Advent Week Two: December 5, 2021

Colossians 1:17

In August of 1945 two bombs were dropped on Japan that literally and figuratively changed our world. First, by dropping those two devices, Allied military leaders estimated that more than one million casualties were avoided. Second, the successful detonation of those bombs began a continuing race for more effective and more powerful weapons.

A few short years later, the USSR successfully launched an object into orbit around the earth. The US, and now many other nations, are able to launch all sorts of objects into space - even space vehicles that can carry people back and forth from orbiting the earth and even the moon.

A few short years later, Civil Rights legislation was passed by the US House and Senate that continues to fuel a debate about race.

50 years ago the US Supreme Court discovered a right that allows a woman to choose to put to death her unborn child. This decision still divides our nation.

Just a few years ago the US Supreme Court redefined marriage - overturning thousands of years of history and basic social practice- by allowing two people of the same sex to marry one another.

I could go on...

Each of those actions raised a similar question: How much longer can our world hold together?

Since early 2020 the entire world has been fighting against an aggressive virus that continues to change. How much longer will things hold together?

There have been so many ‘critical’ moments in history where experts predicted the end of all things. Yet, here we are!

But there is a logic, a coherent story behind life as God has created it.

God’s Story: The Priority of Jesus

This hymn that Paul pulls into his letter to believers in Colossae is a reminder that in the midst of all that we call life, what is of real significance is the way in which God is fulfilling His purposes for Creation.

The letter to these believers is aimed at them in avoiding what Paul calls ‘philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world’ (Col 2:8)

This past week the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments about a case that could modify the Roe v Wade case legalizing abortion. Reading some of the responses to the hearing one might wonder if indeed the world is about to end - and both sides are making that argument!

What’s really at stake is bigger than a court case, though Roe v Wade needs to be overturned. What’s really happening - even if we can’s always see it is this: God is making Himself known, watching over the events unfolding around us as He purposely moves toward His goal of bringing Hsi creation to its rightful place in His kingdom.

A significant and important part of that account is the role of Jesus, the Son of God. In the first stanza of this hymn (vs 15-16) we are reminded that the Son is the exact representation of the image of God.

As God created Adam and Eve in His image, according to His likeness their sin marred that image. In order to reverse the curse of death brought about by sin, One in required who bears the image of God perfectly. This Jesus, the Son, was not unengaged during creation, but was rather an important part of all God spoke into existence.

Here in vs 17 Paul underlines Jesus’ role in the developing story of God.

He, the Son, the One whose birth we celebrate as Christmas has absolute priority.

When Paul writes that Jesus is ‘before all things’ he is establishing a baseline priority. What you and I consider priorities shifts from day to day. Jesus, however, is prior to anything else in our lives. He is more than just ‘first place’ - - everything in our world literally has its orientation to Him.

As we look at what’s going on around us we often wonder - how is Jesus THE priority?

He is prior to everything that exists. Nothing happens apart from His knowledge.

Nothing occurs beyond His permission,

Nothing that is going on is catching Him by surprise. That Jesus is THE priority may surprise those whom the adversary has blinded but it should never surprise us!

This ‘priority’ is a reminder that all of history is moving towards what Paul describes in another of his letters:

1 Corinthians 15:28 HCSB

And when everything is subject to Christ, then the Son Himself will also be subject to the One who subjected everything to Him, so that God may be all in all.

God’s Story: The Purposeful Activity of Jesus

This hymn proclaims that ‘by Him/Jesus all things hold together.’ How is Jesus the One in whom all things cohere, hold together?

We need to remember what Paul was hoping these readers would avoid - see Col 2:8.

Looking at the world through the lenses of philosophy built upon human tradition formed by a dependence on the basic elements of the natural world we would quickly come to a conclusion that the world has gone crazy!

There is nothing that makes sense. Glancing at each days headlines in the newspaper and on social media is all the evidence we need of just how senseless and pointless things appear.

But, put on the lens of Christ’s priority and the purpose of God revealed in and through Jesus Christ.

Now things look differently. It doesn't diminish the absurdness of what occurs. It doesn’t diminish the senselessness of the actions we read about. But seen through the lens of God’s purpose in and through Jesus we begin to see a pattern.

The sin which entered the world through Adam and Eve and brought death can only be reversed by One who bears the image of God perfectly.

Christ’s death on the cross opens for each of us an opportunity to experience a new life - literally the life of Jesus being given to us via the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

This new life - removing the old way of life represented by the first Adam is no replaced with new life.

This new life awakens us to a new way of viewing the world and the things that are happening.

In Paul’s letter to believers in Rome he wrote:

Romans 8:28–30 HCSB

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose. For those He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; and those He called, He also justified; and those He justified, He also glorified.

Notice: only after the curse of death has been reversed by the new life in Christ can we begin to see how al things are indeed working for God’s purposes…which are expressed so clearly by Paul

God’s Story: Priority, Purpose, and You

Your life owes its very existence to the creative power of God.

As a matter of fact, the entire cosmos, the entire created order exists because God spoke all that is into existence.’

God spoke this into existence through Jesus whose birth is the central focus on this season we call Christmas.

This Jesus, whose birth and infancy we celebrate at Christmas, in a relationship with God the Father and God the Spirit is purposefully at work.

When Christians talk as though the events of this world are ‘out of control’ or beyond understanding we ought to quote Col 1:17 to them.

There is nothing in your life that God did not create through Jesus Christ.

There is nothing in your life occuring apart from the purpose of God made accessible in Jesus.

To claim these truths is not to suggest that life is always pain-free or pleasant. Much of what is happening is painful.

If we look closely, though, even the painful events, the circumstances that confuse us, are part of a bigger story - part of God’s story.

For many people in our community Christmas is an event that occurs every year. The birth of Jesus is t celebrated in song, by giving gifts, decorating our homes and businesses.

What it we saw Christmas differently?

Christmas is not the beginning of God’s story. The birth of Jesus is not the beginning of the gospel.

The story God is telling in His creation begins in Genesis 1:1

Genesis 1:1 HCSB

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

God’s story unfolds through His dealing with man and woman - even after they reject Him and seek to build life apart from Him.

God’s story unfolds as He creates a people for His own possession - from the birth of Seth, Adam and Eve’s third son - through Noah, Abraham, and the generations that followed.

God’s story continues in the event that we celebrate at Christmas - the birth of Jesus:

Where God takes on flesh;

Where in Jesus we see the full and complete image of God made real

Where Jesus dies, reversing the curse of sin;

Where God raises Him from the dead into a new and radically different kind of life,

And God’s story continues in my life, your life, and in all who respond to the invitation of Jesus:

to experience forgiveness of sin, freedom from guilt, fully experiencing life as God created it to be

God’s story is still being written as believer like you and me allow God to work in and through us -

inviting others to join us in this journey;

seeking to bring the systems of the world in line with the purposes and plans of God;

and living our own lives with purpose - even when life hurts the most.

Don’t just tell the Christmas story...

by choosing to follow Jesus, be part of God’s story!