Signed. Sealed. Delivered.
Sealed with the Spirit (Eph. 1:13) | Content Cut from Last Sunday’s Sermon
I’m in the Seattle airport, eager to fly home after two days away for denominational meetings. It's 8 PM, and I’ve been at the airport for five hours—four hours too long. Boarding starts in half and hour. The flight is about ninety minutes long. With the hour time change, I will arrive home at midnight and quietly crawl into my own bed next to my wife so as not to wake her. If only I could fast forward the next few hours and find myself in bed right now.
I begin walking from the airport food court to the gate. On my phone, the boarding pass says “Gate D4”. I get to D4. Not there. I look at the flight list on the big screen. Bozeman: C18. Weird.
As I’m walking to C18, I check my boarding pass on my phone. The date says Feb. 3rd. It’s Feb. 4th.
Oh no.
A few months ago, when I originally booked my flight, I selected the 3rd. But the next day, I realized I needed to change it to the 4th. I went online and made the change—or so I thought. I looked through my email. Nothing about my flight being changed to the 4th. Did I imagine myself changing my flight, but not actually change it? Whatever happened (or didn’t happen), my flight was yesterday. I missed it. My boarding pass was useless.
Stressed out and trying to wrap my head around what to do if I couldn’t get on the flight, I prayed for favor with the Alaska Airlines folks. Fortunately, the flight had plenty of room. They changed my ticket. The new boarding pass declared I could be on that plane. I had the ticket. I’m going home.
It’s fascinating the power and legal binding in a piece of paper like a boarding pass. The QR code was useless to get me on my desired flight. The new boarding pass, on the otherhand, was the one thing required to enter the jet bridge onto the plane. I could legally enter the plane. The new boarding said so.
“And We Have Papers Proving He’s Free!”
There is a powerful scene at the end of the movie Twelve Years a Slave, based on the memoir by Solomon Northrup with the same title. Solomon Northup is a free black man in 1841. For a black man in those days, he lives a decently comfortable life with his family. He is a musician who is offered a gig. But it is a trick. He is drugged and illegally sold into slavery. He is given a new name (“Platt”), new identity, and is now the property of several slave owners. For twelve years, he attempts to show that he has illegally been sold into slavery. But to no avail. Until one day…
One day, a sheriff comes up to him as he works in a field with his fellow slaves. The sheriff asks him who he really is. He tells him, “My name is Solomon Northrup.” The sheriff nods to a man who accompanied him, asking, “Do you know that man?” The man is a friend of Solomon’s from is past life—Mr. Parker. After a brief moment, Solomon recognizes him and says under his breath, “Mr. Parker.” The slave owner comes up to find out what’s going on. Irrate after discovering he is about to lose his slave, he declares Solomon is “Platt” and is his property. He shouts that he has papers to prove it. Mr. Parker declares, “He is Solomon Northrup…And we have papers proving he’s free!”
The slave owner clings to Solomon, telling him he’s going to get to the bottom of this. He is his, and will always remain, his slave. Mr. Parker tells Solomon to ignore him.
Ephesians 1:13 | Sealed by the Spirit
In preparing for this past Sunday’s sermon on Ephesians 1:3-14, I was struck by the language of 1:13: “In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed.” In the ancient world, wax seals were used to identify possession. Paul is using a word picture to describe being owned by God. In researching this passage, I am convinced that the story of Israel is present below the surface, giving color and context to Paul’s overarching argument. In Eph. 1:6, Paul writes, “In [the Messiah] we have redemption through his blood…” I cannot help but recall the story of Israel enslaved in Egypt, but redeemed—literally, “repossessed” as God’s treasured possession among the nations—by God via the blood of a lamb (or goat). As with Israel, enslaved to their oppressors, so we were enslaved to Sin (Romans 6:17, 20), but liberated (re-possessed, delivered) by the blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). With that in mind, looking back at v. 13, Paul says that we are sealed with the Spirit when we “heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed.” The Greek word for “salvation,” σωτηρία (soteria), can also be translated as “deliverance.” The word deliverance, in my opinion, makes more sense given the background of Israel’s story of deliverance from Egypt (which they would’ve also called “salvation” but without our post-Reformation, individualistic filters).
How profound it is to imagine deliverance, re-possession, and being sealed with the Spirit as a confirmation that we belong to God. But if we’re being honest, as with Solomon’s slave owner, there is a last-ditch effort from the voice declaring that we do not really belong to God. Solomon’s slave owner lambasts Mr. Parker, Solomon, and the sheriff, declaring, “He is mine! He belongs to me! I have papers to prove it!” The response of Mr. Parker—“And we have papers proving he’s free!”—reminds me of Colossians 2:13-14. “He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.”
We, who were once enslaved to the powers of darkness (Sin/Death), are delivered and repossessed to God through the victorious death and resurrection of the Lamb of God. This is confirmed—sealed—by the Holy Spirit, declaring we belong to God. Signed. Sealed. Delivered. I’m yours, Lord.
My boarding pass was not going to get me on the plane. I had no legal access. But unearned favor was freely extended. I received a new boarding pass free of charge. I now had the paper. I legally could walk up to the Alaska Airlines attendant, have my boarding pass scanned, walk through the jet bridge, and go home.