Rev. Dr. Les Martin

Pentecost +6
Rev. Dr. Les Martin
Colossians 1:15-20

I am determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. – 1 Corinthians 2:2

In the Name of the Living God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Last week, Dr. Graham began our eight-week sermon series on the book of Colossians by dealing with Paul’s opening thanksgivings and prayers for the church in that city.  You may remember that, in the midst of his sermon, he called our attention to the phrase “in him”- meaning the idea of believers as abiding in Christ- that Paul uses so often both in this letter and throughout his writings.  In our passage today, Paul turns the attention of the Colossians – and of us – to Jesus:  “the him that we are in.”

Versus 15 through 20 have the flavor of a liturgical hymn or canticle that Paul has repurposed for his own use, something he does in many of his letters.  The poetic language has a powerful, cascading effect- it swirls and circles around the work and person of Jesus, inviting us to reconsider what we see when we see Jesus, to contemplate the question of just who Jesus is.  Let’s take some time to return to these six verses, as in a real sense they are our sermon today, and what I will offer you are just some insight on what these verses actually mean.  They read as follows:

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.  (ESV)

What we notice first is that Paul would have us understand that in Jesus we see who God is.  Not what God is like, mind you, but rather who God is. To speak of God as a Christian, first and foremost, is to speak of Jesus Christ.  This can sound elementary, but I assure you, it is not. I had a patient once- a believing and practicing Christian- who nonetheless in the middle of our conversation asked me without irony “Why do you talk about Jesus all the time? Don’t you ever talk about God?”  The truth of the matter is this: our Christology- what we believe about Jesus Christ-  is often fuzzy, even if we are believers.

We may unconsciously assume that Jesus is only the son of God, some kind of deputy or junior version of the real thing.  Indeed, the heretic Arius made much of language like we see in verse 15, where Jesus is referred to as “the firstborn of all creation” to advance his belief that the Christ was actually created being, albeit the most important one.  Let’s deal with that right at the outset: this term translated “firstborn” is not the same Greek word one would use to say “created first.” That’s a different word.  Firstborn suggests priority, or supremacy. It’s an honorific title. In America, we call the president’s wife the  “First Lady,” to bestow honor upon her. It’s not the case that anyone believes that Melania is the first woman who has ever been created. So think of it that way.

In Jesus, we see who God is. Jesus is the one who reveals God in his very person.  In the Gospel of John, this truth hits us right between the eyes again and again: John 14:9, where Jesus says if you have seen him, you have seen the Father; John 12:41, where we were told quite plainly that Isaiah saw Jesus and spoke about him; John 8:56, where the testimony is that Abraham himself saw his day and was glad.  Indeed, we can go so far as to say that in our first reading today, at the Oaks of Mamre, Jesus himself was involved in the promise of a son for Abraham.  Mysteriously, he promises his own ancestor! He is the God who Moses encountered, with whom Jacob wrestled at the river Jabbock, the one who walked in the cool of the garden with our first parents.  This can be hard to understand, because we are time-bound, we think linearly.  But while we are time bound, God is not. “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.”  Jesus is “the was, the is, and the is to come” as the Book of Revelation proclaims.  To be a Christian at all, to be faithful to the biblical witness, is to confess this “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation… for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in the Son.”

Because he is God in this way, we also confess that Jesus is the creator. Verse 18 refers to him as “the beginning,” deliberately calling to mind both the prologue of John “In the beginning was the Word… All things were created by him and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created,” (John 1:1,3, NET) and also the opening words of our Scriptures: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth.” (Gen 1:1, NET).  Now, we often unconsciously attribute creation to the Father, or perhaps the Spirit, but if a mystery of the Trinity means anything to us, it must also mean this: Christ is the Creator, too.  Anglican bishop and scholar NT Wright says the following:

 Jesus Christ, says the poem boldly, is the one through whom and for whom the whole creation was made in the first place. This isn’t just a remarkable thing to say about an individual of recent history (which shows how very quickly the early Christians came to see Jesus as one who had been from all eternity the agent of the father in making the world). It is also a remarkable thing to say about the ‘natural’ world. It was his idea, his workmanship. It is beautiful, powerful and sweet because he made it like that. When the lavish and generous beauty of the world makes you catch your breath, remember that it is like that because of Jesus.

Hear also Saint Augustine:

“Before Abraham I am”; that’s what he said himself, the Gospel speaks. Listen to it, or read it. But that’s little enough, being the creator before Abraham; he’s the creator before Adam, creator before heaven and earth, before all the angels, and the whole spiritual creation, “thrones, dominions, principalities and powers,”  the creator before all things whatsoever. (Sermons 290.2)

Slain from the foundation of the world, all things were created through him- and for him.  We are the sphere in which he passionately exercises his purposes, love, and authority. Verse 17 tells us that all things are continually being held together in him: that, as Anglican priest and New Testament scholar, Michael Bird reminds us: Christ is the reason there is a cosmos instead of chaos

Now, it is one thing to joyously affirm Jesus as creator when we look at the beauty of the world, but what are we to say about the brokenness, the dysfunction, the evil we also see?  Paul does not leave us hanging with this unanswered question. In verse 20, Jesus is also confessed as the one who has authority to reconcile our wayward reality with God by means of the blood of his cross.  He himself is the reconciler, and the author of a new creation.  Katalasso is the greek word we translate as “ to reconcile all things.” What it really means is “to exchange hostility for a friendly relationship.” Because he is God, Jesus has the authority to affect this reconciliation, to give us a chance to begin again.  And it’s not just us: the object of reconciliation is not merely human beings, but all things, which gives reconciliation a cosmic scope as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” Bishop Wright puts it this way:

the living God has now acted to heal the world of the wickedness and corruption which have so radically infected it. And he’s done so through the same one through whom it was made in the first place. This is the point of the balance in the poem. The Jesus through whom the world was made in the first place is the same Jesus through whom the world has now been redeemed. He is the firstborn of all creation, and the firstborn from the dead.

The firstborn from the dead.  Lastly, we need to consider Paul’s confession in these verses of Jesus as the prototype for what it really means to be human.  When we look at Jesus, we don’t just see who God is, we see who we were meant to be all along.  Instead of remaining dead in our trespasses, Jesus shows us what it really means to be people who are alive “in Him.”  The church father St. Gregory of Nyssa phrases it like this:

he is also a “beginning.”… But what benefits do we derive from believing that he is the beginning? We become ourselves what we believe our beginning to be. (On Perfection.)

We become what we believe our beginning to be.  So often, we settle for second best.  Abraham and Sarah, so old as to be as good as dead, could not quite believe the promise. Sarah laughed at the idea that she would have a son. But she did.  Martha in our Gospel reading, so distracted by her work, so consumed in her hospitality, so driven by her need to do something good for Jesus, could not quite trust in the fact that Jesus had come to do something good for her- that she could simply abide in him. Jesus reminds her- and us- that, beneath all our worries and troubles, lies an invitation to relationship, to grace, and to love. In our doubts, our anxieties, our struggles and our arguments, we so often either fall back on the fatalism that says “this is just the way it is” or on our own efforts, saying “I can make this better if I just work really hard.” We define ourselves over against our “enemies,” and we are often unrelenting in our fight for our rights, our politics and our possessions.  In all of this, I would say to you that we settle for second best.  If who Jesus is means anything at all, part of his revelation to us is that we don’t have to live in despair, striving, or fearful contention.  We are invited to become fully human “in him.”

So, in it’s totality, what can we say that this passage actually means for you and me today?  Earlier, I suggested that even practicing Christians today have a fuzzy Christology.  Later, in chapter 2 of Colossians, Paul will warn the believers there not to give into “ empty, deceitful philosophy.”  Ideas, you see, have consequences- particularly when we are dealing with revealed truth.  We live today in an anti-theological age. So many Christians now see little value in doctrine, even when it’s contained in the Bible.  “ I just want a simple faith,” so many say, “I don’t care about all that stuff.” And yet we must. For if we do not believe, teach, and confess what we have received, Jesus can become an empty shell into which the spirit of the age can pour whatever perverse and alien philosophy it chooses to sell us. Honestly, I think it’s safe to say that we see that happening today, which is why this letter and especially this passage are so relevant to us.

Paul would have the Colossians- and us- know and confess the truth about Jesus, “the Him that we are in.” He is God, and there is no other.  Creation is no mere fluke, no random chance, but the canvas on which he has purposefully painted his beauty, truth, and goodness for everyone to see.  It may be broken, defaced by sin and death, but Jesus has paid the heavy price for what we have done to both it and to ourselves. The reconciliation has been accomplished. It is finished, a new creation is being born in our midst- and it starts right here in the church.  As believers, we are invited to abide in him, to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit as we are nurtured by his means of grace, and to realize the Christ isn’t done with us or with any of this just yet. We don’t have to doubt, to worry, to strive and to scheme, or to settle for a second best. He is making all things new. That’s the truth we must confidently adhere to, and lovingly share with the whole world.  What we need to understand, in the words of Lutheran pastor and professor Richard Lenski, is this:

“The cross affects all creation.”