Text: Ephesians 1 and 2
The confirmation of the Higgs Boson this week was for
me something really big. It goes by the
nickname of “the God Particle” because without it you and I and the whole
creation would not exist. We would have
no mass. It is what makes physical
matter to be physical matter. It’s the
stuff that stuff is made of. Without it
all the other particles are pointless (there’s a joke there that I don’t expect
you to get.) The Higgs Boson Field is
where everything in this universe is gathered together, held together, or has a
basic unity with each other by nature of having mass. You and I and this table are all separate
things. Because of the workings of
different forces in the universe that came about as things began to cool after
the Big Bang we are separate things but in the Higgs Boson Field we have a
basic unity with one another. We have
mass.
When I read Ephesians 1 and 2 (Colossians 1 also) I
can’t help but think of by the resurrection of Jesus God was creating by his
great power a new Field in his universe which I will call the New Creation Life
Field in which God is bringing all things together, gathering all things up in Christ
Jesus so that if we aren’t finding our “being” in union with him by means of
the Holy Spirit to share his relationship with God the Father then it is fair
to say that we are not. We are
dead-spiritually massless. The world of
the old creation dies, but the world of the New Creation is being made alive, made
alive by the power of God at work through Jesus Christ, God the Son himself
entering into the Higgs Boson Field as a human being. This is a very real hope to which we have
been called. God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and of earth in love has God Banged death out of the old
creation by means of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
You are probably thinking I’ve been in the heat too
long, but I’m just trying to get as concrete as I can (and nothing is more
concrete than Physics) about what Paul meant when he prayed in Ephesians
1:17-23 that as we come to know the Father through the Son in the Spirit that
God would give us the ability to know more completely and more personally two
things: one, that we are truly welcome partakers of the spiritual fellowship of
the Trinity in that we are children of the Father by the grace of adoption
through the living relationship with God through Christ Jesus, the only
begotten Son, in the Holy Spirit; and two, that we, whom God from before the
foundation of the universe chose and destined to have a living and life giving
relationship with himself in Jesus Christ, may know (I mean really,
experientially know) the immeasurableness of his power for us in the way he
manifests it, which is resurrection into New Creation life now and in the
future.
Paul says God put this resurrection power to work in
Jesus Christ: “God put this power to work in Christ when he
raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly
places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above
every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to
come. And he has put all things under
his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his
body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:20-23). That’s the God Bang creating the New Creation
Life Field through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.
Paul
then says that God for no other reason than his love for us put this power of
grace to work in us saving us from the power of death that’s at work in this
world and in which we have willingly participated. Paul is
describing our real experience of New Creation resurrection life in Jesus
Christ by the working of the Holy Spirit when he writes: “But God,
who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we
were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace
you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the
heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the
immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through
faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of
works, so that no one may boast. For we
are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Eph. 2:4-10).
This New
Creation Life Field that God brought into existence by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ and by which God is gathering up all things in Christ Jesus, our
resurrected and ascended Lord, has been God’s plan from before the foundation
of the universe. God did not do this to
rectify humanity’s sin. The Fall is not
even mentioned here. From before the
very beginning God has wanted to adopt humanity into his family, his self, and impart
to us the inheritance of a creation that in every way is full of the knowing of
him as the waters cover the sea (Is. 11:9).
The gift of the Holy Spirit who makes us call out to the Father in faith
both from need and in praise is the proof of what I’m talking about here. Just as the Holy Spirit is proof to us that
all this resurrection and New Creation stuff is real, so also we and our
fellowship are the proof to the rest of humanity that this is all going to go
down. We are a new humanity, a new humanity
in which all barriers that we humans build between ourselves are being
demolished by our being gathered together into Christ.
In
closing, we gather around the Lord’s Table to share the meal he gave us. This is more than just some symbolic ritual
that we do. Through this meal we are
really participating in the New Creation Life Field in Christ Jesus. Just like we are all here participating in
the Higgs Boson Field by the essence of just being here, so when we gather
around this table and share this meal we are being gathered up in Christ and
being made alive. Come to this table, to
this meal with all your death and be made alive in him. Let him bear away your sins and grief’s for
he is here to do just that. It’s his
table and grace is the rule. Amen.