December 2013 – Pr. Eric’s Letter

Dear fellow citizens,

We have been thinking about our identity as Christians and as the church in terms of the descriptions in I Peter chapter 2 verse 9. The last two months we looked at “a chosen race” and “a royal priesthood” This month we look at “a holy na-tion”.

A nation is made up of people called citizens who belong to a particular place and who have certain privileges and re-sponsibilities one of which is loyalty. The term “holy” means to be “set apart”. It comes from the same Hebrew word as “split”…as in splitting wood. So we Christians are group of people who are citizens of some place that is “set apart”. Philippians 3:20 says that our citizenship is in heaven. Ephesians 2:19 says that we are fellow citizens with the saints. So we are citizens of someplace not in this world which makes sense since Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world. I imagine God with a big ax taking a whack at the earth and this new nation splits off.

Therefore, our loyalty is not to this world and our responsibilities have to do with maintaining and running and contrib-uting to and supporting this other place. But where is this place? It is not a physical place, but a spiritual place. It is the place where there is peace and grace and mercy and justice… a place of reconciliation. It is in part a place in our hearts and the hearts of fellow Christians. It is also a place of mystery, the new heaven and the new earth in the book of Reve-lation. It is not just in the present, but is in the past and in the future.

But, it also includes this weary old world of ours. “For God so loved the world…” and “in Christ God is reconciling the world unto himself” . So, we also care for this world, but not just a part of it… all of it. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says that we are ambassadors for Christ. We represent our spiritual nation in the world by standing loyal to Christ and his mission of reconciliation.

So here we are…citizens in the world and in heaven. Set apart but set back in. Mainly I think being a holy nation means being loyal to Christ.

Pastor Eric