"Tight lines" is a blessing fishermen offer each other, a wish for lines taut with the weight of good fish. May God grant that the lines written here be taut with His blessings.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009 | |||
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Get It Together | |||
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It will be a short sermon on Sunday as I preach from
Ephesians 2:11-22. This text is a wonderful celebration of the unity
of the Church as it is based in the reconciling death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. As I reflect on verse 13 about those who were far away being brought near and on verse 16 about Christ reconciling the Jews and Gentiles through the Cross, "putting to death their hostility," I'm reminded again of one my favorite images from Athanasius. In De incarnatione verbi dei Athanasius writes a kind of apologetic for the physical form of Christ's crucifixion: "we see the fitness of his death and of those outstretched arms: it was the He might draw His ancient people with the one and the Gentiles with the other, and join both together in Himself." Christ reached out in opposite directions as He hung on the Cross so that He could bridge and bring together races and peoples who are estranged from each other across great gulfs. Our text concludes with another image of the Church as a building, a temple, built up on the foundation of the prophets and apostles with Christ as cornerstone. All in all, we are meant to be together, to get "it" together, by which "it" I mean the blessings of grace and forgiveness and joy in the Lord. We were not meant to get it alone, to enjoy a merely private and individual experience with God. The very nature of our salvation is to be drawn into the community which God is building in Christ. So most of the preaching time this Sunday will be turned over to our young people returning from CHIC (Covenant High in Christ), a huge youth gathering going on this week in Tennessee. We will remember that they got "it" by being together with us and now with other young Christians, and that we continue to get "it" together by the sharing of Jesus is doing among us as we live and serve Him together. | |||
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Profile |
I am the pastor of Valley Covenant Church in Eugene, Oregon. I love to flyfish and hike along the beautiful rivers in our area. I welcome your comments as I share sermon work in progress and occasional other thoughts.
Thank you for visiting this blog. I invite you also to visit my web page.
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