Lutheran Church of the Resurrection

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For the last five Sundays, our Epistle readings have taken us on a tour through St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Some of Paul's letter address particular problems or troubles that a church has gotten into and Paul gives them instructions on how to set things right again. But that's not the case with this epistle. Ephesians is a very positive letter in which Paul lays out the case for the grace and the wisdom and the love of God for His people, and the high and lofty goals that He has in store for them.

So now as we come to the conclusion of this letter, what we expect to hear from Paul say is, "and they all lived happily ever after. Amen."

But no, Paul concludes with a stern warning that although God's work of uniting all things in heaven and on earth to Himself in Christ is 'finished,' there is still fierce opposition to God and His people at work in the world. There is an anti-god in the world. Even though he has been decapitated by Christ, he still runs around making a mess of things, and will continue to do so until he is finally locked up in hell and we are locked up in heaven. (more…)

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The Order of Holy Matrimony in our new hymnal begins with these words of introduction. "In marriage we see a picture of the communion between Christ and His bride, the Church." That sentence captures well what Paul says about marriage here in Ephesians 5.

But let's get one thing straight before we begin. We are not saying that you should look to your marriage and from it form your idea of what the communion of Christ and His bride, the Church is like. That's looking at things through the wrong end of the binoculars. Using our sinful and flawed human experience as the lens through which we try to understand what God is like is exactly the flawed approach of those who say that same-sex marriage and homosexuality is God's will. They are calling the human example the real thing and forcing the Holy Spirit to agree with them, even forcing the Holy Spirit to contradict His own Word. (more…)