The Family Expands

The Family Expands

Second after Christmas

Almighty God, who has poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word; Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Epiphany Observed

O God, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thine only-begotten Son to the Gentiles; mercifully grant that we, who know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Epistle: Ephesians 3:1-12

1 For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,

2 If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:

3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,

4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;

6 That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:

7 Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.

8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

10 To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,

11 According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:

12 In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.

Our family will expand when our son, Calvin, gets married in April. We will add not only a daughter-in-law, but also two grandchildren. We didn’t see this coming. We expected Calvin would eventually remarry, but we figured the grandchildren total had topped out at 14. But we will have 16 grandkids’ birthdays to remember.

St. Paul writes about the expansion of God’s family in the Epistle for Epiphany.

1. The Ministry of Paul

St. Paul, a staunch opponent of Christ and persecutor of Christ’s people, was converted when Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus. For three days after, he was blind. Then Christ sent a disciple named Ananias to Paul. The Lord told Ananias, “Go for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15,16).

That was around A.D. 33 or 34. He then spent 20 plus years proclaiming Christ and planting churches among the Gentiles. He was arrested in Jerusalem at Pentecost in 57. Eventually he was taken to Rome where he lived under house arrest. He wrote this letter to the Ephesians from Rome about 62.

Paul describes himself as “a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles.” He was literally a prisoner, but he did not see himself only as a man who was imprisoned. He adds that he is a prisoner “for Christ Jesus.” Imprisonment was connected to his service; it was something he was doing for Christ. This attitude was not something new for Paul. Before imprisonment he often referred to himself as a “servant” or “slave” of Jesus Christ. That was his outlook on his life and ministry.

Not only was he a prisoner for Christ; he was also a prisoner on behalf of the Gentiles. He was a prisoner because Christ called him to proclaim Christ to the Gentiles for the sake of their salvation. Yet far from resenting that his ministry on behalf of the Gentiles led to his imprisonment, he rather saw it as privilege. God entrusted him as a steward with both the Gospel and a ministry to and for the Gentiles. It was a gift of grace that Paul felt he did not deserve because, as former persecutor of the church, he saw himself as “the very least of the saints.”

God does not call us to be Apostles along with Paul. He doesn’t call many of us to be missionaries, and not all that many to be preachers of the Gospel. But Paul has something important to teach us. We are all servants and prisoners of Christ. Paul told the Corinthians, “You don’t belong to yourself, for you were bought with a price” (I Cor. 6:19). And service to Christ, even when it involves suffering, is a gracious privilege Christ entrusts to us. Christ calls every Christian to joyful service to him for the sake of others.

2. The Mystery of Christ

Paul’s is a minister of a mystery. We use the word “mystery” in several ways. If we say that something is mysterious, we may mean it has something to do with the supernatural - the world of ghosts and spirits. The Bible word “mystery” doesn’t mean that.

But we use the word in other ways. We might read a murder mystery in which the writer weaves a story leading to identifying “who done it.”  Winston Churchill said, “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” He meant Russia is impossible to figure out. The word “mystery” in the Bible has something in common with those uses.

In the Bible a mystery is something that man cannot discover by observation, inquiry, and reason. All men know that there are such things, because no matter how much they study women, they can’t figure them out. There are many things man has discovered. Quantum mechanics has enabled us to understand the atom and has such practical applications as the MRI and semiconductors. But there are things that man cannot know by the use of his unaided intellectual powers. There are things we need to know that no amount of study and reflection can ever unlock.

These things we can know only by revelation from God. God must show us these things or they will be always hidden from us. Paul says “the mystery was made known to me by revelation.” He writes of “my insight into the mystery of Christ.” He expands what he means as “the mystery of Christ which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”

The mystery is Christ - who is he, what God did through him for our salvation. We would never know who Christ was, why he came, what he has done for us unless God revealed these things. The Holy Spirit revealed these things to prophets and apostles. They recorded the things made known to them so these things could be preserved and passed down from generation to generation.

There are things, things absolutely necessary for our salvation, that we cannot know except through the Holy Scriptures. And the Holy Scriptures are not philosophical or moral writings but the record of what God has done in Christ for our salvation. We are lost without the Scriptures, but through them we know Christ and receive from him salvation from sin.

3. The Membership of the Gentiles

What is this mystery of Christ?  “The mystery is that Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of Christ Jesus through the Gospel.”

The LORD called Abraham to go to a land he would show him and would make from him a great nation and bless him. He promised Abraham would have descendants as many as the stars of the sky and sands of the seashore. The LORD made a covenant with Abraham and promised to be his God and the God of his descendants. The descendants of Abraham were the Jews of the Old Testament, the nation of Israel.

There were hints in the Old Testament that one day God would include among his people not just Jews but Gentiles. The LORD had told Abraham he would make him a blessing and that all the nations of the world would be blessed through him. We read from the prophet Isaiah, this morning, “And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (60:1). On Epiphany we remember the coming from the East of the Gentile Magi to worship the Christ Child. This is the beginning of the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles and the promise that they will be included among the people of God through Christ.

But it was not till after the Ascension of Christ, the pouring out of the Spirit on Pentecost, and the call of St. Paul to be the Apostle to the Gentiles that God made it clear that the Gentiles were called to salvation through faith in Christ and incorporated into the people of God. The Gentiles are “fellow heirs” with the Jews of all the promises of God to his people. They are members of the same body of God’s people as Jews. They are partakers of Christ Jesus through the Gospel, the good news of what God has done in Christ to save his people from their sins.

What was necessary to bring Jews and Gentiles together in one greatly expanded family that is spread throughout the world? That Christ by his death of the cross removes the barrier of hostility between God and the human caused by sin. And that by the same cross Christ removes divisions among humans caused by race and ethnicity. Jews and Gentiles are one family who have been reconciled to God in the same way - by faith in Christ.  

For he (Christ) himself 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. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near.  For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:14-19).

We come to this Table to partake of Christ by faith. By his body given and his blood shed for us we are reconciled to God in Christ. Since we all are reconciled to one God by the one sacrifice of his one Son and received in one way, by faith, we are one people. If we are reconciled to God in Christ, he calls us to be reconciled to one another and to live as a family, bearing with one another, maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, living out the reality of one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all.