God of Glory, God of Love

Pentecost 6, 2009, Pinckneyville/Conant, Ephesians 1:3-14

In 1995 Becky and I were at chapel of Christ the King for the baccalaureate service at Valparaiso University. While we were singing the processional hymn, “Joyful, joyful we adore thee, God of Glory, Lord of Love,” I noticed people climbing up onto the pews, cameras in hand. Here we had a chance to sing our joy to God and people were trying to get a photo of their graduate as he or she rushed up one of three aisles with no more than a face showing between the mortar board hat and their graduation gowns.

Then I noticed people in our row moving back. Here came the proverbial little grandmother. By now I was fed up. If she wanted a photo she would have to go through me first. Without as much as an “excuse me” she put an elbow in my solar plexus. I stumbled back as she stepped across in front of me, snapped her photo and was on the way back to her place in the congregation. “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee,” indeed.

Today we consider our epistle lesson from Ephesians, under the theme, “God of Glory, God of Love.“ One commentary calls this three stanza hymn, “Paul’s rhapsody in Christ.”

Praise to God’s glorious grace begins with blessing God whose nature is to bless us. In Christ, God has given us all the spiritual blessings available in the heavenly places. Will we ever be able to bless God with the same richness with which He has blessed us? No, on two accounts. Firstly, our sinful self distracts us from our praise; like our afternoon plans, an aching back, that argument not quite settled or did we really need more rain?

I may determine along with the Psalmist, “I will listen to what the Lord God is saying; for you speak peace to your faithful people.” Will I really listen? The Lord calls us to repentance and so we begin our service with confession of sins. I can’t even get through confessing my sin of not listening as I ought without my mind going off somewhere else. We prayed earlier, “Give us pure hearts and minds to follow Your son faithfully even into suffering and death.” Into suffering and death? I can’t even faithfully follow Jesus when I’m following a slow driver on 154, let alone when people are standing on pews or jabbing an elbow in my solar plexus.

Secondly, God is forever, and we can take that literally, giving us reasons to bless him for house and work and government and so forth day after day, in addition to all the eternal blessings in the heavenly places. He answers our prayer for daily bread and daily grace before we even pray for them, just as he gave us salvation an d eternal life in Jesus Christ without our asking.

Furthermore, he chose us. He chose us in the endless eternity, before there were atoms and DNA, before there was light and darkness., before the morning stars sang and God told the waters of the sea, “this far and no farther.” God chose us when there was only God and no “us’ at all. He chose us for a purpose, to live so that whether are at work or play, at home or away, with friends or strangers our lives would be a worthy offering of daily devotion and praise to God. However, its one thing for God to choose us for the purpose of serving him, it’s quite another for us to absolutely and unfailingly fulfill our purpose.

Way ahead of our time, before there was time, he destined us to be adopted as his children. Think of the love of a mother and father for their child. That love precedes birth. Now think of a baby born with a defective heart. The parents had anticipated the birth of a healthy baby. Now they sit with heads bowed in sadness as the doctor tells them the news; yet they say, “We will do whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, we will do.” How much more will God in his gracious nature and purpose also do whatever it takes through his Son Jesus Christ to purify our defective spiritual hearts that we might once more be His children? All of this according to the plan and purpose of His will in His beloved Son.

The second stanza of Paul’s hymn tells us what God planned in eternity he has accomplished in Christ in the world’s history. It’s into this world of sin that the dear Christ entered in. Sin means to miss the mark. Theologian Marva Dawn tells of an archery class in high school. One of her fellow students got her bow so cockeyed that her arrow missed the target, flew over the track straight into a passing dog’s bushy tail. The dog wasn’t hurt. However, in its confusion it sprinted all over the field with the arrow imbedded in its tail. This became a graphic image of the fact that our wrongdoing doesn’t merely miss the mark, it often hits someone else.

Now God’s universal plan had a price. God had just the budget for it without placing any burden on us. Christ himself was the price God paid to deliver us from our plight. One time a congregation was going to sing “Jesus Priceless Treasure.” However, a typo showed up in the bulletin listing the hymn as “Jesus, Priceless Treasurer.” That’s not quite correct. God is the treasurer. Jesus is the priceless treasure God paid to wipe out our debt of sin. Thus in God’s accounting, the book is balanced by Christ’s precious blood.

In Christ, God has lavished the rich treasure of his grace on us. Thus the mystery of God’s plan, hidden for ages, is revealed in Jesus Christ. Consider this in the light of Holy Communion. To an unbeliever watching us take the Sacrament of the Altar it might seem as nonsense. What could such a little bit of bread and a sip of wine do for anyone? It’s not even much of a mid-morning snack. But for us it’s the very body and blood of Christ. It’s his death we are receiving. It’s his resurrection we are given. A hymn admits, “The mys’try of your presence, Lord, no mortal tongue can tell: whom all the world cannot contain comes in our heart to dwell.” He comes in a bit of bread and a sip of wine.

Finally, we come to stanza three of Paul’s hymn and to the third person of the Trinity. Having heard the word of truth, the good news of our salvation, and having believed in Christ we are sealed with the Holy Spirit as a down payment guaranteeing our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. At our baptism we received the seal of the Holy Spirit marking us as God’s possession in Christ. As his sons and daughters we have an inheritance of eternal life. Marked with the sign of the cross upon our heart and upon our forehead we received adoption as children of God with a guaranteed eternal inheritance set aside for us from before the creation of the universe. For such a great blessing from God we can only say along with St. Paul, “To the praise of his glory.” Indeed, “Joyful, joyful we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of Love.”