Resurrection is breaking into darkness. The darkness has not comprehended it, cannot overcome, and cannot hold it back.
“Awake O sleeper.” This is one of my favorite passages in Ephesians because of that early hymn text or poem that was no doubt chanted by the early church. We are not talking just about drowsiness or a short nap here. The context makes it plain that sleeping is the common biblical idiom for death. This means waking up is resurrection: “Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Enlightenment attending death and resurrection talk is a consistent feature of the early church. Baptism was called “illumination.” Candles were (as they still are!) used in celebrating the rite of baptism. Baptisms were traditionally performed at Easter, underscoring the resurrection and light themes and connection. If you are looking for where Paul talks baptism talk throughout the epistles, do not pass over Ephesians 5! And consider this week how that sacramental theme can concretize the message for your hearer. Give them something to take home with them. Baptism is God’s historic act of miraculously signing His name indelibly on them in water and Word to claim them as His own, drawing them from death to life, from darkness to light.
This is the fourth Sunday in Lent, and a resurrection-rich reading like this reminds us they are Sundays in Lent. Every Sunday is a memorial of Christ’s resurrection, so do not shy away from the proclamation of victory over death and the grave in some sort of misplaced penitential piety. Joy may be reserved this season, but it is still joy! A penitential season is a good reminder of the real as opposed to the abstract when it comes to the contrasting notes of “darkness” and “death,” however. A wise preacher can use this to his advantage, perhaps by asking at the beginning of the message what it means to “live in darkness,” as the Apostle says here in Ephesians 5. Check that, he does not say that his Ephesian audience was merely living in darkness, he says, “You were darkness” (Ephesians 5:8). This is identity talk. Sin and death are inseparable companions, and this is the sort of language Paul has already used in this letter (refer to Ephesians 2:1-3). Making this real for your hearer is more than simply repeating “among whom you all once lived” (Ephesians 2:3). The drift into darkness is subtle and easy for all. The problem is not mild indolence or drowsiness. The problem is death, the death we carry around in the old Adam, the old sinner daily, the death which needs to be drowned and put to death daily. Paul’s call to “rise from the dead’ (Ephesians 5:14) is not a counsel of works. We do not do this by picking ourselves up by our own bootstraps and giving it the old college try. But no one can rise from the dead if life is simply lacking. Point your listeners to where life comes from.
It comes from an interruption, a shout that interrupts death. The voice calls, “Awake” (Ephesians 5:14)! This is not just poetry. It is proclamation. It is a word spoken into unresponsiveness. It is a word spoken from the outside. Resurrection is always an extra nos deal. This is the accent of faith that requires no lecture about faith to drive it home. Just give your hearer something from outside of them to hang on to, the promise of God in Christ, and they have an object to trust. No need to explain it in a lecture or theologize and wax eloquent on the word. You get to trust as a preacher that the command simply creates what it demands. Because it is God’s Word we are talking about, the slicey, dicey, juicy, killing-and-making-alive, performative, effective, energetic Word of God which does stuff. “Let there be light,” and there is light. “On your belly you will go,” and the serpent has a mouthful of mud. So, when God’s voice cries out (yes, even through your preaching!), “Awake!” you can bet your bottom dollar God is doing something with that; creating the faith, the trust, that the Word demands. This is what makes it gospel, not law. Wake up, sleepyhead is not the blaring 5:00 AM alarm getting you ready for a nasty commute. It is an invitation (what some in my circles, I think mostly unhelpfully, call a “gospel imperative,” but I will not spend time here on a critique or defense, so suffice to say this is indeed a gospel invitation!). It does not scold. It is not exhortation to moral improvement. This is divine interruption!
It does not scold. It is not exhortation to moral improvement. This is divine interruption!
Speaking of sleeping and waking, this is where the Christ needs to be delivered by you, and He conveniently hooks us in to Himself with His own salvific circadian rhythm: Jesus entered the deepest sleep, death itself. He experienced darkness and noon. He experienced silence as He shouted, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He experienced real death, three days of it, buried for us. But on the third day God spoke the “Awake!” that woke our Lord from the dead. It is not an encouragement or an inspiration, but resurrection. We also need to hear Ephesians 5:14 as “awake” because Christ has been awakened, as “rise” because Christ has risen (He is risen indeed!), because “Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14). These elements, at the very least, are handed to you in this pericope to ensure your sermon is, indeed, Christ-centered.
There is a great “before this, but now” dynamic in the epistle text, which you can see as you pay attention to the tense of the verbs. “You were,” but now, “You are.” “Now you are light in the Lord,” Paul says at Ephesians 5:8. Again, this is identity talk. Your hearers do not enjoy that identity due to a self-generated glow or improved behavior. It relates only their union with Christ. His resurrection becomes our illumination as His life becomes our life. That life is connected with light (as darkness is connected with death in this passage), so it may be helpful to set up a contrast here too. The light is not some kind of bare-bulbed interrogation light, exposing all the faults, all the crimes, all the sins of your past. It is not just detectives and inquisitors who use lights, doctors do too. Healers. This is a healer’s light, revealing in order to renew, naming what is dead in order to make it alive. Christ the healer still bears the scars of His torture and execution. Those are not hidden; they are exposed to the light. They are exposed, yet glorified. His wounds are transformed into peace. What is God exposing with His light that he can transform in your hearer?
The middle chunk of this pericope, Ephesians 5:9-13, is the paraenetic Paul, an exhortation to live as children of light. Once again, preacher, I exhort you to deliver this not as, “Get your act together,” but, rather, as natural consequence of identity. You are awake. Live in the day! And even in the literal evenings of your people, as they think back through their day, if the demons come at 3:00 AM to harass and remind them of their sins of the past in their guilt, their shame, their weariness, the Gospel is the promise that exposes them for what they are: Christ will shine on you (Ephesians 5:14).
Remind your people of the baptismal connection here. At the font, Christ named them alive. At the altar, Christ gives them not a dead thing but His living body. God is the one who is active here. Christ is the one who does the shining here. For the moment of your preaching, for your worship service, and, indeed, through the rest of this season of Lent, this text stands, the resurrection promise in it stands, as a joyous reminder that dawn is near. Resurrection is breaking into darkness. The darkness has not comprehended it, cannot overcome it (John 1:5), and cannot hold it back. This is no dream a sleeper dreamt up. It is as real as a cross and an empty tomb. It is the death and resurrection of Christ, delivered for your hearer, delivered for you.
Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Ephesians 5:8-14.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you preaching Ephesians 5:8-14.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
