Biblical Texts: Colossians 1v15-20; Luke 10v38-end

Some documents are foundational to who we are, so important that if we were lose them we’d really be in trouble. Recently my wife was applying for Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK, and we spent a lot of time making copies of our birth certificates, marriage certificate, passports and anything else that could help us show we were who we claimed to be. Most of us here I expect have similar documents. Like it or not, they’re important, because they help give us an identity that is distinct from others. In some cases these documents can be life-changing – passports give us new possibilities of where we can travel, marriage certificates testify not just to a change in status, but potentially a very different way of life. It’s important we take good care of them, and life gets complicated if they get lost, or forgotten.

This passage in Paul’s letter to the Colossians is one of those documents for Christian belief. Of course, the whole witness of scripture is vital to our understanding of God, but this short section of Colossians is, I think, a foundational text. We forget it, or ignore it, at our peril.

You can see at the beginning of Paul’s letter that the church in Colossae is perhaps doing better than many of the New Testament churches. You can tell because Paul’s introduction is friendly and encouraging, pointing to the work of Epaphras, who we think founded the church, and the letter itself is an encouragement to hold fast to Christ as the one who is both sufficient and supreme for the church.

We could probably spend hours unpacking the reading we heard this morning, but I want to spend a little time focusing on Colossians 1v15-20, because in that brief section Paul gives us an incredibly succinct summation of who Christ is and how he fits into our faith.

vv.15-17 – “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

We often wonder what God is like, and here we have our answer. One translation helpfully phrases it like this, “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.” No one has seen God, but people have seen Christ. We have eye-witness accounts of those who walked and talked with Jesus. If we want to know what God is like, we look at Jesus. He is God.

And he is the firstborn of all creation. It’s easy to get confused here. Paul, well before the Nicene Creed was written, is affirming a central point of the Jesus part of that creed. Jesus, in his divinity, is the firstborn of all creation. But…as the next part of the verse makes clear, he is not part of creation. Christ himself is not a “thing,” but all “things” were created through him and for him. There is nothing that exists that was not brought into being through Christ and for Christ.

But what does that mean for us? It means that Christ is our source of life. If all things were created through and for him, then so are we, and we can only hope to find our unity and purpose in him. Augustine’s famous words ring true, “Our souls are restless until they find their rest in you.”

v.18a – “He is the head of the body, the church”

The reason that we are meeting together every Sunday is Christ. We might often say that the church is not the building, but the people, and of course that is right…but as people of the church we are only the church because we are the body of Christ. We exist only by the power of his spirit dwelling within us. And if we wonder who is ultimately in charge, it’s not the rector, the bishop, the Archbishop, or even the PCC, it is Christ.

v.18b –  “…he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.”

When Paul mentions Christ is firstborn from the dead, he is talking about the resurrection. Christ goes before us in every way, therefore we have no need to fear. And because he has gone before us in defeating death, we can be assured of victory over death through him. Perhaps here we think of Paul’s words in Romans, “I am convinced that neither death nor life…nor anything else in all creation, can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

v.19 – “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”

Again here we see the foundations for the creed, and for some of the theology of what it means to have a God who is three in one. When we talk of Christ, we are not talking of a lesser God. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. When we worship God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, there is no need to add anything, or anyone else. Christ is sufficient. If he can sustain the whole of creation, surely he is able to sustain us both individually and as a church.

v.20 – “…and through Him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

And finally Paul points to Christ’s action on the cross. When we needed reconciliation with God, we did not achieve it through our own works, nor even through our prayers, but through the self giving love of Christ. It is not our initiative, but God’s, that has reconciled heaven and earth. All creation groans, says Paul, as it waits for the children of God to be revealed, but the reconciliation has already taken place through the person of Christ.

There is plenty more to say about this passage, I’ve only touched the surface of 5 verses. But let us end on this: the Christ through whom and for whom all things were created, the Christ who rose from the dead and goes before us, and the Christ in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, is the same Christ who sat in Mary and Martha’s house, and the Christ who invites us to this Eucharistic table together. He is our hope and our salvation. Amen.