The Big Picture

Reflections on Ephesians 1:3-14

There once was a community of fish that lived in a small puddle. The puddle fish spent their days swimming around in circles, resting at night. One day, a strange thing happened. A fish they never saw before splashed into their puddle. The fish had many colors, like a rainbow. The rainbow fish told the puddle fish a strange story about there being more out there than the puddle they were swimming in. There was a river that flowed right by the puddle. And this river hooked up to another, wider river. And if a fish swam down that mighty river, he would end up in a vast ocean. The puddle fish could not believe what the rainbow fish was telling them. The rainbow fish said, “All you have to do is jump out of this puddle and you’ll land in the river.” But the puddle fish were not willing to do that. They knew what they knew. They only knew of the puddle and had never seen or heard of what the rainbow fish was saying. It was too strange. So they all ignored the rainbow fish and continued to swim around in their puddle. Sadly, the rainbow fish sighed and then jumped out of the puddle back into the river and swam off. None of the puddle fish saw him jump out and before the day was done, they had forgotten all about that strange fish and his strange story about rivers and oceans.
What we believe determines our reality. Our reality shapes our identity and our behavior. If we will not accept a reality that is told us, then we can’t live in the reality that we rejected. The puddle fish would not leave their puddle because they rejected the reality being described by the rainbow fish. So they lived happily ever after in their puddle, while the rainbow fish swam to the ocean. The reality of the puddle fish and of the rainbow fish informed their identity and behavior.
The author of Ephesians, either written by Paul or by a student of Paul, is describing a reality. And the reality he describes, the big picture, is one that, if believed, impacts one’s identity and behavior. What is the reality that the author of Ephesians describes?
He says that there is a God who has given us a destiny. It’s not fate, for we don’t have to follow our destiny. But there is a destiny set for us by God. The creator of all that is has a destiny determined for us. And what is our destiny?
It is our destiny to be holy and blameless before Christ in love. To be holy means to be set apart for a special purpose. So, our destiny is to be set apart for a special purpose. We are also destined to be blameless before Christ. This is our destiny, not our present reality. None of us are blameless. All of us are guilty. We all have issues. Yet, our destiny remains…one day we will stand blameless before Christ by the grace of God, who wills this to be so. God loves us so much that He is willing to forgive us of everything. It is grace beyond comprehension. And the longer we live, the greater God’s grace becomes for us.
It is our destiny to be adopted by God as His sons and daughters. We are not merely part of God’s creation. We are His children. This makes us co-heirs with His Son Jesus Christ. This makes Jesus our elder brother. We are chosen to be God’s children, with all the benefits and responsibility that come with it. Jesus Christ is the king, Mary is the Queen mother, and we are princes and princesses. This is our destiny.
We are presently redeemed from bondage to sin and corruption. Our redemption was achieved when Jesus defeated the power of death. And since Jesus was a man, He defeated death for us. We are being forgiven of sin, of our weakness and shortcomings. We are being made right with God through Christ. This is the grace of God, being lavished on us. God is favoring us. God is not leaving us in our mess. God is patiently pointing us in the right direction and encouraging us to get better and be better, to achieve the destiny that God has determined for us.
God has revealed to us a secret. It is the secret of His will. It is something that the people of the Old Testament did not know. The prophets had some hints. They had some insights or feelings of what God was up to. But now, God’s hidden purpose is revealed to us. God’s secret is out.
This is not a secret that we keep to ourselves. We are not to hold tightly to this secret as special knowledge that only certain people are entitled to receive after going through tests to prove their worth. It is an open secret. We share the secret of God’s will openly for all to hear, and for those with ears to hear, they will receive it.
God’s secret, the mystery of God’s will that is revealed to us, is the mystery of salvation. God’s hidden purpose now revealed is that all things visible and invisible will be gathered up in Christ Jesus. Where there is now brokenness, division, and discord; chaos and confusion; all will be made right and put back together. The shattered glass of creation will be pieced back together again. Jesus Christ is the frame that will hold everything together.
Christ has already initiated this gathering up in Himself, for He is the god-man, who has the visible and invisible bound up in Himself. He is visible and invisible. He is comprehensible and incomprehensible. He is timeless and exists in time and space. He is fully human and fully divine. He has always existed and was born of a woman. In Christ, the creator and the created are in perfect harmony. The division between God and creation is healed in Christ, and by God’s grace, we will be healed also, as the division between us and God will eventually dissolve.
The Church is an example, a foretaste or foreshadowing of what will come to pass. The Church is comprised of all nations, all peoples, across centuries. It is not only a global reality, it includes those who have faithfully lived and died. The Church is a body, a physical, visible entity with Jesus Christ as the head.
The Church is a heavenly reality, not a man-made institution. The Church was founded by God, established by Christ, held together by the Holy Spirit, of which the powers of hell can not destroy. People may be a part of the church or outside of the church, but the church will always be because it is the vehicle by which God’s plan of bringing everything into unity in Christ is unfolding. And we are participants of the unfolding of God’s will. When we participate in the life of the Church, we live out our identity as members of the body of Christ. When we see others as brothers and sisters in Christ, or potential brothers and sisters in Christ, then we are participating in the unfolding of God’s will. Holy Communion is a symbol of that unity that we embody as members of the Church, the living, visible body of Christ on earth. In short, we are at the center of God’s plan for the salvation of the world, embodying a global community of unity and love for each other.
We have been marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit. When we said, “Lord, I believe,” the Holy Spirit came upon us. This seal of the Holy Spirit, it is like an invisible mark that God can see. We may all look like puddle fish, but God sees rainbow fish in us. This Holy Spirit that is in us is working on us from the inside, slowly but surely transforming us from puddle fish into rainbow fish.

How does this view of reality impact us? One way is that embracing such a reality compels us to worship and give praise to God for His grace. We didn’t do anything. God made this happen. God gave us this destiny. God has blessed us. It is only right and natural then to give glory to God for what God has done for us, to live a life of praise and gratitude. Anything less is short of where we should be. If we truly embraced the reality that is being laid before us in Ephesians, how could we not help but praise God and be grateful and humbled by the blessing and grace God has lavished on us.
We are also motivated to live a life of grace, of beauty, of love, and to seek unity, to seek to live in harmony, so that we can be a living witness, a reflection of what God is bringing to pass. By our manner of living, each of us can participate and reflect what God’s intentions are for creation. We can choose to extend grace to others. We can choose to create beauty rather than be satisfied with ugliness and mess. We can choose to love rather than turn our backs on others. We can choose to find common ground and build a sense of unity rather than focus on what divides and separates, building walls that keep people apart. We can choose to go with the flow in our lives, to not resist but bend with what is happening, to not force our will but harmonize with our surroundings, to constantly be in tune with what is happening and seek ways to make things better, to surf the wave rather than try to stop waves from coming.
This is what we seek to manifest in our lives, a life of order, harmony and beauty that reflects who we understand God to be about. God brought order out of chaos. God is an abundant creator, diverse and extravagant in His creation. Why can’t we try to bring about order in a chaotic world? Why can’t we try to highlight the beauty of what God has made?
We don’t confine our lives to the mess, disorder, division, and turmoil around us. We know there is more than our little puddle. There is a river and a vast ocean. Our vision is much higher than our present situation. We live in a puddle but our eyes are on the river that leads to the ocean. And what we see, we begin to realize. We can try to manifest what we keep our eyes on. We can live as rainbow fish while we are swimming in the puddle, until our time comes to jump out of the puddle and swim down the river to the ocean. We can manifest a divine discontent with how things are because we know that the way things are is not the way things are destined to be. We know that our puddle, one day, will merge with the river.
We manifest a different spirit, a spirit of life and not death, of joy and not indifference, of peace and not mean-spiritedness, a spirit that is influenced by the Holy Spirit that animates us, motivates and enables us to be who we are destined to be, destined to be bearers of God’s glory, destined to stand before the glory of God in complete unity with God.
This is our destiny. It is a destiny that is beyond belief. It is a destiny that is greater than our ability to fully comprehend. It is the destiny that God has granted to us. But destiny is not fate. Destiny can be denied. The author of Ephesians, the Scriptures and the teaching of the church through the ages describes for us our destiny…your destiny. Will you follow your destiny and keep your eyes on your destiny? Will you chase after your destiny? Or will you deny your destiny and choose your own path or let others choose your path for you? The choice is yours.