Ephesians 1: 3-14 Starring Jesus
Sometimes when a story is really a hit it gets a sequel. And sometimes, usually if a story is exceptionally good as well as it’s sequel, it gets a prequel. Some say neither a sequel or a prequel could ever be as good as the main story and I am inclined to agree with that but I also must state that I love prequel’s. When a story is told well, it cannot be cluttered with too many details. It will bore the reader or the viewer. But once a life story has really touched your heart it kindles in you an interest to go back to the back story, the story of origins so that you can understand a character even better. A prequel tells that back-story. It’s like you develop an appetite for the history of certain stories and a back story gains relevance if a story touched your heart. Star Wars and Silence of the Lambs comes to mind as stories with great prequels.
At Christmas time we usually reflect on the standard accounts of Jesus’s birth in Matthew, Luke and Mark. We shouldn’t think of these stories as the prequels of Jesus’s life. They are part of the main story of his life on earth. They make one respect and fall in love with the character of Jesus. But the Bible also lets us in on an amazing prequel. It is found in the gospel John and Ephesians. It tells us about Jesus existing before time. About Him being Creator, not a created being even though his human form was conceived in a human womb. To know this about Jesus makes Him loom large over human history in our eyes. It increases our understanding and sense of awe about Him. He really is the One it is all about.
Maybe the first people to really grasp this were the magi. In ways we will probably never know for sure they traced an event in nature with stars to the event of Jesus’s birth. They had understanding that there is an intimate bond between Jesus and the cosmos, between Jesus and the stars. Now, you all now that recently Jupiter and Saturn aligned, making it look like one big special star. One couldn’t see it well from Vancouver as it was quite cloudy, but I have seen pictures of it from South Africa and I can understand why people speculate that this phenomena was probably the Bethlehem star. It could be, I don’t know.
But stars are a very good metaphor to hang the meaning of Christ’s pre-existence on. So, let us play a bit with this metaphor to let what John and Ephesians say sink in…
Jesus is a Starchitect
Architects are people that design buildings. All kinds of buildings. There are many architects around the world but some, the very best, gets to design unique and unusual structures like the Sydney Opera house. They are referred to as starchitects. They shift the realm of what is possible into new dimensions. Their designs are borrowed from and build upon. The redefine their field.
Jesus is described as a starchitect. The designer behind all designs. The one through which God created everything. It’s interesting how we always think of Jesus in terms of being powerful and mighty, the way he is indeed described in a book like Revelation. But do we also think of Him as being very creative? As being able to create things and bring things about we might not even imagine? Isn’t it a great comfort to know that we serve a God not only of power and might but also of beauty, creativity and one that inspire awe in people? We do!
Ephesians says this starchitect is not only the designer of creation but also of your own life and salvation. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Your journey and destination has design and beauty in it. Sometimes it is easy to see and appreciate it and other times it is extremely hard to feel that optimistic about your life. At such times it is ever so important to remind ourselves of the starchitect that brought us into existence. Boy, what we will be able to do together if we can look at ourselves and others in this way!
We know that stars die. What does a dying star end up as? It ends up as pottery. That’s right. There is not a single atom in your body that doesn’t come from the stardust of a star that died. You are quite literally stardust formed into divine pottery with a living soul. It should humble you but also make you respect yourself and your fellow man.
Jesus is a Stargazer that steers us on a StarQuest
Ephesians is one of the first letters that Paul circulated. It was written to a church still fragile in their new identity. With his opening words he wanted to inspire a sense of purpose and mission among people who dared to venture out on this new journey and was beginning to discover what it means to be a follower of Jesus and part of his church. Paul often uses the language of adventure and quest.
The Star trek movies are very popular. We relate to people being to a quest bigger than themselves because as God’s children we are called to be on a mission so much bigger than ourselves. The captain of a ship used to be called a star gazer because he directed the direction of the ship, often unseen and unbeknownst to the others on the ship by gazing at the stars to determine the direction. God calls us to look beyond ourselves. He invites us into a better and bigger mission. He steers the world much more through people of faith, stargazers than he does it through they powerful and popular. I don’t think the first readers of Ephesians could even imagine that who they are and what they did would still speak to people in 2020. I think what God is doing through people who believe in Him during this time is beyond our imagination. Being part of his church is like being on a star ship with a special mission. We sometimes get off course a little but in Jesus we have a polestar, which is the brightest star getting us back on track.
If your whole life lies wasted this morning, thank God for this; that He remains to you the brightest star. That in Him, you still have hope.
Jesus is a Stargate and a Starfire
A stargate is a wormhole. It is the gate that takes you to other dimensions. It links one dimension with another. That was what happened at Christmas time. Jesus became a stargate to the heavenly dimensions. Shepherds found God in their reality. Wise men looked up at the stars for guidance and changed their ways back because of it. Every person that encountered Jesus were transported into the Kingdom of God. The Greek Orthodox tradition says it well. They say that at Christmas God weaved Godly history and human history together in one good fated history.
Who enter through stargate Jesus moves from the dimension of self interest to the dimension of awe and worship and sacrifice.
But this experience is not always pleasant. Upon it, Peter asked Jesus to depart from him as he got so convinced of his own utter unworthiness. Paul got blinded and had to stay put for three years before he could recover from the account. This is but two examples. Which brings me to the fact that Jesus is also filled with fire. Starfire, the most potent kind of fire we know off. In Luke 12: 49 He expresses his longing to start a fire on earth. In the book of Revelation his eyes are described as being eyes of fire no less than 4 times.
Fire destroys. Utilized right it can get rid of what is undesirable and does not belong. Fire can cleanse and purify. That is one of the reasons we cook our food. Jesus confronts what does not belong on earth and among us. Unbridled greed, environmental destruction, child abuse, He is also met with opposition as are the people that stand for the things that are precious to Him. But his fire is only to fear for those rejecting Him. For those that belong to Him it is a fire that makes space for the good to grow in ourselves and in our world. A fire that cleanses and protects us.
In a song of Michael English that Dave will sing for us this morning, Jesus is depicted as the Daystar of hope. In it he sings about Jesus eyes that shines with fire. But it is the fire of compassion, not rage and retaliation.
Slot
Most of you know the Hebrew expression: Mazel Tov! We say it when we want to congratulate people. It means something like; “Good Luck!” or even “Happy New Year!” Literally translated though, it means: “May the star constellations align well for you”.
Well isn’t it wonderful to think that we can enter a new year knowing that the stars has already aligned for us in the best way possible. In such a way that it let the magi and later the disciples and later the early church and eventually us to Jesus, the Creator of all the stars and also of our destiny?
May your life in 2021 align with the Morning star, the Polestar, the Stargazer and his Star Fire which is Jesus.
Jupiter and Saturn came close enough to look like a single big giant star. Jesus came close enough to us to understand us and to save us.
In that there is more hope than in even the most effective vaccine.
Amen