The first reading today is taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. Ephesians is a letter about the church – not necessarily just the congregation in the city of Ephesus but rather with the worldwide church. While in other letters Paul describes the church as the Body of Christ, here Christ is referred to as the head of the Church (Eph 4:15), directing the church as the instrument for making God’s plan of salvation known throughout the universe (Eph 3:9-10). Yet this ecclesiology is anchored in God’s saving love, shown in Jesus Christ (Eph 2:4-10), and the whole of redemption is rooted in the plan and accomplishment of the triune God (Eph 1:3-14). In its own way, Ephesians might as well have opened with the words “in the beginning” to describe the new age of the Church.
But unlike the creation story in Genesis, our story begins in the midst of the “age of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient.” (Eph 2:2). That description might strike you as odd, but it is a reference that would have been understood by the listeners of the age. The literal Greek describes the believer’s journey as “walking” in a time when there is something “in the air” that which people breathe – a word quite different from our understanding of sky or atmosphere. The manner in which Paul uses the word personifies “air” adding to the expression, ruler of the power of the air.” Paul paints a vivid picture: the Church is being born into a time when there is “something in the air” and its intent is of evil.
In the beginning, at Creation, Adam and Eve were born alive and in full communion with the Lord. Paul says things are different. In the beginning we are born “dead in your transgressions and sins” in a world the “ruler of the power of the air” – by which Paul refers to the demonic. It is his way of indicating the realm which, according to Eph. 6:12, is the abode of those principalities and powers, “world-rulers of this darkness” and “spiritual forces of wickedness” against which the people of Christ wage war. In other words, we are born dead into a battle zone…But
Believers have been given life – interestingly, not new life, but life by the justifying grace of God. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God.” (v.8)
With the gift of life – what will you do? Will your gratitude to the Lord pour out from you into the world? Will you add your story, your witness so that there is something of goodness, of holiness in the air? Yes, your story/witness will be mixed with siren’s call of the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient.
But it just may be that your story is the catalyst “in the beginning” of another’s walking in the age of this world. Because in your story the gift of God will save another through God’s grace. You just have to breathe your story into the air of this age.
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