Sunday after Theophany; The Holy Martyr Tatiana.
Ephesians 4:7-13; Matthew 4:12-17.
Read Ephesians 4:7-13
We are always part of something bigger than ourselves. Our nations experience crisis, institutions have limited effectiveness, and even the earth itself is sometimes inhospitable. The cumulative effect of the big picture being out of our control can weigh upon us as we engage with those things closer to home that are. The epistle reading for today points us to the thing we are part of that is bigger than anything and imbues our daily activities with hope.
God has moved heaven and earth for us, literally. God the Son has descended from heaven, united with humanity, descended further through death, freed those held captive in death, resurrected, and ascended to heaven – divinity forever united with humanity, “everywhere present and filling all things”. To those of us who are yet to go through death and resurrection in unity with him, Christ gives gifts that connect us to this biggest of all things God is doing.
Those gifts are each other, graced by the Holy Spirit, and transcend the seemingly dominant narrative of all the forces out of our control. When other foundations are shaky, built as they are upon the stuff in us that undermines everything, we can participate in being built up and building others up into something eternal: the body of Christ, “the fulness of him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:23).
As we then bring that eternal connection within ourselves to all our temporal engagements, in common cause with others in the big issues of our age and the small matters of our days, opportunities for them to be touched and moved by the Holy Spirit are created. God is still moving heaven and earth, and he is equipping us all to be ministers in doing so.