been held in captivity. Jesus warned, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” (John 8:34) And in his letter to the Romans the apostle Paul reminds his readers that they had once been held captive and enslaved by sin (Romans 6:6,17).

Our condition

We find that same theme underlying the opening verses in this morning’s reading from the Letter to the Ephesians. There, Paul begins by reminding his readers of their natural condition outside of Christ. He lays it out in graphic terms and we will find that he does not leave a single stone unturned. “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived.” The two words he uses for sin here each have slightly different shades of meaning. The first has to do with stumbling or straying from a path. Jesus warned, “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 6:13,14) The second word brings with it the idea of falling short or missing the mark. Paul defines it for us in Romans 3:23, where he writes, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Putting the two together, we recognize that sin encompasses both intentional acts and unintentional failures. We recognized that fact it in our confession in this morning’s worship when we acknowledged, “We have left undone what we ought to have done, and we have done what we ought not to have done.”

Paul goes on to elaborate three ways in which this works out in our lives: following the course of this world, following what he calls “the ruler of the power of the air”, and following the passions of our flesh. It’s not quite the same order, but our Book of Common Prayer summarizes this in the three renunciations that precede a baptism. The candidate is asked,

Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?
I renounce them.

Do you renounce the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
I renounce them.

Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?
I renounce them.

And so on the one side we have all the persuasive powers of the world around us—advertisers, peers, media and a whole host of others all attempting to pressure us into their mold. On the other we have the devil himself with his vast array of lies and deceit. And if that were not enough we have within us the capacity to choose and to commit unimaginable acts of evil. Bishop Handley Moule put it well a century ago when he wrote, “Man is not merely a sufferer; he is a runaway, a criminal, a rebel, a conspirator.”[1]

Uncomfortable as it is, Paul has held a mirror up to us. As we look on with Ezekiel at the valley of dry bones, we see ourselves and we cry, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

God’s action

At this point we come to what is the pivotal word in the passage. Indeed, I believe it may be the most important word in the whole Bible. “You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived… We were by nature children of wrath… But…” “But God made us alive.” We will hear it again in this morning’s service as we kneel before receiving communion. “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs from under your table. But…” “But you are the same Lord, whose nature is always to have mercy.”

How has he done this? How has God brought us from death to life? Paul actually had to invent three words to explain what has happened. They are found in verses 4 and 6. God has made us alive with Christ; he has raised us up with Christ; and he has seated us with Christ. Do you see how each of these three actions corresponds with a stage in Jesus’ ministry? In a few moments’ time we will recite them in the Nicene Creed: “On the third day he rose again…, he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father”—the resurrection, ascension and reign of Christ.

What Paul is telling us in this passage is these truths apply not only to Jesus. They apply also to those who put their trust in him. And so the Bible assures us that, just as Jesus has been raised from the dead, so too we are called and empowered to walk in newness of life. Just as Jesus has ascended into heaven, we know that he has prepared a place for us that we may be with him. Just as Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, so also we share the hope of reigning with him in glory.

In Christ God has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. Dead bones do not come alive of their own will. So, says Paul, it is “by grace you have been saved”. Indeed, to drive the point home he says it twice. “By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”

We heard this theme repeatedly from Bishop Bruce MacPherson as he spoke here last weekend about the living water that Jesus came to bring. He told of his own experience in the church as a young executive—how he thought that God must be proud to have him as a member of his church, to be serving in the vestry and on the finance committee. Yet it was only late one night as he came into the church alone and knelt before the cross that he came to the realization that it was all God’s doing, all through grace, and he received Christ into his life.

No doubt the Christians in Ephesus could all identify with that experience. The key, though, is to remember it, never to let it fade from our hearts and minds. As the people of Israel were preparing to enter the Promised Land, Moses warned them, “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he … who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, who made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know…” (Deuteronomy 8:17-18,15-16) By grace you have been saved.

God’s intention

Way back in university I had a friend who never tired of reminding us that we have not only been saved from, but we have also been saved for. It was an important lesson, and obviously it has stuck with me ever since. God has rescued us from the clutches of sin, the world and the devil. He has brought us back from death. These are wonderful truths, in which we glory. Yet they are only half the story. And to dwell on them as there were no more to it is to turn the Christian faith into something less than it is. It would be like an apple tree that doesn’t produce apples or a grape vine that doesn’t produce grapes.

Yes, God has saved us for a purpose—and we find that purpose in the final verse of this morning’s passage. Let me read it to you from the New International Version. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” God has saved us not only so that we might enjoy a place in heaven, but also so that we might join in his work in the world—so that we might be partners with him in making his new creation a reality within the old.

It is a bold claim. One of the criticisms leveled at the first Christians was that they were turning the world upside down. Wherever they went, things happened. We can think of Christians who have done that in remarkable ways down through the centuries, men and women like Francis of Assisi, or William Wilberforce who brought down the West Indian slave trade, or George Müller who was responsible for the rescue of more than 10,000 orphans, or in our own day Mother Teresa.

Few of us can aspire to that kind of greatness. Yet within our families, within our neighborhoods, on the job site or in school, we must believe that God has placed us there for a purpose, for his purpose. Let us never cease to be grateful to God, who has brought us from death to life. And let us never cease to be agents of that life, to share that life, to do the good works that God has prepared in advance for you and me to do.

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[1]     Ephesian Studies, 67