Jul. 21, 2024

“Reconciled in Christ”

Ninth Sunday After Pentecost

Seminarian Dylan Meyer

Ephesians 2:11-22

    We live in a divided world. One doesn’t need to look far to see how we, as sinful human beings in a sinful world, love our divisions. Yes, there are a great many things that unite us as well, but we love to focus on the things that divide us and we find ways to live our lives based on those divisions (whether it be based on race, gender, social class, citizenship, etc.). This is a modern-day dilemma, right? Well, actually, we find Paul talking about this same issue in our Epistle text for this week, which shows us that it was a problem during his day as well. Paul writes to the Ephesians, a Christian community that was struggling with division—and their division was mainly between the Jewish people and the Gentile people within their community (an ethnic division). But Paul confronts this issue in his letter—he encourages the Ephesians to not be motivated by division, but to instead remember and be guided by their unity, which is in Christ Jesus! Where there was once division between Jews and Gentiles, Paul writes that the Gentiles have now “been brought near by the blood of Christ” (2:13). Christ unites those who had previously been divided! Christ reconciles by the power of His blood! And so this is why Paul so powerfully emphasizes also to the Ephesians that they “are no longer strangers and aliens” with one another, but that instead they are “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God…” (2:19). We, too, have such unity and reconciliation today because of Christ Jesus and by what He has done for us on the Cross!

Questions:

1.    Who were the Gentiles? And what made them separate from the Jewish people?

2.    What does Paul mean when he says that Christ is our peace “by abolishing the law…”?

3.    What does it mean that we are “reconciled” by Christ?