Sunday, July 20, 2025 – Colossians 1:15-28
This sermon may be better experienced by watching it online, as it incorporated video and music (which are embedded below), as well as contemplative reflection.
Today, we’re going to do something a little different. We’re going to use our eyes, ears, and voices to explore and experience our second reading.
Let me re-read several of the key sentences in that reading.
[Christ Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on 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 himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things…
I became [the body of Christ’s] minister according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints.
Of this text, theologian and pastor Bruce Epperly writes,
Colossians affirms that Christ is the Life of All Things and Each Thing, the infinite is the infinite, creating in us and with us, and calling us to abundant life and creative transformation for ourselves and all creation. To affirm the cosmic Christ is to embrace an ethic of restoration and reconciliation in which the Christ in all things is the Christ in each thing…”
and then he goes on to say:
The deep Christology of Colossians connects theology, ethics, and hope. Christ is the creative and unifying power in the universe, whose energy joins height and depth and everything in between. The reality present in Jesus reveals the moral order of the universe, an order that seeks to reconcile and unify all creation in its wondrous diversity.”
As I mentioned, we’re going to use our eyes, our ears, and our voices. So let’s watch a video from a website that we subscribe to called “The Work of the People.” (not able to be posted here) “The work of the people” is a phrase that has been used to refer to the liturgy. In other words, in the Church, the liturgy is the work of the people. This site offers all kinds of videos for teaching and for worship that are really inspirational, and so we’re going to start with one on the earth as the original sacrament.
Now I’ll slowly repeat key phrases from Paul’s letter and I’d like you to close your eyes, and just let these words wash over you. Allow them to sink into your heart as we pause in silence and then see what bubbles up for you after what we’ve just watched.
for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created
all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things…
[this is] the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints.
Just a reminder here that the Gospel of John tells us that the mystery of the incarnation is not just about the human, historical Jesus who walked the earth for a brief period of time, but goes back to the very beginning of creation, when the “Word became flesh” and “dwelt among us,” or moved into and became the world. This is a big deal, and tells us that we must see Christ, not just in the biblical text, not just in Jesus, not just in the bread and wine at the communion table, but in every thing that exists.
Of course that doesn’t mean that we don’t have evil in the world. But that evil comes from the illusion that we are separate from that Christ field that permeates everything and holds it all together. That illusion of separation leads us to be capable of doing harm to others.
But the incarnational Mystery is everywhere.
Some of you may be familiar with the Gospel of Thomas. It’s a text that was discovered along with several other texts in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. It has no narrative stories about Jesus, just a list of sayings. Although the early church leaders didn’t include this text in the collection we know as the Bible, many scholars believe it is an authentic text.
In the gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, “Cleave a piece of wood, I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there.”
To explore the idea that Christ is in everything and is the cosmic mystery that holds all things together, I’d like to sing a couple of original compositions. The first is called “God-soaked World” – my newest song that I wrote to go along with the keynote address I gave to the Haden Institute conference – and the second is called “We All are Related.” Both speak to this idea that God and Christ are deeply embodied in this world of humans, animals, plants, trees, rocks, and single cell amoebas.
In both pieces, I draw from the work of Alfred North Whitehead, Carl Jung, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, as well as my own scholarship.
This is the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages.
