We Are One in Christ

Ephesians 2:11-22 Once when Jesus was teaching the Jews who believed in him, the told them:  If the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.  And they said, “What do you mean?  We’ve never been enslaved to anyone”.  That answer ought to make us gasp out loud and shake our head and our jaw drop down in disbelief!  How on earth could they say that?

What about the Egyptians?  What about the Assyrians?  What about the Babylonians?  What about the Romans?  History was filled with decades—even centuries—of the Jews being slaves and subjects of other nations.  Time and time and time again God came to their rescue and set them free.

Their forgetfulness regarding their own history was really a spiritual blindness to the mercy of God and their own great need for his deliverance.  It can happen to us too.  When it comes to our life with God, it’s important to remember where we came—that we all are one in our need of God’s grace--so that we understand the greatness of his mercy!  The Bible says:

Remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

            When it comes to our relationship with God, it’s important to remember where we came from.  These words of our text that the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write were written to Gentiles—people who were not children of Israel by birth—people who grew up in paganism—people who had no knowledge of the Ten Commandments or the promises of a Savior to come.

And without this knowledge of the things of God, they had no life with God, no relationship with God, no hope for the future.  It was important for their life with God (now that they had become Christians) to remember how far they had come and how great was the mercy of God that brought them to Christ.

So it is for us.  For many of us, we are like those Jews who had forgotten their spiritual history and so our salvation and life with God doesn’t mean for us what it ought.

We were born to Christian parents, baptized within a few days of our birth, brought to Sunday School and confirmation, and grew up in the church.  We say:  I’ve always been a Christian!  And we’re spiritually complacent.  We don’t really understand that the great salvation story of slavery and freedom—of alienation and adoption-- is our story too.  But it is!

There is not one of us who was born into this world as God’s child, by nature.  All of us are alienated from God, by nature.  All of us are spiritually blind, by nature.  Adam’s sin affects us all and the consequence of sin (alienation from God and one another, spiritual blindness, and death) infects us all. 

That we are now children of God; that our sins are forgiven; that we have an eternal future in heaven is only because of what Jesus has done for us—and we need the remember that so that we understand how far we have come.  The Bible says:

Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 

            It was true for the Jews.  It was true for the Gentiles.  It is true for us and for every person in the world.  There is only one way out of spiritual slavery.  There is only one way into God’s family—and that is through the blood of Jesus Christ shed upon the cross. 

We cannot earn our freedom by works of the law or keeping the commandments or observing some religious ordinance.  We do not have a place in God’s family because our parents are there or because of our Lutheran heritage or because our name is on some church roll. Freedom from sin and fellowship with God comes only through the blood of Jesus shed upon the cross--blood that has made peace us and God and one another.  The Bible says that:

Jesus is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

            The people of the ancient world were divided into Jew and Gentile.  That division was seen in the flesh of every Jewish man.  That division was experienced in every aspect of how people lived their lives.  That division had eternal consequences in who was worshiped: the one true God of Israel or the many false gods of paganism. 

There was no division among men more significant—no wall separating mankind one from another more insurmountable-- than the division between Jews and Gentile.  Jews hated the Gentiles and Gentiles hated the Jews.

But in the one body of Jesus Christ, crucified upon the cross, all of that hostility came to an end.  In Jesus, it no longer mattered whether you were a Jews or Gentile. It no longer mattered what you ate.  It no longer mattered whether you were circumcised or not.  All that mattered was whether or not you believed in Jesus.  So it is for us.

Jesus was the one that fulfilled the countless demands of the Law that we cannot keep.  Jesus was the one who suffered God’s wrath on the cross and shed his blood to pay for all of our sin.  The hostility that existed between us and God—and the dividing wall that exists between us and others was all brought to an end by the peace offering Jesus made on the cross.  The Bible says that

in Christ Jesus we are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 

 So it still is today for those who are in Christ Jesus—that we are one in him.  We still recognize differences in the human race.  There are blacks and white, Asians and Hispanics.  There are people who are poor and people who are rich.  There are young and old.  There are still men and woman.  Both these human differences are not divisive for those who are in Christ.

That we are members of his body through faith blood is infinitely more important than the individual parts of this body.  That his blood has been shed for us is infinitely more important than the blood that runs through our veins and binds us together in our human relationships. 

Christ has made us one with all of those who confess him as Lord and Savior and has given us the same Spirit and the same Father.  The Bible says that:

Jesus came and preached peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

            When that madman killed all those people at the church in South Carolina, church leaders and church bodies sent letters of consolation and support and encouragement.  So did our church body and president as well as the other conservative Lutheran Churches.  Christian congregations around the country lifted up that congregation in prayer.  So did ours. 

It didn’t matter that the folks in South Carolina were African Methodist Episcopal and we are Lutheran.  It didn’t matter that they are African American and we are largely Anglo.  It didn’t matter that they are urban and we are rural.

They are our brothers and sisters in Christ.  They gather for worship on the Lord’s Day just like we do.  They have Bible study just like we do.  They baptize in the name of the Holy Trinity just like we do.  They confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior just like we do.  We are one with them in the Body of Christ.

All Christians are gifted with the same Holy Spirit that allows us to confess Jesus as Lord and Savior.  All Christians are members of the Body of Christ.  All Christians are children of the heavenly Father. 

And all Christians—from every nation, tribe, people, and language-- will one day stand shoulder to shoulder around the throne of the Lamb in his kingdom, clothed in the white robe of Christ’s righteousness and sing eternal praises to their Savior God.  The Bible says that:

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

            Saints of God.  Children of the heavenly Father.  Citizens of an eternal kingdom.  That is not how we began—but that is who we are right now.  Repeat.

That is how far we have come—that those who were separated from God, alienated from his people, strangers to the things of God have been brought to faith through the testimony of the prophets and apostles concerning Jesus Christ in Word and Sacrament so that now we are part of the church, the Lord’s temple, where God the Holy Spirit dwells on earth.

            It’s important that we remember that so that we understand how far we have come and never grow complacent about God’s grace.  But it is also important that we remember that so we understand others can make that journey too.

Much too often we look at people who are opposed to the things of God, people who are caught up in some besetting sin, people who reject Jesus as if they could never change.  But the Jews and Gentiles of Jesus’ day and our own lives are a testimony to the power of the Holy Spirit who is able to take aliens and strangers and make them children of God.  And so it still is today.

The Church, the temple of God, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit that is built on the cornerstone of Jesus Christ is alive and well and growing.  Day by day the Holy Spirit is adding to it.  That is our mission as part of the Body of Christ—to speak the words of the prophets and apostles and bear witness to Jesus Christ so that others can make that same journey of faith that we have made and grow with us, as one people, in the Body of Christ.  Amen.