Those of you who have visited here regularly, or who know me otherwise, know that I have a really passion for the Christian scriptures.
Maybe, not for reasons that some may think.
It’s not because the Scriptures themselves tell me to love them and meditate on them day and night.
It’s certainly not because I think that all of the answers to life’s questions can be found in them. (Spoiler alert: They can’t.
It’s because they hold so much stuff in them!
And, it’s fun to search them and mine for nuggets that I can take and put in my pocket.
Like today in our Bible study at St. Barnabas.
One of the lections for today was from the book of Daniel. It was from one of the visions recorded that Daniel experienced.
There were beasts and talking horns and a great throne with a white haired Guy sitting on it. There were flaming wheels and a molten river flowing from it.
There were at least a bazillion angelic attendants around the throne.
It was all quite a scene. Something from the mind of Spielberg, maybe.
We discussed how the genre of this passage is something called Apocalypse. It was a genre used to help people who were oppressed or otherwise persecuted get a glimpse behind the curtain in order to see that God was still with them and working on their behalf. It had nothing to do with actual beasts or kingdoms or some kind of obscure prophecy that simple minds like Hal Lindsey and John Hagee could come along and exploit for their own profit.
And, it was great fun to discuss this with folks.
One of my favorite things about reading the Scriptures, though, is when the writers agree with me.
Yep! That’s pretty cool.
Today I learned that the apostle Paul agrees with me on some things.
In fact, I think that if Paul was alive today, we would agree on a lot.
After all, he was a pretty smart guy.
In today’s New Testament lection, we read from Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus.
He wrote about inheritances and calling and riches in glory. Good stuff!
But, what struck me was the last part of today’s passage.
Paul wrote about Jesus,
“And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
And gave Him as Head over all things to the Church,
Which is His body, the fullness of Him
Who fills all in all.”
If you read that carefully, you’ll notice that Paul seems to imply that the Church, or the Body, is somehow the fullness of Christ.
Christ appears to need the Church in order to be complete.
Now, I know that there are folks who are gonna stop and say,
“Whoa! Christ IS complete in Himself! He is Deity in human form.
He has NO NEED for anything else to complete him!”
Ok. I can get behind that.
But, what then is Paul talking about?
I’m glad that you asked that question. Because it gets right to the point where Paul agrees with me.
A Head with no body is, in fact, incomplete. A head can be a cool thing. But, actions like walking and touching and eating and such are pretty difficult without legs and hands and a stomach.
Let me paraphrase what one person said,
Christ’s love for the Church is so great that He can’t envision Himself as being complete without it somehow connected to Him, even as His own body.
We are needed and necessary to the plan of God’s redemption of the Cosmos. As I wrote before, we are co-workers with God as God establishes God’s reign on the Earth and in the Cosmos. We are not passive observers, fully fledged fellow laborers with Christ in the Garden of Christ’s redemption.
So, cudos to Paul for getting this right!
I always knew that he had it in him!