The Fellowship of the Mystery

“Do we have time to get up to Pike Place Market for a quick visit if we have a four hour layover?”  A chance question in the airport hallway from the man carrying a big black-cased guitar, two strangers in a passing instant.  A traffic check, information exchange, a “Yes, it’s a fun place in the early morning!” --and we trail them towards baggage claim. 

Then it occurs to my social husband – may as well give them a ride, headed that way anyway.

The fellowship of the mystery…

Ten minutes later we are embracing as Fellow Travelers because, we found, we are headed to the Same Destination, and He has gone ahead to prepare a Place for us…: Christ-followers, living in the Word, alive in the Spirit, and, after all, joint heirs and brothers and sisters loving one Lord.  Funny how that happens. God’s Providence is a lot of fun.  Our plane was 30 minutes early; we stopped just there; he approached my man instead of any one of a hundred others milling about; we don’t offer rides randomly, ever.  What a blessed conversation it was, about some of the amazing things God is doing around the world, and His outworkings of His power!

The fellowship of the mystery…

Shall we diagram that, pull it out of our comfort zone so we actually see and hear and feel the magnitude of what is being said here?  What is this fellowship of the mystery, as Paul terms it in Ephesians 3?  What else does Paul call it? “…the unsearchable riches of Christ…”

I love that phrase!  We could meet anyone, anywhere in the world, and be instantly transported to the fellowship of the mystery.  Our friend tells of being in an eastern European country on a train and through a ring on a man’s finger realizes he is a believer.  They try to communicate and fail and fail, until the man’s face lights up and he proclaims to my friend the only words he knows they have in common:  “Hallelujah!!” –followed by “Maranatha!”  (“Praise Jehovah!” and  “Come, Lord Jesus!”) 

And then Paul’s prepositional phrases explode with meaning!  

“…which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God…”

“…to the intent that NOW the manifold wisdom of God might be made known—

[BY WHOM?] “by the church”

[TO WHOM?]  “to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places…”

Struck with a holy, beautiful, dread yet? 

With what in our practical lives does this have to do?  Everything.  Our relationships, our calling, our daily thoughts and conversations.

“according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.”

Paul asks then that they not lose heart over the extent of his trials for them in love…

“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes all knowledge; that you may be filled with the fullness of God.”

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen.”

And there, my fellow travelers, is the fellowship of the mystery!  If I do not meet you someday here, providentially, we will meet most heartily on the other side of the Jordan, and it will be as if we had always known each other, there.  These words are a reality, a country, a home, that we share.