Lenten Reflection – Day 16 of the Great Lent
But God… – Ephesians 2:4–18
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved.” (2:4–5)
Sixteen days. More than two weeks of fasting, praying, examining, confessing, and struggling. We have covered a lot of ground. Temptation. Forgiveness. The narrow gate. The war inside. Enemy love. Healing. Drawing near to God. Hidden growth. Prayer. Stewardship. The great exchange. Authority over the demonic. The paralytic carried through the roof. Levi called at the tax booth. New wine in new wineskins.
Through all of it, the emphasis has fallen heavily on what we must do. Fast. Pray. Repent. Give. Forgive. Choose. Carry. Stretch. Act.
Today Paul says something the Great Lent desperately needs to hear.
But God.
Two words that change everything. Two words that interrupt the human story of failure and futility with the divine story of mercy and initiative. Two words that shift the weight from our shoulders to the shoulders that can actually bear it.
Dead in Trespasses (vv. 1–3)
Paul begins in the dark. Before he says “but God,” he describes the condition that made “but God” necessary.
The verses just before today’s reading (2:1–3) set the stage. “You were dead in trespasses and sins.” Not sick. Not struggling. Not underperforming. Dead. The word Paul uses is nekrous. Corpses. Spiritually lifeless. Walking around, eating, working, laughing, but dead toward God. Unable to respond to Him. Unable to reach Him. Unable to help ourselves.
Paul is not being dramatic. He is being precise. A dead person cannot heal himself. A dead person cannot decide to become alive. A dead person cannot exercise enough willpower to restart his own heart. If the dead are going to live, someone else must act. Someone alive must intervene from outside.
This is the honest diagnosis that the Great Lent eventually forces us to face. We started the fast with energy and resolve. We were going to pray more, sin less, love better. And sixteen days in, the honest assessment for most of us is: I am not much different. The sins I confessed are still here. The passions I tried to discipline are still active. The self I tried to deny keeps showing up at the breakfast table.
The temptation is to try harder. Fast more strictly. Pray longer. Add more disciplines. Increase the effort.
Paul says: you were dead. Dead people do not need more effort. They need resurrection. And resurrection is not something you do. It is something done to you.
We were dead. But God made us alive. We were far off. But God brought us near. We were separated. But God broke down the wall.
This is the day in the fast when we stop white-knuckling our way toward holiness and remember whose project this actually is.
But God (vv. 4-5)
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved.” (2:4–5)
Here it is. The turn. The interruption. The moment when the story stops being about us and starts being about God.
“But God.” In Greek, ho de theos. Three small words that carry the weight of the entire Gospel. Everything before this point was downhill. Death. Trespass. Sin. Slavery to the passions. Following the course of this world. And then: but God.
Four things about God in this sentence. Each one matters.
Rich in mercy. Not measured in mercy. Not cautious with mercy. Rich. Overflowing. Abundant. The way a river in flood is rich in water. More mercy than anyone could use. More mercy than anyone could exhaust. The mercy of God is not a limited resource that might run out if too many sinners apply. It is inexhaustible.
Great love. Not general love. Not abstract love. Great love. The kind of love that is specific, directed, costly. The love that chose us not because we were lovable but because He is loving. The love that looked at a race of corpses and decided to bring them back to life.
Even when we were dead. This is the phrase that demolishes every system of human merit. God did not wait for us to improve. He did not wait for the fast to produce results. He did not wait for us to show potential or promise or interest. He loved us while we were dead. Not while we were trying. While we were dead. The love came first. Before the repentance. Before the faith. Before the first flicker of spiritual life. God loved the corpse.
Made us alive together with Christ. This is resurrection language. What God did to Christ on Easter morning, He has done to us. The same power that raised Christ from the tomb is the power that raised us from spiritual death. We did not assist. We did not participate. We were dead. God made us alive.
St. Athanasius the Great, in On the Incarnation, teaches that the central problem of the human race was not moral failure but death. Humanity was created for life with God. Sin introduced death. And once death had entered, humanity could not reverse it from within. A dead person cannot undo his own death. Only the Author of life can restore life. This is why the Word became flesh. Not simply to teach us better morals or to set a good example. To destroy death from within by dying and rising. Athanasius says: “He became what we are that He might make us what He is.” The Incarnation was God’s “but.” Humanity was dead. But God became human. Death was universal. But God entered death and came out the other side alive. And everyone united to Him comes out alive with Him.1
“By grace you have been saved.”
Paul adds this phrase almost as a parenthetical. As if he cannot stop himself from saying it. By grace. Not by fasting. Not by prayer. Not by sixteen days of Lenten discipline. By grace. The unearned, unmerited, undeserved favor of God. Given freely. Received freely. Not as wages for work done. As a gift.
Raised and Seated (vv. 6–7)
“And raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (2:6–7)
Paul goes further. God did not just make us alive. He raised us up. He seated us. In the heavenly places. In Christ Jesus.
This is not future tense. Paul does not say “God will raise us up someday.” He says it has already happened. Past tense. Done. The believer who is fasting and struggling and falling and getting up again is, at this very moment, seated in the heavenly places in Christ. Not because of what he/she has achieved. Because of where Christ is. And he/she is in Him.
This is the mystery the Orthodox tradition calls theosis. Not becoming God in essence. Becoming partakers of the divine nature by grace. United to Christ so intimately that what is true of Him becomes true of us. He is risen. We are risen in Him. He is seated at the right hand of the Father. We are seated there in Him. He is alive. We are alive in Him.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his commentaries on the Pauline epistles, insists that this union with Christ is not metaphorical. It is real. The Holy Spirit, received in baptism and the Eucharist, genuinely unites the believer to Christ so that the life of Christ flows through the members of His body the way sap flows through the branches of a vine. The seated position in heavenly places is not a reward for good behavior. It is the natural condition of anyone who is grafted into Christ. The vine is in heaven. The branch is in the vine. Therefore the branch is in heaven. Even while it appears to be on earth. Even while it is fasting on Day 16 and wondering whether any of this is working.2
“That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace.”
God saved us not only for our sake. He saved us for display. He intends to spend eternity showing the angels, the powers, the entire created order what His grace can do with dead people. We are the evidence. The trophies of mercy. The proof that God can take corpses and seat them in heavenly places. This is not arrogance. This is worship. God did it. We are the exhibition.
Not of Yourselves (vv. 8–10)
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (2:8–10)
Paul says it again. By grace. Through faith. Not of yourselves. Gift of God. Not of works. No boasting.
He piles up the phrases because he knows how hard this is for religious people to accept. We want to contribute. We want to earn. We want to present our fast, our prayers, our disciplines before God and say: look what I did. Pay me. Paul says: no. The whole thing is a gift. The grace is a gift. The faith through which you receive the grace is a gift. Even the good works that follow are not your design. They were prepared beforehand by God. You are walking in a path He laid down before you took the first step.
This does not make the fast meaningless. Read the last verse carefully. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
The good works are real. The fasting is real. The prayer is real. The struggle is real. But the works do not produce the salvation. The salvation produces the works. The order matters. Grace first. Then works. Not works first, then grace as a reward.
The Great Lent is not a payment plan. It is a response. God loved us while we were dead. God made us alive in Christ. God raised us up and seated us in heavenly places. And now, out of gratitude, out of love, out of the new life that has been given to us, we fast. We pray. We repent. We serve. Not to earn what has already been given. To live out what has already been received.
St. John Chrysostom, in his Homily 4 on Ephesians, makes this distinction with his characteristic clarity. He says Paul is not attacking good works. He is attacking boasting. The person who fasts in order to earn God’s favor has misunderstood the Gospel. The person who fasts in response to God’s favor has understood it perfectly. The first person is a worker demanding wages. The second person is a child thanking a father. The external action may look the same. The internal posture is completely different.3
Brought Near (vv. 11–13)
“Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh — who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands — that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (2:11–13)
Paul now addresses a specific dimension of being “dead.” The Gentile believers in Ephesus were not just dead in sin. They were outsiders. Aliens. Strangers. They had no share in the promises God made to Israel. They had no covenant. No hope. No God. They were as far from the centre of God’s purposes as it was possible to be.
“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near.”
Far off. Brought near. Not “you who came near.” You who were brought near. The initiative is God’s. Again. Always. The far-off people did not walk to God under their own steam. God reached out and pulled them in. By the blood of Christ.
This is relevant to anyone who feels like an outsider in the faith. The convert who came to Orthodoxy late and feels he will never quite belong. The person who grew up outside the church and still feels like a guest at someone else’s table. The sinner who sits in the back row and wonders if God really meant the invitation for people like him.
Paul says: you were far off. You have been brought near. Not by your knowledge. Not by your heritage. Not by your fasting record. By the blood of Christ. The blood does not check your credentials. It does not ask how long you have been Orthodox. It does not measure your Lenten performance. It brings near. That is what it does.
He Is Our Peace (vv. 14–18)
“For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” (2:14–18)
The climax. Christ is not just the one who brings peace. He is peace. In His own person, He has broken down the wall that separated Jew from Gentile, insider from outsider, near from far.
In the Jerusalem Temple, a physical wall separated the Court of the Gentiles from the inner courts. A sign on that wall warned that any Gentile who crossed it would be responsible for his own death. The wall was real. Stone and mortar. It said: you do not belong here. Stay out.
Christ demolished it. Not with a hammer. With His body. On the Cross.
“Having abolished in His flesh the enmity.” The enmity between God and humanity. The enmity between Jew and Gentile. The enmity between insider and outsider. All of it abolished. In His flesh. On the wood of the Cross. The wall came down when the body was lifted up.
“So as to create in Himself one new man from the two.”
This is new creation language. Not repair. Not renovation. Creation. Something that did not exist before now exists. One new humanity in Christ. Made up of people who were enemies. Made up of people who had nothing in common except the blood that brought them both near. The Church is not an alliance of similar people. It is a miracle of reconciliation between people who would never have chosen each other.
St. Ephrem the Syrian, in his Hymns on the Church, celebrates this mystery with poetry. He describes the Church as a body whose members were gathered from every nation and language and condition. Slave and free. Rich and poor. Jew and Gentile. All of them brought into one body by one Cross. Ephrem marvels that the same blood that saves the Jew saves the Gentile. The same Spirit that fills the learned fills the unlettered. The wall is gone. The distinction is abolished. Not because differences are erased but because they are transcended in Christ.4
“For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”
The last verse is the destination. Access. To the Father. Through the Son. By the Spirit. This is the Trinity in action. The Son opens the door. The Spirit leads us through it. The Father is waiting on the other side. And the access is for both. For all. For near and far. For Jew and Gentile. For the strong faster and the weak one. For the person who has been Orthodox his whole life and the person who walked in yesterday.
St. Basil the Great, in On the Holy Spirit, teaches that the Spirit is the one who makes this access real and present in the life of the believer. Without the Spirit, the door is open but we cannot find it. The Spirit takes us by the hand and leads us through the door that Christ opened. Basil describes the Spirit as the one who “perfects” what the Father initiates and the Son accomplishes. The Father wills our salvation. The Son accomplishes it on the Cross. The Spirit applies it to our hearts. The three work together. And the result is access. Direct, personal, unmediated access to the Father.5
What This Means for Day 16
Sixteen days into the fast, most of us need to hear this.
Not another command. Not another discipline. Not another “try harder.” We need to hear that the whole enterprise rests on God’s initiative, not ours. That we were dead and He made us alive. That we were far off and He brought us near. That the wall has been broken down. That access to the Father is open. That the grace that saved us is still saving us. Today. On Day 16. In the middle of the fast. In the middle of our failure. In the middle of our exhaustion.
The Great Lent is real. The disciplines are real. The struggle is real. But underneath all of it, holding all of it up, making all of it possible, is grace. The “but God” that interrupts every story of human failure with the story of divine love.
We did not start this fast because we generated enough willpower. We started it because God drew us to Him. We are still fasting because God is still holding us. And when the fast is over and Resurrection comes, we will celebrate not because we survived fifty days of discipline but because Christ is risen. And in Him, so are we.
For Our Journey Today
Rest in the “but God.” Today, stop striving for ten minutes. Sit down. Be still. And let the truth of this passage wash over you. You were dead. But God made you alive. You were far off. But God brought you near. This is not something you need to achieve. It has been done. Receive it.
Thank instead of earn. If you have been treating the fast as a payment plan, today is the day to stop. The fast is a response to grace, not a method of earning it. Before you pray today, before you fast today, say thank you. Thank God for the life He gave you before you asked for it. Thank Him for the faith that is itself a gift. Let the posture of the day be gratitude, not performance.
Remember you have access. The wall is down. The door is open. The Spirit is present. You do not need to earn your way into God’s presence. Christ has already brought you near. Today, when you pray, walk through the open door with confidence. Not confidence in your fasting record. Confidence in the blood of Christ. The blood that does not check credentials. The blood that brings near.
Father, rich in mercy, who loved us while we were dead and made us alive in Christ, we thank You. Not for what we have done. For what You have done. We confess that we have treated this fast as our project, our achievement, our offering to You. Forgive us. Remind us today that we are Your workmanship. That the good works we walk in were prepared by You before we took the first step. That the grace that saved us is not a reward for our effort but a gift that makes our effort possible. Break down every wall we have built between ourselves and You. Between ourselves and our brothers. Between the people we call “near” and the people we call “far.” You have made both one. Help us to live as one. Through Jesus Christ, who is our peace, in the Holy Spirit, who gives us access to You, now and forever. By the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, the holy Apostle Paul, and all the saints. Amen.
References:
- St. Athanasius the Great (c. 296–373). On the Incarnation (De Incarnatione), particularly chapters 4–10. Edition: On the Incarnation, translated by John Behr (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Popular Patristics Series, 2011). Also Athanasius: Contra Gentes and De Incarnatione, translated by Robert W. Thomson (Oxford University Press, Oxford Early Christian Texts, 1971). ↩︎
- St. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444). Edition: Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, translated by P.E. Pusey and T. Randell, Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1874, 1885). Also On the Unity of Christ, translated by John McGuckin (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Popular Patristics Series, 1995). ↩︎
- St. John Chrysostom (c. 349–407). Homily 4 on Ephesians, on Ephesians 2:1–10. Edition: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (NPNF), Series I, Vol. 13: Homilies on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, translated by Gross Alexander (available at newadvent.org and ccel.org). ↩︎
- St. Ephrem the Syrian (c. 306–373). Hymns on the Church (Madrāshē d-ʿal ʿEdtā). Edition: Ephrem’s hymnic collections are published in the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (CSCO), Scriptores Syri series, edited by Edmund Beck (Louvain: various dates). For accessible English selections, see Sebastian Brock, The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syrian (Cistercian Publications, 1992), and Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, translated by Kathleen E. McVey, Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press, 1989). ↩︎
- St. Basil the Great (c. 330–379). On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto), particularly chapters 16, 19, and 24–27. Edition: St. Basil the Great: On the Holy Spirit, translated by David Anderson (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Popular Patristics Series, 1980). Also in NPNF, Series II, Vol. 8. ↩︎
