Gathered by God
Christmas 2 – January 4,2026
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 147:12-20
Ephesians 1:3-14
John 1:1-18
If you read the Old Testament prophet’s predictions of the future you will notice that God’s salvation begins with God gathering God’s people together into a single place. Many of these predictions take place in the midst of the Babylonian conquest. Some of these even talk about God gathering people from all nations and not just the Israelites. This is an echo of the past when God rescued the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. Of course, in that instance, they went to Egypt on their own accord because of a great famine. All other instances the people were moved about by those who conquered them. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, expands this understanding to include all things – things in heaven and things on earth. I am not sure if that is how you view God’s salvation; a gathering together of all things. Especially in our world of individuality. We see salvation as a personal thing. Some denominations talk about accepting Jesus as your personal savior. Jeremiah and the other prophets would not have understood that concept, they thought about God’s salvation as a communal event.
It was also not an idea of the early Christians. We have an example in Acts where the early Christians lived together sharing what they had. Now we do not know how long that lasted. There certainly were bad characters who abused the system. But that did not completely sour the system for others. There are many examples of Christians trying to live together in a community. Monasteries are one example. There were also the many communities who tried this in our recent past from the Moravians to the Harmonists. They saw the gift and call of living together. Some of these communities were more successful than others. They were human structures and as you and I know we are sinful and everything we do is flawed. But that does not stop us from trying to act out God’s call to be a community.
In fact, that is what we are. Look around. There is not many of us but we are a community brought together by Jesus. Actually a small part of the whole community that is the Body of Christ. We come together to worship and give thanks to God who through the blood of God’s own Son has gathered us together so that we may be a small, all-be-it flawed, image of God’s salvation. As that image we are called to reflect the light of Jesus into the world. Individually we can do small things. As the Body of Christ we can do much greater things. Our free meal ministry here is an example. It is many, many churches who have gathered together to provide meals to any and all who come.
God’s salvation is not some individual, personal thing. It is a sharing of God’s great gifts with all the world: It is a smile given to a stranger, comfort to the afflicted, a helping hand to the needy, prayers for others. We who have been gathered into the Body of Christ are called to be the hands, feet and mouth of Jesus so that all the world may see his light.