At Chicago International Church we are enthusiastically preparing to celebrate Christmas, less than one week away now. I have been preaching through the Advent narrative in the Gospel of Luke this month, and this Sunday we come to the actual birth story of Jesus, told with remarkable brevity in contrast to other parts of the story, such as the experiences of Zechariah and Elizabeth (the parents of John the Baptist) and Mary (the mother of Jesus, and even the Shepherds to whom a heavenly host of angels sing the birth announcement! As I have been meditating on the identity of the baby born in such humble circumstances, I am reminded about the overall Scriptural claims about who Jesus really is.
In Colossians 1:16-17, Paul states some astounding things about Jesus.
“All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
There are things in those two sentences that might be easy to miss.
“All things” and “through Him” means that everything that exists, from sub-atomic quarks to the souls of human beings, are the creative work of Jesus! None of us are “self-made,” and it is a trick of the mind if we think we shape our own lives and destinies entirely on our own. For even the ability to think, or choose, or grow in any particular way is a gift to us of His own creativity.
“For Him” indicates two truths that may be uncomfortable to accept in our identity obsessed culture. First, it means that we all belong to Him. Any creator has authority over his or her creation, after all. Second, it indicates that we have a pre-defined purpose: to satisfy and glorify He who created us. If that is our purpose, then pursuing our own satisfaction or glory by any other means is not only a sort of rebellion, but is also vain. In other words, we can never actually be satisfied or at peace until we are satisfied and at peace in Him.
“He is before all things.” What a strange way to put things. Paul did not say: “He existed before all other things.” He constructed this sentence with a verb that indicates ongoing state. Paul is expressing that Jesus has an eternal state of existence. Jesus simply is! A subtle sentence, but a claim about Jesus being one person in the triune God-head: the Father, the Son and the Spirit.
“Hold together.” Physicists know the material facts that the parts of atoms adhere to each other by the “how” of electromagnetism. But Paul is clarifying the deeper truth of “why” all things continue to exist instead of simply exploding into nothingness: because Jesus says so! Genesis 1 describes that all things have come into existence by the act of God speaking. Colossians 1:17 is indicating that all things continue to exist because Jesus continues to speak it and will it. The writer of the book of Hebrews clarifies this truth even further when he says of Jesus: “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.” (Hebrews 1:3) In other words, not only were we all created by Jesus, and for Jesus, we also only continue to exist because He is still thinking and speaking and desiring it to be so. His love for us is that profound.
John explains Jesus’ advent and identity more poetically, if even more briefly in the opening poem of his Gospel. He says: Jesus is “The Word who became flesh and came to live among us. We have seen His glory, glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
I hope you enjoy the festivities of giving and receiving gifts this holiday season. But, even more, I hope you encounter the person of Jesus, your Creator who has come to give you the gift of Himself.
Merry Christmas!