Scripture:
Reflection:
Have you ever heard news so wonderful, so completely stupendous, that you couldn’t hold it in? A message so breathtaking that it just had to be shared? That may be the best way to understand today’s first reading. Scholars believe this passage from Ephesians was likely an early church hymn—a joyous song bursting forth in praise and thanksgiving to God for God’s unimaginable blessings.
We can picture the first Christian communities, as they gathered each week, exulting in the opening words of this hymn: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Why this song of unrestrained praise? Because God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens.” Our ancestors in faith knew that in Christ God has blessed us not sparingly or selectively or sporadically, as if God ever so often sprinkled a few blessings on his creatures. No, God has blessed us (and continues to bless us) in every possible way. The good news in this hope-drenched hymn of salvation continues when the early church proclaims that God “chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” Before a single thing ever existed, before time had even begun, God not only envisioned, and delighted in, every single person who would every live, but chose to love us. And because God has forever loved us, God calls us to be holy; to be like God in goodness, mercy, and love.
No wonder those first Christians could not stop singing! Thanks to God’s ever-flowing blessings, we are not defined by our waywardness—all our failures and all our flaws—but by a divine love that insists on making us whole. Lest we doubt it, this amazing hymn, that we’d be foolish not to learn by heart, tells us that we are the adopted children of God, sisters and brothers who together always live in, from, and with God. We will never be forgotten, we will never be forsaken, we will never not be forgiven and redeemed.
We can almost hear those first Christians singing now. Isn’t it time to join them?
Paul J. Wadell is Professor Emeritus of Theology & Religious Studies at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and a member of the Passionist Family of Holy Cross Province.