Next Sunday's sermon, briefly. Based on Ephesians 1:15-23

When George Orwell wrote, "He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future," it was a scary picture of government controlling history.

For Christians, this scary quote is actually good news--not because we have taken control of the present (and therefore, history), but because we see efforts of control in the present as fleeting compared to the extraordinarily different power the Christ exhibited in the past, which we believe to be a guarantee of the future.

Fate is not in control, and neither is Caesar, or George W. Bush, or whoever comes after that.

So, because of an event in the past (namely Christ's resurrection and ascension) we have hope for a resurrection-life in the future, and claims to power based on death (i.e. all of them, save God's) are empty--setting us free to live a different way in the present!

We'll spend more time unpacking that idea on Sunday, and considering how it might affect us as individuals and a community.