Editor’s note: This is the 11th of many scheduled Lectionary Living columns to be written by clergy in the Diocese of Central Florida.

Lectionary Reflection: The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

1 Kings 8:1,6,10-11, 22-30, 41-43; Psalm 84:1-6; Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-59

Enemy-occupied territory — that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. 

— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The consecration of Solomon’s Temple was a definitive step forward in what could be called The Emmanuel Project. The name Emmanuel means ‘God with us.’  And God with us is God’s goal. In 1 Kings 8: God is gloriously present with His people; a cloud signifying his presence fills the temple; ground is claimed and made sacred; Heaven and Earth converge.

But when God’s program of redemption advances, when the kingdom of God comes on Earth as in Heaven, Hell pushes back. And though (thanks be to God!) the decisive victory has been won by our Lord Jesus Christ, the “flaming arrows of the evil one” (Eph. 6:16) are still whizzing overhead. The war has been won (for Christ defeated sin, death, and the devil through his life, death and resurrection!), yet the battle rages on.

We are as Christians still in the trenches. We are looking for the final consummation of the Kingdom of God. We are awaiting the full and total implementation of the victory of Jesus. And so, we are longing, like the psalmist, “for the courts of the LORD” (Ps. 84:1), longing to be in the place where God dwells, waiting and yearning “for a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:6).

We are, as Lewis said, in “enemy-occupied territory” so waiting on the Lord is not passive or leisurely. While we wait we do battle, but not in our own strength. Ephesians 6:1 – “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power.” God has outfitted us with His armor to protect us and has given us the sword of the Spirit (the one offensive weapon) which is the word of God.  And with the word of God we, like our Lord in the wilderness, combat the father of lies with the truth.

And if we grow weary in battle and in well doing, we can take heart for God has provided us sustenance – “the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6).  The Incarnation of the 2nd Person of the Trinity was the definitive step in the Emmanuel Project for “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” And, sacramentally, the Word keeps on becoming flesh in the Holy Eucharist.

God is with us. So, during worship when we see a cloud of incense it should serve to remind us that God is gloriously present; present in the Person of the Holy Spirit who indwells and fills the temple of the New Covenant – the Church; and present on the altar in the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood.

God is truly with us and in us, and by grace we are in Him. And because of that we are able to do battle (i.e. trust in Christ and persevere in prayer). We are able to say: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me” (Ps. 23:4).

– Father Matthew Ainsley is assistant to the rector at Church of the Ascension in Orlando.