April 21, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Find out what pleases the Lord. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the Church; His body of which He is the Savior. Now as the Church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” (Ephesians 5.10; 22, 23,24)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

So why should the Church submit to Christ? Certainly, it is not as simplistic as “Because He said so.” Such trust and obedience happens only for two reasons, as I see it: fear of reprisal (eternal death) or abiding trust (realized, authentic love.) Look again back to the Garden of Eden and the Eve-Serpent Encounter. What did Eve, and Adam for that matter, know of death? It was both a threat and a promise which would come into their realized understanding only by experience. God said that “death” would come if they acted in disobedience to the one “You will not” in the promised land of Eden. It wasn’t described in any detail. They may have assumed its meaning as we learn many words ourselves- by their opposite or by what they are not. Throughout the Garden of Eden was life. From the sun, moon, stars in the heavens above to the fish and leviathans in the sea below to plants and animals in fruitful array on the land between the waters and the birds of the air from sparrows to raptors: all things lived. Whatever death was had to be the absence of such living. Would it be absent because they ceased to exist or because those who were observing them on earth ceased to exist? I suppose it was a matter of perspective to be sure. Regardless, no one and nothing in the Garden, or we consider it by assumption, knew death or died. But, if God said that “death” existed or would exist, then there had to be truth to His Word. If there was truth to His Word about death, then what He said about everything else was equally true.

So, let’s reflect upon the “other” reason to submit? We, as the Church, submit to Christ because we have an abiding trust which has developed over time. Even believing may happen in the twinkling of an eye but trust is a different matter. Our first profession of faith which is usually accompanied by baptism is filled with enthusiasm and promise to be good and do good. In many ways it resembled the yearly resolutions made with the changing of the calendar year: out with the old and in with the new. And exactly how long are those resolutions maintained? Days. Weeks. Months. Sometimes, they are kept until the intention is practiced and becomes a part of our normal everyday routine. Mostly, we know that they are rarely maintained and then ingrained. So, it seems to be with those professions of faith made by those who are experiencing the joy of Christ without fully understanding the joy of their salvation. Untried and untested, such professions are spurred by emotional responses and the carrying on of what is expected by family and peer pressure. It is the “expected” thing to do. It is traditional and “necessary.” But, without true grounding and a support system that encourages and reinforces the decision to become a follower of Christ and to no longer be a follower of the Serpent (as if anyone actually thinks about sin in that way in those moments), the journey becomes more a burden than a freedom. It takes time to develop that sense of true discipleship and falling deeper and deeper into the awareness of what is “our joy of salvation.” The more aware we are, the more we trust in God in more and more situations of our lives. The more we trust in God in some situations becomes a fervent belief that in all situations God can be trusted; so, too, can we be trusted.

With that trust and belief in God, submission of the Church to Christ becomes foundational and functional. So, who is, as representatives of the Church, submitting to Christ? It would seem that it is the more mature members regardless of any designation relating to position or ministry would be “that Church.” We may call them elders, pastors, evangelists, guides, mentors, teachers and parents. What it calls us to is that sense of maturation which then is passed on generationally as a legacy of faith, hope and love. It is learned by practiced, experienced in failure and prospered in pressing forward. God never fails even when we fall short. And so the “ages” begin to tell us of the reason for the Church to be submissive. My attention is drawn to the Ten Commandments of which one states specifically the promised result. It goes like this “Honor your father and mother all your days and it will go well with you in the days to come.” Sad that God had to tell us our righteousness would grow out of this and we would come to abide in it as we sought to live it out daily. Hard to do for many in this world at this time since fathers, more so, and mothers, sadly so, are less apparent and less “a parent” in the lives of children. We are covered over with abandoned, abused, neglected, rejected and unwanted children. How can they honor absentee fathers and mothers? If they do not know these then how can they know better days ahead? So, it is clear that Paul speaks of the Church first in its role of being submissive just as he spoke of wives being submissive to their husbands. What is in common between the two is who we are ultimately submissive to: Jesus the Christ.

So, let our question be introspective today. How are we learning from the Church to be submissive to Christ? Is that relationship the first in our thinking, first on our heart, first with our spirit? Do we evaluate the plans for our daily lives with the rubric of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Are we aligned in that right relationship so much that we find ourselves trained and engrained in discipleship? This is our challenge, mighty ones of God. Let us rise up to meet it!

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit so that others may be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.