“The Great Ephesian Moment: Oneness In Christ Through The Spirit!”

“The Great Ephesian Moment: Oneness In Christ Through The Spirit!”(Eph. 2:17-22).
“Which country do you come from?” Which tribe do you come from?” Which is your quarter?” “Who is your father?”
When Africans for example find themselves together in Europe for example; and once they have identified themselves as coming from Africa, they gradually bond themselves for having some common continental values. With the passage of time the bonding units reduces in scale as people begin to identify themselves as coming from the same country. It reduces further as people identify themselves as coming from the same region of their country, and further down to villages, quarters and families.
In all these, we bond in the larger group that we are one big family, but units stand out as of primary consideration. Recently we have heard some campaign invectives like “foreigners are taking over our land.” The question may be asked, “Who owns the land?”
Israel demonstrated a kind of arrogant monopoly of YHWH. He was the God, exclusive to Israel alone. Whoever was not the seed of Abraham according to the promise is an outsider and should be treated as such.
Even when Christ came to bridge the great chasm, ethnicity and racism failed and continues to fail to bridge the great divide.
The letter to the mixed ethnic congregation at Ephesus is a clarion call for the efasements of all diversities that distort the unity and oneness found only in the body of Christ.
We are talking of the great Ephesian moment where the circumcised in the flesh and the uncircumcised become one in Christ. We were once sinners alienated from God, “separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”
God in Christ has no favorites. The hostilities that separate us have been reconciled through the cross. To our God peace is a beautiful thing. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ came and “preached peace to you who were far and to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by the one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow-citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
Our prayer should be that the Holy Spirit work in each one of us as we rise to that great Ephesian moment where oneness in the body of Christ dissolves all tribal, ethic, racial and class distinctions so that we recognize and appreciate each other as created in the image of the same God.
Sunday prayer: Holy Spirit work in us and build us together and make us rise to become a holy temple to the Lord, where God lives by his Spirit. Amen!
Have a blessed Sunday! Peace be with you!
Rev Babila Fochang.