Ephesians 1:15-23 · Thanksgiving and Prayer
Being Christ
Ephesians 1:15-23
Sermon
by Maxie Dunnam
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What Christ has been and done for us we must do and be for others. Our life in Christ and our ministry in his name are inseparable. A spirituality that does not lead to active ministry becomes an indulgent preoccupation with self, and therefore grieves the Holy Spirit and violates the presence of the indwelling Christ.

Paul's powerful prayer in Ephesians is a profound expression of our call to live a life in Christ. It is an amazing affirmation of God's power working in us to fulfill that ministry. Listen to Eph: 1:17-20: "I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the all-glorious Father, may give you the spiritual powers of wisdom and vision, by which there comes the knowledge of him. I pray that your inward eyes may be illumined, so that you may know what is the hope to which he calls you, what the wealth and glory of the share he offers you among his people in their heritage, and how vast the resources of his power open to us who trust in him. They are measured by his strength and might which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead" (vv. 17-20 NEB).

Christ.

Commenting on this prayer, Henri Nouwen says, This prayer makes clear that the spiritual life is a life guided by the same Spirit who guided Jesus Christ. The Spirit is the breath of Christ in us, the divine power of Christ active in us, the mysterious source of new vitality by which we are made aware that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us . . .. Indeed, to live a spiritual life means to become living Christ’s. It is not enough to try to imitate Christ as much as possible; it is not enough to remind others of Jesus; it is not even enough to be inspired by the words and actions of Jesus Christ. No, the spiritual life presents us with a far more radical demand: to be living Christ here and now, in time and history. (Sojourners, June 1981)

Radical? Yes. And more radical yet when we realize that this is not a call to some "special vocation"; this is the call to every person who would be Christian. The Christian life is life as Jesus lived it and now lives it in us.

We talked earlier about submission and service as a discipline of spiritual formation. No image of Jesus is more vivid than that of a servant. He came not to be ministered to but to minister. That is the primary way we manifest Christ presence in the world. We become servants of our Lord by serving others.

What Christ has been and done for us we must be and do for others. As He has been an affirming, forging, healing presence to us we must be that kind of presence to others.

In talking about his longing for Christ to come alive in his friends in Galatia, Paul used the image of giving birth to a child. “Oh, my dear children, I feel the pangs of childbirth all over again till Christ be formed with you” (Gal.4:19 Phillips). Rachel Richardson Smith reflected on the meaning of the Incarnation in light of her own pregnancy and giving birth. She said, “In pregnancy a woman’ s body takes over…I felt as though I had lost control of my body. It went ahead on its own and left me in shock somewhere behind. In pregnancy I became one with my body as at no other time in my life.

She went on to speak of a woman’s being intricately bound up with the new person within her, even though distinct from it. “The two are one,” she says, and herein lies the paradox. The pregnant woman is both herself and this other being. The two are distinct from each other, though they are not separate.

This too is the paradox of incarnation. God is both Christ and other than Christ. Though not separate from Christ, God is distinct from Christ. Christ is not all of God, as the newborn baby is not the entire mother. But in Christ, God gives birth to God. (The Christian Century, Dec. 19, 1979)

We may extend the use of that image for our life in Christ, for in us the Incarnation continues. I am not all of Christ, even as the newborn baby is not the entire mother and even as Jesus Christ is not all of God. But by an incomprehensible work of grace, Christ is alive in me, and to the degree of my yieldedness to his indwelling presence, I live Christ’s life, and I can be Christ to others.

Someone said of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “She gave herself to Christ and through Him to her neighbor. This was the end of her biography and the beginning of her life.” Mother Theresa is a transparent witness to the shaping power of

The indwelling Christ, a servant without a portfolio. So I am going to continue my ritual in one form or another. Maybe, by my response to that glorious possibility, the grace of God will work such a miracle in me, and I will give my life so completely to Christ and through Him to my neighbor, that my biography will end and my life begin. I close then as I began, and invite you o affirm for yourself as I keep affirming for myself: “Maxie, the secret is simply this:

Christ in you! Yes, Christ in you, bringing with Him the hope of all the glorious things to come.”

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