By J.D. Walt

Prayer of Consecration

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body as a holy and living sacrifice to you.

Jesus, We belong to you.

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Scripture

I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew. Don’t you know what Scripture says in the passage about Elijah—how he appealed to God against Israel: “Lord, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars; I am the only one left, and they are trying to kill me”? And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

What then? What the people of Israel sought so earnestly they did not obtain. The elect among them did, but the others were hardened, as it is written:

“God gave them a spirit of stupor,
    eyes that could not see
    and ears that could not hear,
to this very day.”

And David says:

“May their table become a snare and a trap,
    a stumbling block and a retribution for them.
May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see,
    and their backs be bent forever.”

Romans 11:1–10 (NIV)

 

Consider This

Growing up I always thought of Jesus as a Christian. I think I thought this so much I didn’t even recognize he was a Jew. In fact, I thought of Christianity as a completely new thing. It just felt to me like Jesus and grace were a massive left turn from the Old Testament. Christianity was the new thing. After all, the story is in the “New Testament,” right?

 And Paul—why do we always speak in terms of Paul’s (or Saul’s) conversion?  Shouldn’t we be talking about Paul’s completion? Because of this “conversion” language, I always thought of Paul’s blinded-by-the-light Damascus Road experience as another left turn; as some kind of super exceptional moment. This was the plan for Paul from the beginning before one day of his life came to be—that he would become a Jew in the way of Jesus and the gospel of the fullness of the fulfillment of God.

 On the Damascus Road Paul reached the natural conclusion of his life as a Jew. This is the intended way for all Jews and all Gentiles. (I suppose I could understand a Gentile conversion much more, but a Jewish conversion really doesn’t make sense. This is the path for all human beings made in the image of God—which is all human beings.)

 So why do we call it Paul’s conversion? Does the Bible call it this? Or is that just the uninspired headings? When we call it a conversion we imply that Paul was on the wrong path. And Paul had indeed taken a wrong turn but he was on the ancient path of the people of God. Paul, as a Jew, was on his way to becoming what a Jew most truly was meant to be—on the path of what the earliest followers of Jesus called, “The Way.” And “The Way” had always been “The Way.” After all, Abraham is the father of “The Way” isn’t he? Nothing new here, right? The ancient way was totally fulfilled but not new.

 I think I am only beginning to see it differently now. Jesus was not new. How can the second person of the Trinity be new? Jesus was from before the beginning. Far from plan B or a last-ditch effort, he was always the plan. He would be the fulfillment of the pre-ancient plan of God to redeem the world he created. The long and winding road was always the plan.

 Jesus is the path for the whole human race. This is what Paul is up to in today’s text, particularly in this section on the future and destiny of the Jews. He is showing us how “The Way” threaded the whole story from beginning to end. It was always there.

 Here’s a sneak preview of how the chapter and section will end:

 For from him and through him and for him are all things.
    To him be the glory forever! Amen.

   

Prayer

Abba Father! How we thank you for Jesus, who was and is and is to come; the image of the invisible God and the firstborn over all creation. Thank you that he is the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. I confess I have often seen Jesus as a divine plot device. Thank you for opening my eyes to begin to fathom that he is the whole story. For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Praying in Jesus’s name, amen.