God's Love: Ephesians 2:4-10, especially vs. 4: "...God...is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us." Orthodoxy radiates God's rich mercy and great love through her Holy Scriptures, the Holy Mysteries, the Holy Icons, and her entire Holy Tradition. All who respond to this luminous message, freely walking in that love and mercy as "fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" (Eph. 2:19), know, at once, how greatly they are loved (Eph. 2:4) and for what purpose they were "created in Christ Jesus" (vs. 10).
In today's Epistle, the Apostle Paul summarizes the great love of God for us, His People, in three declarations: God "made us alive together with Christ" (vs. 5), "raised us up together" with Christ (vs. 6), "and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (vs. 6). Note carefully that every one of these assertions of God's love is stated in past tense, as "fait accompli." God has "gone on record" by fully accomplishing His rich mercy and great love for us so that, as His workmanship created in Christ Jesus, we should discharge those "good works which [He] prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (vs. 10).
To be "made alive," one first must be dead. Hence, the Apostle reminds us that "we were dead in trespasses" (vs. 5). By speaking this way, he brings up a serious issue: too many people approach the Orthodox Faith from the "wrong end," so to speak, looking at death only in terms of the end of physical life, as the mortality of the human body. Therefore, they never discover the sort of death which the Apostle here takes for granted - being dead before God, the spiritual death which results in physical death for all who are "in Adam" (1 Cor. 15:22).
God, Who is rich in mercy and love, addressed this human condition in its depth, at its root, saving not just our immortal souls and our spirits, but by solving once and for all the greatest issue surrounding death, the alienation between all of mankind and God - between every single member of our human race and Life Himself. How? The Source of all life took our flesh upon Himself, through the Birthgiver of God, the Holy Virgin, crossed over from the heavenly places (Eph. 2:6), and died Himself, Life embraced death. By entering the place of the dead, Life trampled down death by a direct assault on all of death and bestowed life on those in the tombs.
Are you Baptized into Christ? Then, with all the Faithful joined to Him, you have "put on Christ" (Gal. 3:27). Now, therefore, in Him, you were made alive together with Him (Eph. 2:5), raised up from the death that separates us from God through being in Christ, for He is our life (vs. 6), and makes us to sit "in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus" (vs. 6). So, yes, our bodies will die, but, by being in Christ, the Faithful already are united to Life, if one will but take up the "walk" (vs. 10) for which God created us in Christ Jesus; and ineffable things follow.
Listen to St. John Chrysostom: he says that the Apostle "alludes to the regeneration, which is in reality a second creation. We have been brought from non-existence into being. As to what we were before, that is, the old man, we are dead. What we are now, we were not before. Truly, then, this is a work, a creation, yea, and more noble than the first; for from that one, we have our being; but from this last, we have...our well being." Rich mercy and great love! God has placed us on the road to the City of the Great King. Let us walk on in good works, not dawdling to indulge the flesh that will die. Rather, let us join Him in faith and seize the great good which God's grace has accomplished, for in His rich mercy and great love for us He has done His part. Let us do many good works in His Name Who has done so much for us.
O Lord, by Thy Holy Spirit, guide us. Bless our goings out and our comings in; our deeds and works, and words and thoughts, that they may praise Thine ineffable beneficence.