“Power to Stand under Pressure”

Colossians 1:15-29

I wince when I walk past the newsstands around Christmas and Easter.  For several years now, Macleans’ Magazine has run stories about Jesus in advance of the Christian holidays.  How can a little publicity be a bad thing?  Well, unfortunately the stories that I have seen have been nothing more than summaries of the ideas of scholars who question the truth of the Scripture’s teaching concerning our Lord.  Invariably the stories cast doubt on the reality of the miracles of Jesus’ virgin birth and resurrection, offering other “reasonable” explanations and accusing early Christians of turning Jesus into a god to be worshipped instead of admiring and following him as a wise man like other great men and women of spirituality.    The articles irritate and anger me because they spread lies about the Lord that lead people farther away from the only One who can save us from life’s greatest danger.  However, the truth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Mary, the Savior of the world cannot be overcome by unbelief masquerading as sound, scholarly thought.  The Bible’s testimony to Jesus is God’s Word, a word that brought all of creation into existence, still sustains it, and truly offers and gives us salvation from sin and the hope of eternal life. 

 There has never been a time in history when the gospel of Jesus has not been questioned and rejected by some who hear it.  Sinful humans resist even God’s work to save them from the sin that is killing them.  Yet God’s saving efforts never stop for our sake.  The apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians as a part of that divine work.  He addressed his Spirit-inspired epistle to a group of Christians who were falling under the influence of a variety of teachers whose instruction was founded more on human philosophy than the Bible.  Like today’s so-called theologians who claim that Jesus was just a good man, these teachers in Colossae were teaching things that clouded the vision of the Colossian Christians to the divine glory of Jesus and the power of His salvation.  Paul wrote, then, to counter the confusing influence of these teachers of human philosophy and reaffirm the faithful confession of Scripture that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of the living God. 

 Paul seems to have believed that the best defense against false teaching was to establish a strong offence, boldly proclaiming Jesus.  He sets out a paragraph that describes Jesus and His mission in such beautiful and triumphant terms that some scholars believe that Paul based his words on an early Christian hymn.  Paul clearly praises Jesus as the Lord of creation and the Savior of humanity. 

 Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.”  As each Roman coin bore the image of Caesar, signifying that the currency was backed by his government, the man Jesus was the perfect expression of His Father, the true God who cannot be seen by human eyes.  Christ’s words, His thoughts, and His acts all gave honest testimony to the nature and will of God.  “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” He told one of His questioning disciples.  Jesus is the true chip off the divine block. 
 
 Our Lord is “the firstborn of all creation.”  Does this mean that Jesus is actually just a creature, though certainly at the top of the heap over us?  The firstborn son in families was the traditional heir, and therefore the one given charge of the affairs of family.  Far from identifying Jesus as a creature here, Paul declares that our Beautiful Savior is the King of Creation, ruling over the universe in power and grace. 

 Paul expands on his description of Jesus in these words: “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. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”   Jesus is the King of creation because He brought all of it into being.  By Him, through Him, for Him and in Him: hear creation’s connection with Jesus.  Stars and centipedes, mountains and mole hills, elephants and arachnids, celebrities and street people, angels and atoms are all the work of Jesus’ nail-pierced hands, or more precisely, the fruit of God’s creative Word.  Jesus is the all-powerful Word of God through which the universe was made and continues to exist.  Glory and honor, praise and adoration now and forever are His.

 And that’s not all!  “ [Jesus] is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”  The Son has existed in union with from eternity with the Father and the Spirit, ruling over their creation, but on the eve of the first century AD, in obedience to the eternal plan of God the Father, by the work of the Holy Spirit, He was conceived as a human being in the womb of the girl from Nazareth named Mary.  In Jesus, the Son united Himself with our race so at odds with Him through sin.  Jesus was born and lived for one purpose: to bring an end to the war between humanity and heaven.  Jesus lived as a man that He might through His holy life and innocent death enable us to live at peace with God now and forever.  On the cross He paid the price that none of us could pay, even if we should all die for our sins.  With Jesus, our sins lay dead in His tomb, and there they remained, but not our loving Lord.  Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.  He proclaimed peace and forgiveness to His disciples, and then He sent them out with the Holy Spirit’s good news that all who believe in Jesus will live in His peace and follow Him in resurrection.  Jesus is our head, the one from whom our life comes, and the one who directs our living in new ways. 

 We aren’t the same sort of people that we were at birth.  We still have everything we had then, but because of our baptism we are more than just the sum of our genetics and our life experiences.  Our lives have been blessed by our Lord who refused to stand aloof from us when we dishonored Him with our violence, shamelessness, and disinterest.  “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
 The world around us tries very hard, and often quite successfully, to distract us from continuing in the faith into which we have been baptized.  It encourages us to let our faith be just one part of our lives, like our likes and dislikes or our ethnicity.  But this is a trick.  How can something that cost Jesus His lifeblood be nothing more to us than an hour a week spent in one of these pews?  Did Jesus rise from the dead just so He could have a front row seat to watch us live our lives for nothing more than our favorite TV shows, sports, or stocks and bonds?  No, our Lord came to change us, to teach us to repent of basing our lives on our wants and wishes that we might pray in faith for His will to be done in and through us.  It is His intent, through the grace that He gives us in His Word and Sacraments, that we should be able to stand before Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit on the last day holy and blameless. 

 So arise each morning to remind yourself that this is another day that the Lord has made for you to live and serve Him with gladness.  Come to worship with this prayer in your heart: “Lord, teach me your ways and show me your paths to walk in.”  Take time to read the Bible privately or with others in your house, and join in opportunities for study and discussion that we take together as a congregation.  Remember and lean on the promises God has made to you.  Adopt the attitudes suggested by His Words.  Practice the behaviors commanded by the Lord.  Then whenever the world tries to convince you that Jesus was just a good religious man and nothing more, you can bear bold witness in song, “Beautiful Savior, King of creation, Son of God and Son of Man!  Truly I’d love thee, truly I’d serve thee, light of my soul, my joy, my crown.”  Amen.