Colossians Pt. 1: Mystery and Power

Christ is it. Nothing else. Just Jesus. That's Paul's point in the opening chapters and verses of Colossians. The Colossians were being challenged in what they've been taught as the 'mystery of the gospel' being revealed to them. They were taught that it began and ended with Jesus, but now there were those who were challenging this mystery. They were saying, in fact, that there were more mysteries...that Christ was just the beginning (2:18, 20-23).

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The word 'mystery' has great significance in the book of Colossians. At the time of its writing mystery had to do with greater and greater spiritual experiences. The more 'experiences' you had the more the mystery was unlocked (2:18). The experiences were not to exalt god but rather to hold it over the heads of the people who had NOT had the experience. It was to make them feel inferior and certainly less spiritual. It was an exercise of power.

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Christ is the source of creative power (1:16). The passage our church is trying to memorize throughout this series on Colossians (1: 15-20) tells of the powers of this world...and how Christ is BEFORE them all. These things (1:16) in and of themselves are a shadow of power (2:17). The Roman empire which is ruling at the time of this letter was a shadow of power. The vast forms of spirituality of the day were all shadows of power. The key to understanding power was that the power is power to LORD OVER others. The mystery of the challengers of the Colossian Christians was to lord over them and make them feel inferior. Here again we confront the thought of power as something to be used against others.

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Not so with Jesus. The mystery of Christ was power not used to lord over but to bring freedom and liberation (1:13-14; 2: 9-12, 14, 15). He doesn't use power to condemn us but to free us...to reconcile us and the world to God (1:20). And herein we see one of the first things we must take note of about the book of Colossians: the difference in the understanding of power.

Hope Full

One becomes hopeless when his eyes are taken off Christ and focused inward on himself. One becomes hopeless when he looks at the chaos of the world without the prospect of redemption. The troubles of this life are too great for an individual to bear. In fact, I'm not sure we were meant to bear them at all. The weight is too heavy and must be bore by the shoulders of God. Whether it be the troubles of the day or the wars of the world - no individual can handle these things on their own, nor were they meant to.

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The human life, then, become about trust, faith, and perseverance.

Trust in God over and above self, institutions, governments, money, or anything we rely

upon for our sustainability that is in and of itself not sustainable.

Faith in that we are calling things that are not as though they are - believing in the unseen -

peace instead of war, love instead of hate, justice over injustice.

Perseverance in that we continue to live out the life of Christ in the midst of surrounding

death.

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To surrender to the evils of ourselves and the world destroys the flicker of light that represents hope - hope for our own lives and for those who depend on our light to see - for they would not know how to see through the darkness and tragedies of our world without the small light we boldly, yet frailly, carry.

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Therefore let us carry this light in faith that Christ will magnify it, that the darkness would flee, and all may find hope.

Things Have a Price, but No Value

I was watching CNBC the other morning (don't tune me out yet!) and one of the commentators said something very telling, and in some ways, a bit scary. This is a paraphrase of what he said:

"Very few things have a value, they just have a price that people are willing to pay for it."

So it struck me that there is little value in what we deem valuable. Houses have fluctuated in their worth depending on the market for them. We've seen oil come down over 2 dollars a gallon in the last few months. Food prices seem to be going up a bit. While my wife and I were Christmas shopping on Thanksgiving weekend (Saturday...not Black Friday) many of the stores we went into were holding sales of 70% off. Why? My thought, at least, is because the psychology of the market is pegging us as much less willing to spend. This is in stark contrast, supposedly, as to not long ago when people were blowing money on anything and everything and therefore getting themselves into debt buying things they didn't need. So the price on the 'stuff' comes down, because we're not willing to pay for it...or as much anyway.

So if those types of things hold a price, there are certainly those things that are valuable, even though they can't be measured in dollars and cents....relationships, marriages, children, etc. Those things the good ol' MasterCard commercials would call priceless. These are things you can't assign worth to because they are beyond any sense of compensation. Their value is immeasurable.

So if we look at the things that hold a price tag, would it be fair to say purchasing these things ought to hold little worth in our life? I'm talking more about the above and beyond things more than the gallon of milk. When we think about what we purchase for ourselves, it adds little value to our life. In some instances it may take away from the value of our lives. What we buy may steal valuable time from honest and intimate relationships.

There are things in this life that do hold value...invest in those things...give yourself to them. You will find that they are greater than you. You will not be able to possess them because they are not something to be owned but treasured. After you're done reading this, look upon your spouse, child, friend, or neighbor that way...as someone with immeasurable value whose worth can never be determine and whose well being is worth giving yourself for.

Peace.