Ephesians Devotionals
Bob Morris
From Exclusion to Embrace (Ephesians 2:13)
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
It begins and ends with Christ. The widest cultural and religious chasm known to man has been bridged by the death of Jesus.
Many of us who have worked overseas have experienced the challenge of getting along with colleagues from other countries. Not many of us had problems relating to people from the host country, but relating to other nationalities is one of the greatest aggravations of mission, and one of the major causes of attrition among cross-cultural Christian workers. But that is really nothing compared to the ethnic conflicts throughout history that are further aggravated by land ownership disputes.
In the context of globalization, where corporations become more determinative in world events than nation states do, we see the counter-offensive of “ethnicization”. The fight for identity in the context of a faceless corporate world takeover leads to terrible ethnic conflict and even genocide. Most of these conflicts are characterized by the question, “Who rightfully owns this land?”
Of all the ethnically based conflicts, probably the longest running and most intractable conflict is that between Jew and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian. Certainly it is the most deeply ingrained. It festers in a corrosive mix of racial similarity, physical proximity, intertwined history, and competing land claims, all exacerbated by competing religious sanctions. That conflict in turn has become the precursor of terrorism and the countering “war on extremism”.
Long before Paul wrote Ephesians, the stage for this conflict was born in the births of Isaac and Ishmael. Paul was not naïve or unaware of what had been happening for centuries before he was born. Yet 2000 years ago he had the temerity to declare that the chasm separating Jew and Gentile had been bridged. Gentiles have not only been brought near to Jews, but also to Christ and to the promises that are fulfilled in him, to hope, and to God himself. This is an example of the mystery of his will (1:9-10) which is to bring to unity all things in heaven and earth under Christ. We have yet to see the visible outworking of Jew-Gentile unity on a world-wide scale, but the stage has been set for that possibility.
In the meantime, there are small congregations of Jews, Arabs and Christians who worship in the name of Jesus each week in Israel and Palestine. They are signs of the Kingdom of Christ, and the evidence of the times approaching their fulfillment (1:10). Even more, those of us Gentiles who have recognized the Jewish Messiah as our Lord Christ can share in the wonderful spiritual inheritance of the Jews and in the worldwide fellowship of those who have been brought near to each other and to God.
Loving heavenly Father, thank you for the sense of belonging I have because you welcomed me into your family through what Jesus did. Help me, I pray, to make others to feel that they belong in our church and in our family.
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