The first sentence of the reading reminded me of an old hymn
that begins, "There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s
veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains…"
by William Cowper who was also an important poet in 18th century
England. The story of the hymn is
interesting to say the least and can be found here. In that day when the fountain is opened says
Zechariah, prophecy will cease, there will be no need of it in the traditional sense
because the deliverance will be complete and final. The final piece of this particular vision
comes when God Himself wields the sword against His shepherd but from this action
of judgment God will redeem a people who will be His own, a remnant of the whole. The people thought they had executed their
own judgment and God's against Jesus whom they considered a false Messiah. Those who saw Him gloriously resurrected knew
that it was God's judgment not against His Son but against sin and in that fountain
of Jesus' blood and righteousness, we sinners lose all our guilty stains.
This parable really haunts me. We have been given so much in the United
States as far as the Gospel is concerned for over two hundred years and what
have we done with it. Too often we have done
nothing at all with it, we have lived in fear rather than faith. We have squandered our gift of freedom, we
have owned more Bibles than any group of people in history and yet we have not
read them, learned them, or practiced the teaching of Jesus. We have allowed pop theology and psychology
to guide us and we have allowed the gospel of health, wealth and prosperity to
lead millions astray from the true Gospel.
We have failed to win the hearts and minds of the culture because we
have failed to follow Jesus and make disciples.
We have sold a lie of easy-believism and that because someone once made
a profession of Jesus they are Christians and have eternal security without
discipleship or accountability or amendment of life. We have dispensed the cheap grace Dietrich
Bonhoeffer warned against and we need to fall on our faces and repent of that
failure. Then we need to get up and get
at it.
Paul's point to the Ephesians is simple, everything, all
your hope, your salvation, everything, comes from Him. He gives thanks that they believe and prays
that God "may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the
knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know
what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his
glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of
his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might…" Paul, as well as any man who ever lived, knew
that the knowledge of the things of God, the things we too often take for
granted when we say the Creed for instance, are not common knowledge, they are priceless
treasures, a revelation from God, without whose opening of our eyes we will
never know. It is Paul's aim to move
them from the knowledge of these things in a simply intellectual way to the
worship of God for these very things. What
we take for granted is the most amazing truth in the universe.
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