Sun Kwak, “The Walls of Grace”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yndU0Qy2g3k

TEXT: Ephesians 2:11-22

[11] Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—[12] remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. [13] But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. [14] For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility [15] by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, [16] and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. [17] And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. [18] For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. [19] So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, [20] built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, [21] in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. [22] In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

SERMON: “The Walls of Grace“

So, my parents are here today. Always have to be careful with childhood stories when they’re in the audience. Well, growing up in the Midwest and in the Twin Cities and without a whole lot of money, our version of feasting was when we went to this place called Old Country Buffet. I think the correlative out here in California is Hometown Buffet. But maybe it’s nostalgia, maybe it’s just relative, maybe it’s my pre-teen taste buds being less developed. But I remember trying Hometown Buffet for the first time and thinking — Old Country Buffet is a whole lot better. Now, I do know that one of the reasons I loved it so much is that there was not only unlimited soft serve, but there was full access to the soda station. Or, I guess we would say pop. You could do root beer floats, you do some kind of Surge (do you remember that drink?) or Mellow Yellow and Coke mixture. Or, you could try to outdo Dr. Pepper and just mix as many things in whatever proportions. But no matter what was mixed with however much proportion, it would always end up looking brown. You couldn’t tell that there was Sprite and Mellow Yellow and Surge in there. You just looked at it and tasted it, and it seemed like Dr. Pepper. The dark colored drinks overpowered and muted any semblances of the lighter drinks. And at the end of it, these mixtures just ended up looking like and tasting like one drink. Now, segue into our text. We read here in our passage that there is a mixing of people in this community of Jew and Gentile. And through what the apostle Paul calls the one man over in verse 15, I think some of us might envision this to be a bit like mixing drinks — like some kind of half Jew, half Gentile just blended into one. But I’m going to argue that this isn’t actually what comprises the one man. It’s not so much that blending these two together makes a new drink with existing ingredients and components. But rather, that it becomes something completely new.

Now, why use one man to describe a multitude of people? This isn’t about assimilation but about something we refer to as corporate headship. The men talked about this quite a bit in our Bible Study yesterday. Because this reference to this one man is actually an intentional means to bring us back to the creation story in the Bible. Where God created all things out of nothing, where he made one man Adam into a living being by breathing life into him. It’s this one manthat’s being created here, even with this assembling of diverse constituents in the church. Which is to say — that whatever is being formed here isn’t the result of mixing together but is the result of God’s creative work. And just as God had breathed life into the dust to for the one man Adam to become a living being, something the apostle Paulstates later in his ministry in 2 Timothy 3:16 is that the Scriptures are God-breathed. And something that the Reformers said of the church is that we are creatura verbi, which is the Latin to say that we are creatures or creationsof the Word. We are created as an assembly into one body because of the creative work of our God through the means of his Word. B. B. Warfield said about the Word of God that it’s not just inspired but expired. And not expired like old food. But expired like exhaled and breathed out and onto. It’s something that we find in John 20:22, when Jesus is said to have breathed onto his disciples, which I always found to be a bit strange upon first glance. But as the apostles would plant churches and as the ministry of the Word would continue to create congregations, there would come these mixtures of people who would be organized into one united entity. And so, early church father Clement of Alexandriawould say of God’s people, especially diverse congregations — that these weren’t Jewish assemblies, these weren’t Gentile communities. But as he notes, this was the third race — something completely different, because it came from an otherworldly source. That our identity in the one man Jesus Christ was so definitively powerful that it served as a greater mark of our identity than any ethnicity, culture, or family name. As Martyn Lloyd-Jones would say of the Christian, it’s not about where you’re from but where you’re going. And that’s the story of the third race. These Jewsand Gentiles, in the first century, might have had different origins, but through the living and active Word of Godexpired onto them, they shared a common final destination. And it shows us something about what it means and looks like to do life together as a diverse community. That the culture of the gospel and the culture of grace is more defining than any other culture we bring into the church.

In C. S. Lewis’ fantasy novel The Great Divorce, you have this picture of travelers on a bus who are making their way from earth to heaven. And as they get closer and closer to heaven, what’s fleshly becomes more and more translucent. And that includes their bodies. And there’s this scene where they come out of the bus and their feet touch blades of grass. And it’s, of course, assumed that when our feet touch grass here in this world, it’s the grass that bends. But as Lewis describes in this fantasy, it’s the feet that bend, as these blades of grass feel like diamonds pressing upon their flesh. Because what’s eternal is of such greater substance than what’s temporary. And this is, in a certain sense, what the apostle Paul is expressing with this one man. And this isn’t to minimize ethnic division, because it’s a very real thing and a serious topic. But there is something so much more compelling and powerful that not only undo but to redeemand renew these divided communities. Because anytime you have a mixture of different masses that come together, it requires adjustments and effort. But without the supernatural breath of God in our midst, without the language of heaven and fluency in gospel talk, our efforts will be in vain. In order for our church to resemble this third race, that living entity described as the one man through our corporate head Jesus Christ, we must be formed and shaped by the living Word of God and the story of the gospel. It must be the story of the gospel that shapes the culture in how we do life together here at this church. So, my prayer is that through his Word, God would put his hands on our church. To press us together, to mold us into one, not by human means or worldly tactics but by the transformative power of the gospel.

When you look at our passage as a whole, one of the repeated words used throughout is the word peace. And for most of us in the Modern West, what peace represents is something that Cornelius Plantinga refers to as an absence of. This is how we understand a peace of mind. This is the absence of tension, the absence of chaos, the absence of disruption, the absence of conflict, the absence of violence. But as Plantinga observes through the Hebrews’ usage of peace, the word Shalom (peace in the Hebrew) wasn’t just about the absence of but equally as importantly, about the fullness of. That this longing for peace is longing for things as they were supposed to be. This is the fullness of life as captured through the flourishing of life. That true biblical peace is the longing for what things will be like in the new heavens and new earth. Along the same line, Martin Luther King Jr. said of peace that it’s not just the absence of tension, but it’s the presence of justice. That there’s a holistic view of peace that we often overlook when fixating just on one aspect of it.

And about this peace that’s repeated in the passage, what the apostle Paul writes in verse 14 — For he (as in Jesus). For he himself is our peace. And what this is telling us is that Jesus takes full responsibility for the peace that’s to be in the community. This is doubly emphatic. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen or heard the interview where Michael Jordan responds to the common saying — There’s no I in team. But he responds to it with conviction by saying — But there is an I in win. Essentially saying, I’ll put the team on my back and take complete ownership of the outcome. And here, when we read of Jesus — he himself. This is full ownership and responsibility that falls upon Jesus. He’s committing to put the team on his back. As he takes this community of hostility, and he puts the emblem of hostility, the cross upon his back and carried it up the hill for us. Because our togetherness, our reconciliation, our peace-filled interactions. All of these things must find their origin in the person of Jesus, who is present in this space and amongst us by his Spirit. This is Jesus himself. And verse 14 continues — For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. And we’re going to be unpacking this wall of hostility more. But that word translated as hostility — εχθρος — is the same Greek word used in the Septuagint, which is the Old Testament translated from Hebrew into Greek. This εχθρος is the same word used in Genesis 3:15 with the word that’s translated in our English Bibles as enmity. And that’s the tension, the hostility that’s experienced between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And this vertical tension is one that Jesus himself is committing to absolve. And it’s from this place of absolution that we find not just peace in our worship but peace in our community. The vertical peace attained through the cross giving power for the horizontal peace among a community of diversity.

And so, it’s into this hostility that Jesus inserts himself. And the particular case study that the apostle Paul uses is this wall of hostility. Commentators note with relative unanimity that this wall of hostility was a reference to an actual wall in the grounds of the temple. And this was to divide the Greeks from the Jews. It was said that shortly after Jesus died and rose, the Jews established and kept full access to the grounds of the temple. But there was a wall set in place in order to keep the Gentiles separate from the Jews. These Gentiles were to be confined to the outer courts. While the Jews would interact with one another in the inner sanctum of the temple, these Gentiles would be cast off and kept at arm’s length. And the thing about walls, especially for the Jews post-exile. The wall was a marker not only of separationbut of protection. The walls were around the city in order to protect what was in the city from threats and dangers that existed outside the city. And in a way, these Jews were expressing to the Gentiles — not just We don’t like you, or We don’t interact with your kind. But even more poignantly, You’re not safe. And there’s probably not many more phrases and sayings that are more hurtful and divisive than to tell someone in your community — You’re not safe. And so, there are these walls put up in order to create visuals for these barriers created and the message of offense from one side to another — There’s something wrong with you. And this kind of stiff-arming was everywhere, not just in the temple. Because this physical wall represented the social walls that were pervasively existent in first centuryPalestine. There were some who said that Jews could not aid in the childbirth of a Gentile baby. That it was better for the baby to die than the Jew get contaminated with Gentile blood and life. And if a Jewish girl were to marry a Gentile man, her family would have a funeral for her, in order to say — She’s dead to us. They deleted her from existence. In today’s day and age, it’s as if her file never existed.

And so, with all of this tension, there was this wall of hostility that was said to be four feet six inches in height — so, right below eye level, at least for some of us. And there was said to be this inscription. And there, the Gentiles would be able to read something written out on their side of the wall. And it was something along the lines of — that if Gentileswere to trespass, they would be doing so at the peril of their own lives. This is the picture that Paul had in mind when describing this tension, this hostility. And it’s into this kind of tension, this hostility that Jesus — that he himself would enter, taking full ownership. Not just to absolve vertical tension but in order to create horizontal peace. And we see this in verse 16, when the apostle Paul writes of how [Jesus] might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And the κατα within the Greek word αποκαταλασσω, which is translated as reconcile. This κατα represents a coming down. And so, it’s the coming down of Jesus and into this tension where reconciliation is had. For what creates peace is when one came down into this world of hostility and enmity. And what would dissolve this wall of hostility is when Gentiles would remember the definitive movement of a Jew who would cross over, not from the outer courts of the Gentiles and into the inner courts of the Jews. But when he would come from the most inner sanctum. Not just in the temple, not just the inner courts, not just from the Holy of Holies, but from the very throne room in heaven. And he would go beyond the wall to be amongst the Gentiles, the sinners, the tax collectors — all at the scorn of his very own people. Not just in the crowds with them but at their tables dining with them. And doing so not just at the peril of his life but at the certain cost of it. And you think about when barriers are crossed. Most cross barriers while keeping their own identity, especially if it ensures their safety, their livelihood, and their benefit. But when the heavenly man came to be amongst fleshly sinners, he didn’t come in wearing his heavenly robe. No, he became a part of the human race. And he wore the flesh of humanity — flesh that would get flogged, spit on, pierced by nails, a body that would get crucified and left to hang. That the place of the cross was the very place of vertical tension absolved. But it would also be the very place where horizontal peace would pour forth from, where communities of peace would flourish, where the third race would come to be, where the wall of hostility would come down and hostility itself would be killed. And while this was to Jesus’ ultimate de-creation and destruction as the wrath of God come pouring upon him, this very act would be the catalytic event that would serve as the new creation of us who observe this story with regularity and with purpose.

As we bring this a close, for those in Ephesus, to be called a temple wasn’t something to glance over. For they were aware of the splendor of a temple. They had one of the wonders of the world with the Temple of Artemis or Diana. So, to be called the temple of God was not just to say that God was among them and within them. But this was to pronounce that from them and their fellowship emanated the beauty of God. And it’s Tom Wright who said that the new heavens and the new earth is the place where we will encounter objective beauty. And from the church, as a new creation entity, we get a little bit of that beauty that emanates within these walls of reconciliation and restoration. Because as a temple, we’re shown the structure. And it’s that (1) Christ is the cornerstone, and (2) the apostles and prophets are the foundation. In the words of John Stott, you can only lay down the foundation once. Anything else you lay down as a foundation is a different structure altogether. And what do we read throughout the Scriptures about the cornerstone? The builders rejected the cornerstone. That the very reference point of our building together is sacrificeand the king laying down his rights. That through this living and active book, the story of the gospel, the ethic of forgiveness makes us the third race, the one man. And that this kind of reconciling power is not just purposeful but it’s captivating and beautiful. And as we do life together as the one man, it’s our commitment to repeatedly proclaim of the vertical tension absolved. That Jesus himself is our peace. Let’s look to Jesus together and do life together through his story of forgiveness writing our chapters here at Christ Our Redeemer.