Being in Christ

Text: Ephesians 1:3-14

The consensus among scholars is that the letter to the Ephesians was not written by the apostle Paul, even though it claims to be. It was likely written by a disciple of Paul, or some of his entourage, and signed with his name, a common practice of the day. It does adopt the ideas of Paul, and you might think of the letter as something like “A Treasury of Pauline Themes.” Not quite a summary, and not quite Paul’s Greatest Hits, but a way to convey the core and flavor to others of Paul’s preaching.

It opens with an initial greeting followed by the passage we just heard. There is an urgency in this letter to get right to the essence of things. These twelve verses are, in the original greek, one long unbroken sentence. It is as if the writer wants to get all the ideas out in one big rush and is carried away on a wave of their importance.

And they are important, for the question they want to answer is: who is God; and what is Jesus? It seems to have something to do with being “in Christ,” whatever that means.

It is an easy and familiar phrase. “We are all one in Christ Jesus” as we proclaim every Sunday before we share the peace with one another. Being in Christ and Christ being in us is a central mystery of Christianity, especially for that part of Christianity that reached us through Paul. But this long sentence in Ephesians—which is composed of multiple descriptive phrases and conjunctions hanging off the subject, God the Father—this knot of words that floods us with concepts and images of Christ and his nature—seems to be necessary to the writer to get it right and richly so.

If we untangle it just a little, we see three clusters of ideas. In the first cluster, we see that we are blessed. Blessed be God who has blessed us with blessing is how it starts out. Good words—that is what the Greek word here for blessing comes from: good plus word. What God has done through Christ is good for us. It makes brings us favor. It reminds us that God is good. When we think about Jesus, we are grateful to God the Father.

We are grateful not only for this gift—this glorious grace, it says, bestowed on us in [Christ] the beloved. But also that we are enveloped into this little family, adopted as children of God, getting the same benefits (or inheritance) that God’s own are entitled to.

In the second cluster, we see that as a result of this free favor, we are forgiven our sins (trespasses it says in our translation). In spite of our tendency to mess up a lot—by omission or commission—God does not hold it against us. This is the kind of thing you see in your children—usually—or your best friends. You love them because you do, in spite of—and in some cases because of—their weird and difficult habits. They are endearing, you keep them close to you—embrace them—because they exist and because you, like God in this way, are gracious. You do this according, as it says in the letter, according to your good pleasure.

And finally, in the third cluster we discover that our lives have changed. We are somehow in Christ and therefore different. It is a result of being in Christ, it says, that we are redeemed (that is, set free from all the powers that bind us). In Christ we are of God’s family. And in Christ, God reveals God’s intent and plan.

Yet, how does this work? It is safe and revealing to add some modifiers, to probe into this big and sometimes opaque idea.

Perhaps we are in the mind of Christ, the heart of Christ. That being in Christ means that Christ is aware of us, thinks about us, watches over us, wonders about us.

Perhaps we are in the acts of Christ. In the theological sense. That God came here in the person of Jesus and lived, died, and rose again. Those acts accomplished something for us (among other things: set us free from worldly and satanic fears, goods, authorities, and structures). Being in Christ means that we are the beneficiaries of those acts.

Or perhaps we are in obedience to the commands of Christ. Jesus taught us how to live the good life, and commanded us to love one another, to forgive sins against us, to give freely, to consider that compassion trumps authority. Being in Christ means that we organize our lives to respond to Christ’s teachings and work for justice.

Or perhaps we are in the company of Christ. Especially at Christmas, we celebrate that God is with us—Immanuel—in our present anxieties and contentments. We take comfort and strength that we are not alone. Being in Christ means that we are aware—and grateful—that God is always nearby us. In crowds, in relationships, in loneliness.

Or, finally, perhaps we are in the body of Christ. As we share the meal in the Lord’s Supper, we ingest the being of Christ, who becomes part of us. At the same time, we share that being with all who eat this same food, given for us, and thus we become like them. We are joined not only in our longing to know God but in the atoms of our own bodies.

Being in Christ is like being in touch, being in love, being in conversation, even like being in a boat on a stormy sea. And especially like being in community with God and others. It is why this letter is in the plural.

There is no metaphor for our relationship with Christ that is both obvious and clear, and none that is comprehensive. With the saints in Ephesus and the rest of us, spiritual descendants of the first followers of Christ, we gather into churches, hoping to find comfort, identity, and understanding.

There, we are blessed. To ponder, and experience, and share all the ways of our being in Christ. Where we are blessed not only with discovering those things, but joining with others in seeking them.