The ruler of the power of the air

In today's first reading (Ephesians 2:1-10), St. Paul refers to Satan in a way that may sound strange to us.

You were dead
in your transgressions and sins
in which you once lived
following the age of this world,
following the ruler of the power of the air,
the spirit that is now at work in the disobedient.

Among the explanations that scholars give for this reference is an ancient Jewish conception of the atmosphere as a place where evil spirits flit unseen about us.

For many of us, this may sound like something out of a silly horror movie.

And yet the concept of Satan as "ruler of the power of the air" has more than a little resonance with our experience of the world today, for indeed modern culture often seems an atmosphere thick with messages of selfishness, slams against religion, and the exaltation of self-serving subjectivity over God-created reality.

The effects of this poisonous atmosphere are painfully easy to see, from the violence and depravity we see in the news to the brokenness in our families and our lives.

Yet the "ruler of the power of the air" cannot prevail against the Lord of heaven and earth.

We may have been led astray, but God can bring us back and keep us on the course that leads into the fullness of joy by the power of his grace.

All of us once lived among them
in the desires of our flesh,
following the wishes of the flesh and the impulses,
and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.

But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of the great love he had for us,
even when we were dead in our transgressions,
brought us to life with Christ
(by grace you have been saved),
raised us up with him,
and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
that in the ages to come
he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace
in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.