By Danny Aramouni, a senior molecular biology/biochemistry and Bible and religion major from Manhattan, Kansas
Scripture: Ephesians 2:1-10 (NRSV)
The text for today, and others like it, used to drive me crazy. To some extent, they still do. When the Apostle Paul writes “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast,” a little alarm bell in my head starts ringing.
Do you hear the sirens?
“But wait!” screams a panicked voice over loudspeakers, “You can’t just sit there and ‘be saved!’ You have to work!” The voice and the sirens crescendo to a deafening peak that makes me want to simultaneously run around fixing all of the world’s problems and curl up in a corner in despair.
Maybe some of you can relate. Especially in a culture as productivity-centered as ours, it’s nearly impossible to rest in the knowledge that God envelops us—not by any virtue of our own, but because that is who God is. God, the One Who Is, the Great I AM, created us in God’s image, as be-ings. Our salvation, Paul writes, is in our creation: “For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus…”
When we finish that verse, the siren in my head decrescendos and comes to a gentle, awed stop. Yes, we are saved by grace, and not by our own doing. And, at the same time, we were created in Christ Jesus “for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” God’s grace, in which we can rest and from which we cannot escape even if we try, empowers us to do the good works for which we were created.
Do you hear the angels singing?
Scripture: Ephesians 2:1-10 (NRSV)
You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.
4But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.