Ephesians 1:11-23
Today we celebrate All Saints’ Day, the day we remember all those who love, and have loved God; those the New Testament calls saints. All the gathered people of God who have ever lived, the quick and the dead.
‘All Saints,’ is the most popular name in the entire worldwide Anglican Communion for a parish church. So it is for us in our parish too, a time to remember all the saints who have worshipped and continue to worship at All Saints, Cambooya.
And finally, it’s a day to pray for and thank God for all us saints everywhere, who worship the living God. It is a day to re-proclaim pure and simple truths that Jesus is Lord of all the earth and the Lord of life.
Now the Saints include all those who have died in Christ, as well as we who are alive. Those who have died in Christ are called the Church Triumphant. They have already triumphed over death and are alive now in the true realm of God; that other country that we are all citizens of.
We who are still in this world are called the Church Militant, still fighting the good fight, as we heard the apostle Paul put it last week. Jesus says this body, triumphant and militant, will prevail against the very gates of death itself.
God gave Jesus to the world so we would believe in him and not perish. Eternal life is the basic promise of Christ Jesus. When we receive him, his eternal life becomes ours, for we become one.
This is the great blessing of being a Saint.
The Church triumphant are now experiencing this very thing with our Lord Jesus, where every tear is wiped from every face.
Which brings us to our reading today from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Ephesus was the centre of the cult of Artemis (also called Diana) and had a huge temple for her.
Paul uses this as a symbol to show how powerless and puny ungodly authorities are in the face of the amazing power of the love of God.
Ephesus was not only a centre of religious power with its worship of Artemis, but all sorts of cults and beliefs flourished that focussed on power, the power that we might call magic.
A power they claimed could make things happen in the world, to influence people’s love for advancement or wealth.
It was also a major provincial centre of Roman government and law. So for the Ephesians, their world was dominated by what Paul calls the “principalities and powers” of the various rulers and authorities.
From local magistrates and tax collectors up to high temples of recognised gods and goddesses and all things in between.
But for Paul, as he writes in v.20, the greatest power the world had ever seen took place when God raised Jesus from the dead. Many Jews, non-Jews, Romans, and Greeks believed in some form of life after death.
Many Jews, e.g. the Pharisees, believed in life in heaven after death. But no one had seen a dead person raised to this life, breathing, and eating and drinking again on earth.
So the power of God, the only power that can actually create life where there is no life, immediately sets itself up as superior to all other powers. The risen Jesus, now ascended to be with the Father, is in fact enthroned, on the basis of this power, over the whole cosmos.
Todays’ reading contains a beautiful prayer for the Saints of Ephesus, and also for all the Saints of all the world of all times, that we will prayer shortly. I try to pray it whenever the reading comes up.
At the centre of this prayer is his longing that the readers of this letter (that is, us), will realise that this same power, the power of the resurrection that is now fully vested in Jesus, is available for us and all Saints.
This is also at the heart of all my prayers for all of us in Drayton parish. It is given to us for our daily use.
In Pauls’ day, just like in our day, many of us are simply unaware that this power is there and available. We tend to live our Christian life thinking things like, ‘Well, I don’t seem to have much power as a Christian.’
Or similarly, ‘I can’t see this power that Jesus is supposed to have doing very much in the world today.’ That shows to me that we and all the Saints too, need this prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesians.
Now Paul doesn’t imagine that all Christians will automatically be able to recognise the power of God. As he says in v.17 it will take a fresh gift of wisdom, of coming to see things we can’t see.
This in turn will come about through knowing Jesus and having what Paul calls in v.18 “the eyes of our hearts” opened to God’s light.
God has exalted Jesus, that is, raised him up, higher than all other rulers and authority. Higher than any horoscope, higher than Mr Zi and Mr Trump, and Mr Putin. Higher than any world leader or nation, and certainly higher than any invented god or form of magic.
All of them are subject to the Lord Jesus. Now he is ascended to the Father, he is no baby Jesus meek and mild; but the King of all Kings, Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Everyone and everything are subject to this King.
He is utterly majestic over all the earth.
This mighty and powerful King Jesus has, as his hands and feet, his agents and channels within the present world, which we call the church. Which Paul writes in v.23 is “his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”
The Saints are the fullness of Jesus and the reflection of his majesty.
Let’s pray Paul’s prayer for us in Drayton parish. I have changed the “you” to “we” and “us.”
Dear Father of glory,
the father of our Lord Jesus and of us all,
give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation as we come to know Jesus more,
so that, with the eyes of our hearts enlightened,
we may know what is the hope to which you have called us.
That we may know the riches of your glorious inheritance for us with all the saints,
and what is the immeasurable greatness of the power of Christ
for all who believe, according to the working of your great power.
You put this power to work in our Lord Jesus when you raised him from the dead and seated him at your right hand,
far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,
and above every name that is named, in this age and in the age to come.
In the name of the one, Jesus Christ. Amen.