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Belgic Confession Article 17Ephesians 2:1-10
Risen with Christ
Brothers and sisters in Christ,I’d like to share an e-mail with you that I received a couple of years ago from a friend I went to school with a long while ago.
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Today is a day to think about death. Why? I don't know. I'm not a particularly morbid person. In fact, I'm more of a let's-think-about-buttercups person. But the roads outside are dark; crusts of ice and gravel deck the lanes, and the sky is a dark, dense grey.Color of steel. Not a day to think about happy things. Definitelynot a day to think of buttercups.So I'm thinking about death. Existentialism. We're all going todie. We are all in the process of dying. On the flip side, we're allin the process of being born. Cells dying, cells regenerating. Welook normal on the outside. On the inside, though? Who knows?Maybe we're all dead. How do we know we're living? How dowe know that we do exist? Have we ever existed? Maybe we're just a dream some "alien" is dreaming in the middle of a Historyclass. What if we're really the hallucinations of some girl we passed in the street on Thursday? When's the last time you wereaware of yourself?We'll all be dead within eighty years. Our atoms will be reusedand you'll eventually be the left eye of a frog on a leaf inGuatemala; I'll be one of its legs. Will we be remembered then?Will we be loved?
 
I saved this e-mail and asked permission to share it because itstruck me as profound thinking – she wrote in a way that was sohonest and so representative of the existential questions peoplewrestle with.Questions about being. Questions about meaning. Questions about purpose.And it seems to me that if our faith is going to be relevant to lifetoday – then it needs to be able to answer these questions in ameaningful way.That’s our focus here this afternoon as we look to Paul’s letter tothe Ephesians as well as taking a look at Article 17 of the Belgicconfession:These three questions. Questions of Being. Meaning. And Purpose. Now when we say being – what we are really asking is a questionof identity. This is the root of all existential philosophy – to ask:
I. The question of being:
The big word for this line of questioning is ontology – it’s notimportant but apparently it pays to enrich your word power sothere you go…ontology – the study of being.Who am I? What am I? What am I made of? How do I exist? Inwhat way?Are we really just a collection of atoms that come together for a brief time and end up reunited as a frog in Guatemala? Are we theimagination of that girl we passed on the street last Thursday?
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These are questions of ontology. Questions of being and existence.And they are the most basic of all questions concerning self.Children as you watch them grow from infant to child and intoteenage years go through this search for ontological meaning.They start off not knowing. No answers. Everything’s warm. Thenit’s chilly...then “Hey…air…” I’ve got lungs…cool…no…cold…cold cold cold…there’s that strange voice…but it’slouder…can I do that?...cry…I am a being that can cry…andcrying equals warm…The journey of self discovery begins…soon it’s belly…then eyes…and hands…and the world around becomes an adventure infiguring things out…and somewhere along the line we figure outthat we can die.That’s a part of who we are…we are beings who can breath…andcry…and eat…and die…This is what we wrestle with…this reality of death…of taking upexistence…discovering for a time…and then well…not…What do we do with this reality? Do we fear it? Do we embrace it?Do we ignore it for a while distracting ourselves with shiny thingsuntil it catches up with us? Do we self-medicate to the point thatwe’re oblivious to it?When we start asking questions like this we’re moving pastontology and being – we’re starting to interpret those answers andwe start to ask…
II. Questions of meaning
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