You were dead through the trespasses and sins in 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.
All 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.
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our 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, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
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.
For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. (Ephesians 2:1-10)
“You were dead!” What a staggering revelation!! Nor does it make much sense!!!
Oh, sure, once in a blue moon you hear of someone who undergoes a so-called “near-death experience” – someone whose heart arrests on the operating table during a risky surgery or in the ambulance on the way to hospital after a horrific accident. But, as if hovering above the fray of code blue, the not-quite-yet dearly departed watches as the medical team somehow manages to restore a beating heart – breathing life back into a stilled body and thus yanking a hapless soul from the jaws of death.
It happens now and then. But ordinarily, “You were dead!” just sounds cooky weird and guano-sack crazy.
The apostle Paul, however, is using the punchy line to describe the pre-Christian life. But even then, what strikes the ear of the listener is actual lived experience: During that B.C., before-Christ time of life’s calendar, when Paul declares you dead, you certainly didn’t look dead or feel deceased. Truth be told, the party was going great!
Steve remembers his time before Christ when people saw him as “the life of the party.” And Cindy remembers the good-ol’ days before she became a Christian when she and her friends would back up a picnic, nudge the bow of the boat into a sandbar, and revel in loving their river time. They surely didn’t feel dead then – in fact, they never felt more alive! So, too, when the Ephesians look back in time, they also see no deadness. They remember nothing but bright, free-flowing good times.
Yet Paul persists: “You were dead.”
The writer Thomas Lynch wears two hats – award-winning author and sole funeral director in Milford, Michigan. Mr. Lynch knows a thing or two about the death and dying, and as he writes, most of what he knows boils down to one simple reality: The dead can’t do much for themselves. To move a corpse from one room to another, you have to do it yourself. Asking a dead body to lend a hand in its transportation is the very exercise of futility. Because the dead, Mr. Lynch observes, don’t listen worth a hoot. You really do have to do everything for them.
Spiritually speaking, that’s Paul’s take on anyone’s life outside of Christ. You were dead. And the dead can’t do anything for themselves. That’s why the Bible offers such incredibly good news: It is by grace and grace alone that you were saved. Your salvation is not of your own doing, because you had absolutely nothing to offer. You knew diddly. Because you were dead. And only grace alone raises the dead. Only grace alone accesses the work of Jesus.
The work of Jesus alone is the only accomplishment in all cosmic history with the power to repair what’s broken between you and God, between me and God, between us and God; everything broken and fearful between friend, neighbor, and stranger. When by grace God totals your debt and gives you credit for that work of Jesus, you become alive again. When you are dead, only grace – only very-much undeserved favor – does something like bring the dead back to life.
You were dead. Zip, zilch, nada. All you could do was receive what God was giving: Grace. You’re only “doing” was receiving.
Even so, Paul ends with note of “good works.”
Apparently, after grace is received, after you rise from your knees in accepting what only God in Christ by the Spirit can give, you’ve got some stuff to do it – not hopping back onto the moral treadmill of trying to please God with what you do, but rather distinguishing the difference between saying “please” and saying “thank you.”
The Christian life, as it turns out, is all about saying “thank you.”
Discipleship, at its core, is demonstrating with grateful action and behavior that you and I understand that our salvation is a gift pure and simple.
Gratitude is a such big deal, of course, because when you realize that you were raised back to life by the grace of God in Christ by the Spirit, then you also realize that the entirety of your body, soul, and spirit needs to be one big, heaping-helping of gratitude; one ginormous, constant way of saying “Thank You!” to the Lord God of Grace and Glory.
Grace and gratitude, good stewardship of time, talent, and treasure: A torrential overflow of “grace-i-tude,” of God’s grace spilling out over the edges of our hearts and minds, enabling us to accomplish everything we do in our sacred and secular communities – in our studies, in our work, in our families, in our careers, and in our churches. What you do, how you live, and what you accomplish – it all matters only because the entirety of your living, moving, and being flows by God’s grace.
Absent grace, and you’re still dead – no matter how busy and alive you appear from the outside looking in. But toss grace into the mix, and you’re alive in ways that mean you’ll never be dead again.
And thus we sing a hymn for Labor Day:
All our work and all our being come from you, most gracious Lord.
Ev’ry task that lies before us is Creator’s will outpoured.
Help us as we build your kingdom, know we labor not in vain;
give us sure and deep conviction for the tasks that you ordain.
Some may nurture those who hunger, tend and heal the broken heart;
set our flagging spirits dancing, spark our vision through their art.
Others teach and offer counsel, bear life’s burdens, ease its care;
strive for justice, peace, and freedom for all people ev’rywhere.
Let us labor in the knowledge that no task can be too small;
that the God who stretched the heavens no less shaped the least of all.
Give us strength, Lord, to accomplish what you set our hands to do,
that by serving those around us, we return the gift to you.
May it be so. Amen, and amen!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on Labor Day weekend – Sunday, September 1, 2024 – at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa. It is adapted from a reflection by Scott Hoezee and includes the thoughts of Thomas Lynch. “A Hymn for Labor Day” is by composer Thurlow Weed and lyricist Michael Morgan.