Anakephalaiosasthai: Sermon Response
By Sydney Gautier
In my opinion, there are two types of storytellers in the world: the ones who give you every last detail, down to the color of their socks when the events were taking place, and then the ones who neatly sum things up and make sure you actually get the point of what they’re trying to tell you. Both are great, in different ways and depending on what the story is about. Today, we are focused on the latter type of story teller, the idea of “summing things up, bringing all things into unity, providing a center,” or the Greek word for all that, anakephalaiosasthai.
So that we have a better understanding of this 19 letter word, Barry helped break it down for us, here we go. First is “ana.” This word adds intensity to whatever it’s connected to. For example instead of saying, “it is cold.” We would say, “it is extremely cold.” It helps portray something as big and forceful. Next is “Kephala.” It means, “head, putting ahead, or an organizing center.” An organizing center is something that puts everything where it is supposed to be. This immediately makes me think of my husband, Joe. He loves organization and is a stickler for everything being in its rightful place, so we have various organization cabinets around our house because he knows without them, I would probably leave everything a disorganized mess.
Paul used this word twice in scripture, once in today’s passage and once in Romans 13:9. He wrote, “For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Romans 13:9). See what he did there? All of the commandment and the words of the prophets are anakephalaiosasthaied, or “summed up or unified” in the phrase, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Paul’s usage of this word signifies an extreme reorganization around a new center that brings unity to all things.
In Ephesians 1, he shows us this new center, Jesus, the great unifier. He starts off with a very elaborate welcome and salutation to the church in Ephesus. We know from Acts 19 that Paul started the church in Ephesus and had a great ministry there. Barry told us that he and his disciples had so much favor that all the residents of this part of Asia (now known as Asia Minor) heard the Gospel! So we can understand why Paul would write this letter, but why was he so excited? Barry told us that in the original Greek, Ephesians 1:3-10 was one long run on sentence. Basically, Paul just kept writing and writing. If he was talking out loud he probably wouldn’t have time to take a breath between all the words. In verse 10 Paul brings it all together, “to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” (Ephesians 1”10). The phrase, “to unite all things” is anakephalaiosasthai. God united all things in Christ, things in heaven and on earth. Jesus changed everything.
Barry told us that Paul likely wrote this letter from a Roman prison, so he probably wasn’t in a situation that would cause much excitement. On top of that, Paul had a pretty rough life. He had been betrayed, arrested, been beaten, shipwrecked, left for dead, and, to top it all off, he had to put up with fights between Christians. But anakephalaiosasthai gives Paul a reason to be excited! Paul can look back on his life and see that he has anakephalaiosasthai-ed the story of his life. He can look at everything that has happened to him but with Jesus as the organizing center, the one who brought all of his life into unity, and that changed everything. It gave him a new perspective on his life. Everything that happened to him happened for a reason. Jesus brought unity to it all and God used it for his glory! This allowed Paul to have hope! All those bad things don’t seem as bad anymore when you can see that they have a purpose and that you can see God as the one who pours forth grace and blesses and adopts us sinful men and women and sons and daughters because of his love and for his pleasure.
This can help give us a new perspective on our own lives, just like it did for Paul. Sometimes it can be easy to look back and dwell on the bad times, the struggles, or the negative parts of life. While we don’t need to pretend they didn’t happen and block them out of our minds, the shame, terror, illness, lies, and stress we have been through are part of each of our stories, but the Gospel provides and new perspective to see that story through. We can look back on our lives like Paul and retell our story, this time with Jesus at the center as the one who brings unity to all things. In doing this we can see redemption and hope like we see in Ephesians 1. It doesn’t mean that everything in our life will make perfect sense, but it does mean that we can have faith and trust that God is doing something, that He is constantly at work in our lives and in our stories.
Jesus Walks on Water: Sermon Highlight
By Sydney Gautier
Scripture | Matthew 14:22-33
Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”
And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
In the midst of the storm Jesus is with us.
We can all recall storms in our lives. Maybe you feel like you’re in the middle of one now, or maybe you just weathered one and are on the other side. But we’ve all been there. I specifically remember my senior year of college. The first semester was one big storm that I thought would never end. One thing after another went wrong, I felt like I couldn’t catch a break. However, the story we read in Matthew 14:22-33 reminds us that in the midst of the storm, Jesus is with us. Jonathan went through three things that this story of Jesus walking on water in the middle of the storm shows us about Jesus.
God is in control.
We see in the passage above that Jesus sent the disciples out to sea before he went up to the mountain to pray. The trip they were making was about 5 miles. They left in the evening, but Jesus didn’t come to them until very early morning. That means they were out on the sea for quite a long time—longer than they had expected to be, but they made no progress because of the storm. This trip had become much more complicated than they thought it would be. They were terrified. The storm was out of their control. However, God knew what was going to happen before they stepped into the boat. That means he knew how it was going to end as well. The storm didn’t surprise Him. He was completely in control of the situation, so it’s important to know that Jesus didn't send them into the storm to punish them. God is powerful enough to use the brokenness of storms in our lives to show us Himself!
God loves you.
The first words Jesus says to the disciples when he comes to them in the storm are, “Do not be afraid.” This is what we say to people we love because we don’t want them to live in fear. This is what Joe says to me in the middle of the night when I swear I heard someone in the closet. This is what my parents told me when I thought there were monsters under my bed as a child. We see throughout scripture that Jesus is consistently loving and gracious towards the disciples despite the fact that they got things wrong a lot and didn’t deserve it. Sounds a lot like us, but through the storms and the sin and getting it wrong often, we are still so loved by God. In the scripture above we see Peter walk out onto the water. When he takes his eyes off Jesus, he starts to sink. He cries out to God, “Lord, save me,” and Jesus does because he’s Jesus, and he’s patient and gracious and loves Peter like he loves you and I. In the following verse, Jesus says to Peter, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” He doesn't say this to call Peter out or to shame him. Instead he’s saying it with love in his eyes, wanting to reassure him that he never needs to doubt—that he loves him and will never fail him.
It’s not about your faith, but God’s faithfulness.
My senior year, in the midst of a storm, I remember at times wondering what I could do to make myself stop sinking. Muster up more faith? Try harder? It’s easy to fall into that trap, but we learn from the story of Jesus walking on water that that isn’t the answer at all. In this story, we don’t see Jesus make Peter try harder to stop sinking in the middle of the storm. Instead he immediately reached out his hand to save him. We learned that what’s important is the object of our faith, Christ. Jonathan shared a quote about this from David Platt, “. . . if your eyes are on the wind, you will fall…But when your eyes are on Christ, when the all-sovereign, gracious, loving, merciful Savior and King of creation is the focus of your faith, you can always rest secure. Your faith will be constant, because Christ is constant.” This takes the burden of trying to muster up enough faith off of us. We just have to trust and keep our eyes on the Lord. We see that when we encounter God and his truth, it leads to worship. Despite the storm and the struggles, we can know God is in control. He loves us. He is faithful and for us, and this leads us to worship in His unexplainable peace in the midst of chaos.