‘Science can write the footnote to the poem’ C.S. Lewis said ‘but Christianity is the poem itself’. The 100,000 genes known to make up human beings are a ‘footnote’ to a greater ‘poem’ or story of the One who contains all knowledge and of his love for humanity.
Today our Sunday Lectionary turns to the Ephesians which will provide the second reading at Mass for the next six weeks. This cycle of readings begins with part of the glorious first Chapter.
I say ‘glorious’ because there can be few passages in Scripture that convey in so few phrases so wondrous a message: a message about God, about the Church, about the future of creation and – most importantly – about the status and dignity of humankind granted in Christ.
In Jesus Christ, we are told – read it again in your service sheet – God has granted us all ‘the spiritual blessings of heaven… [choosing] us to be holy and spotless… to live through love in his presence [as] adopted children… [to receive] freedom, the forgiveness of our sins [and be] stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit… the pledge of our inheritance’.
We are God’s children – God has seen to that – and we must not forget what God has made us.
The writer to the Ephesians thrills with the dignity he sees Christ granting a believer. Scholars suggest today’s passage, traditionally attributed to St Paul, is actually a baptismal hymn slotted in at the beginning of the letter. The give away is the reference to ‘the seal of the Holy Spirit’.
This glorious section of the Bible celebrates the dignity we bear through our baptism into what Christ has done for us. It announces the Good News, the whole Gospel of God and defines it for individuals and for the Church and the cosmos stating God’s purpose to ‘bring everything together under Christ, as head,everything in the heavens and everything on earth’.
It’s wonderful stuff – Ephesians 1:3-14! When it was written almost 2000 years ago Jesus Christ had just lived, died and been raised. The Good News of what God has in store for human beings stated here was always in the heart and mind of God. One April morning it burst upon the world!
What God knew already becomes our knowledge as we put faith in Our Lord’s resurrection – ‘the spiritual blessings of heaven… [being chosen] to be holy and spotless… to live through love in his presence [as] adopted children… [to receive] freedom, the forgiveness of our sins [and be] stamped with the seal of the Holy Spirit… the pledge of our inheritance’.
Science continually uncovers something of the awesome nature of the universe and indeed our own nature as human beings as with the revealing of the human genome (jean-own).
Christianity rejoices at a knowledge that was revealed at the start of the Christian era and which thrills through the New Testament – it concerns truth and grace – what grace! – the grace of a God who stoops down to our level to become heart to heart with us.
‘Science can write the footnote to the poem’ C.S. Lewis said ‘but Christianity is the poem itself’.
To note the 100,000 genes known to make up human beings is a ‘footnote’ to a greater ‘poem’ or story of the One who contains all knowledge and of his love for our rebel race:
We read these words in Psalm 139 verses 14 to 18:
‘You knew my soul and my bones were not hidden from you: when I was formed in secret and woven in the depths of the earth… how deep are your thoughts to me O God: and how great is the sum of them! Were I to count them they are more in number than the sand’
What must he be like who made us and knows us through and through as the work of his hands?
What must he be like who made all things? The all-knowing, all-powerful Lord? Yet the One who knows us and loves us through and through?
What must he be like? Do you ever think of that? We should think about it a lot for we are destined to be with him forever and we need to be prepared.
Scripture says ‘by his word we were made’ – so we are like his thoughts, expressed outwardly.
More poetically, if he is the singer, we are the song. Imagine yourselves as a song created by God – and could you, as a song, imagine the one who sings you?
Such is the difference between God and humans – and yet there is an affinity, a sameness in Jesus.
‘The love I have for you, my Lord, is only a shadow of your love for me’ wrote Carey Landry.
‘My own belief in you, my Lord, is only a shadow of your faith in me.
The dream I have today, my Lord, is only a shadow of your dreams for me.
The joy I feel today, my Lord, is only a shadow of your joys for me; when we meet face to face’.
My mind cannot contain that of the Lord – my heart, though can touch and be touched by his Spirit because of Jesus Christ who bridges God and Man. This is why we need to own our adoption as his children… ‘redemption…forgiveness…grace…lavished on us…the seal of the Holy Spirit.
Who can know God – for God is so different to us – but by his gift.
We are gathered to celebrate the Eucharist. Our Scripture passage is an early ‘eucharistic prayer’ in that it gives thanks for our salvation. Into our eucharistic prayer week by week we weave our own personal thanksgiving for our life and health and strength, for our families and communities and the work of God in Hanover village into the Church’s prayer of thanksgiving.
‘Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ’. Into that rich tapestry we call the ‘Eucharistic Prayer’ or prayer of thanksgiving let us weave our thanks for the awesome design we now know we bear with its 100,000 components! God knows every one of those genes – and he knows more – he knows our hearts and – more than that even – quite without reason or beyond reason or science – he loves what he knows.
God knows us through and through and he loves us through and through – and no scientist will tell me that but Jesus Christ alone – to whom be glory in this Mass, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
