"Where Christ Is"--November 5, 2019

"Where Christ Is"—November 5, 2019

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…” [Ephesians 2:6]

This is a lot of discussion about seating arrangements… but that’s a good thing.

Sunday after Sunday, Christians echo the ancient words of the Creed by saying that Jesus is now alive, risen from the dead, and "seated at the right hand of the Father." That's a pretty standard way of talking about Jesus now, after two thousand years.  Earlier in the first chapter of this same book of Ephesians, Paul said that Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father. And now, we hear him say that the Father has seated us with Christ. 

So... all right, Paul, I’ll bite: why should I care where I am seated?

Or maybe to back up just a step, what does it mean to say that we are already seated with Christ “in the heavenly places” if you and I still have our feet planted very much on the earth, and all its messiness, weariness, heartache, and trouble? Come on now, Paul, it sure doesn’t feel like I am in “the heavenly places,” not even on my best days. And the rest of the time, well, on those days, saying I’m already seated with Jesus sounds like a bad joke.

But before I get too short with Paul, maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe in saying that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places, it’s not so much about a location I am currently occupying right now, but rather that there is a place saved for me, for us. That’s not just wishful thinking. It’s not the generic “somewhere” of the song from West Side Story, “There’s a place for us… somewhere a place for us…” which is sung between doomed lovers who don’t really get their wish for very long. It’s real. It’s specific. It’s assured. We are seated where Christ is, and “where Christ is” is home for us.

You know what it’s like to walk into a room and hear a friend say, “Over here—I’ve saved a place for you.” There’s a sense in which it doesn’t really matter where the seats are; it’s just the fact that they thought of you, and that they have now invited you to be wherever they will be. Nobody says, “I’ve saved a place for you…” and then points halfway across the room to a lone empty chair away from them. To be seated with Christ is a way of saying, “Whatever it is you are enduring right now in this life, you can rest assured that Christ himself is saving you a seat with him.” As Jesus says it in John’s Gospel, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

What an amazing thing to hear Jesus himself say, “I don’t want to be seated anywhere else without you, so I’m saving a place for you.” What an amazing love that says to us, no matter how much other people, other voices, let us down or leave us hanging, I have reserved a place for you. I want you to be with me. That’s what Paul is getting at here—even on the days where it feels like there is no one looking out for us, the living God is looking out for us, and has given us a place at Jesus’ side that cannot be taken away.

You will sit down in a lot of places today, I imagine, before the day is over. But as those seats change, know that you have a place set apart for you where Christ is, because he will not be satisfied until you are by his side.

Lord God, let us hear your promise of a place with you, so that we can face whatever places we do go in this day.