"I am now rejoicing in my
sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh
I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the
sake
of his body, that is, the church." (Colossians 1:24)
This strange verse has puzzled generations of preachers. It is
strangely comforting and strangely challenging. It suggests that
if we, too, follow the example of the apostle Paul, who was
martyred for the faith, we might realistically expect
"afflictions." We don't really want to go that way. The verse
also suggests (and this is the comforting part) that there is
purpose in our afflictions: the things we endure that we had
rather not, may, in God's good purpose, achieve positive
ends.
Why do 1 speak of Paul as already martyred for the faith? There
is evidence that the letter to the Colossians was written
"pseudonymously," some time after Paul's death. A disciple of
Paul wrote what he believed Paul would want to say to the current
generation if he were still living. And in a sense he was
still living, through his continuing influence, and through his
genuine letters.
On the wall of my study hangs a pen-and-ink portrait of Martin
Luther, pioneer of the Protestant Reformation. Underneath his
formidable head the artist has inscribed in Latin, Not that I
am dead but that I live and declare the works of God. In that
sense the letter to the Colossians is a work of St Paul, who
lives on to this day.
But back to the strangeness of the text. The Church has
always had a problem with the idea of completing what is
lacking in Christ's afflictions. Didn't Christ make on the
cross the "one, true, pure, immortal sacrifice?" Wasn't his
offering "once and for all," sufficient to redeem all the sins of
the world and to “save us all from sin and death
when we had gone astray?"
And here is Colossians saying, "Yeah, well, not quite. Paul had
to give his life for the faith; and you, and those you love, are
invited to help complete what is lacking in Christ's
afflictions ...
You may know of the young German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
subject of a recent television documentary. In April 1945 he was
hanged for his part in the plot to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer
had written a book called The Cost of Discipleship. There
he distinguished between "cheap grace" (the idea that Christ had
done all necessary to
win salvation, and our lot was to enjoy the fruits of his
victory) and "costly grace." Concerning costly grace Bonhoeffer
wrote, "When Jesus Christ calls you, he bids you come and
die."
That becomes serious stuff when this bespectacled academic goes
on to practice what he has preached. And it is in accord with
everything Jesus himself has said, about following him and taking
up the cross. God's call to each of us, though not as dramatic as
that of the man who died as the victorious Allied forces were
already rolling across
Germany, is just as real. There are afflictions to be
endured, and in a sense we go on like Paul to complete, what is
lacking in the afflictions of Christ.
How are we to bear such a call? The answer comes from this letter
to the Colossians and elsewhere in the New Testament. We
endure as seeing the One who is invisible namely God (Heb:
11:27).
Consider the verses that precede our text. They constitute a long
hymn of praise to God who has rescued us from the power of
darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his
love (Col. 1: 13).
The hymn continues in praise of the Son:
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.......
All things have been created through him and for him. (Col.
1:15f)
Do you see
what a bold move the writer to the Colossians has
made? The hymn was originally have been in praise of the creative
power of God, and the letter to the Colossians is now insisting
that in Jesus Christ the world saw that creative power brought to
a shining focus in one human life.
We, for
ourselves, have seen God's creative power
in a winter
sunset,
in a roaring sea,
on the surface of the ocean where whales play,
or on a starlit night in the inland,
or from a mountain top while looking to an infinite
distance,
or in the miracle of a baby's eyes.
These
things can lead the human soul to worship the greatness
of God who holds all things together in vibrant unity. The
mystery grows when we study the physical and biological sciences.
As one originally educated in the sciences, 1 believe that there
have been no scientific discoveries in our time inconsistent with
the idea of God, properly conceived. That the universe has
evolved over billions of years from one explosive point of
enormous creative energy can hardly be doubted. The task for us
as Christians is to get the idea of God's creative power
right:
true to the
facts of our own experience,
true to the best human knowledge available to us,
and true to the witness of faith that we have received through
the Scriptures
and the traditions of the Church.
Our task,
more importantly, is to worship. For it is in
worship and praise that we are made whole. To worship is to
contemplate God's loving kindness and cosmic wholeness (holiness
is another word for it) and thereby to be blessed ourselves with
wholeness.
If we see God's holiness in the starry skies or in the miracle of
a baby's eyes, the New Testament asks us to see it even more
clearly in Christ and his cross. When we look at Christ we are
enabled to find a place for our own afflictions in God's cosmic
purposes.
There is a passage in the Book of Revelation where the seer has a
vision of heaven:
a great
multitude_ . . from every nation, from all tribes
and peoples an
languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed
in white,
with palm branches in their hands.
They are
worshipping God with a loud voice, and the seer
discovers that:
These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they
have
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb...
They will hunger no more,
And thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
for the lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life.
The hymn in Colossians sees Christ as the firstborn of all
creation (1: 15). He is the preexistent one, the "wisdom" or
"word" of God who was at God's right hand at the first creation
and has continued in all subsequent creativity. He is also the
firstborn from the dead (1:18J. He is the pioneer and
perfecter of our faith (Heb. 122) who leads the way for all
of us into resurrection.
It is a great mystery. The letter to the Colossians refers to the
mystery as Christ in you, the hope of glory (1.. 2 7).
By knowing Christ within us as our hope of glory, we Christians
are enabled to endure what Paul himself calls our slight
momentary afflictions as preparing us for an eternal
weight of glory beyond all measure (2 Cor. 4:17).
How do Christians do that? We do it by seeing the life and the
agony and death of Jesus as a parable of our common human
experience. When we look at the cross, we find a new
understanding of our own situation. All the things that happen to
us begin to compose themselves into a picture in which the
self no longer occupies the centre.
(H.R. Niebuhr)
We begin to see the tragedies that strike our own lives composed
into a great mosaic. At close hand, the tiny tiles that make up
the mosaic may have little beauty of their own. Only viewed from
a wide perspective does the design become clear.
If we face tragedy and loss, we find that we are not frightened
and alone, but agonising together with Christ in Gethsemane. We
find ourselves lifted and carried by the wider picture. There is
indeed betrayal; there are false accusations and the innocent
suffer and bleed. There are crowns of thorns to be worn, and
nails to bear. All of that, in St Paul's words, is to be crucified
with Christ. (Gal. 2:19) We suffer not alone,
but in the company of Christ and all the saints in heaven.
Moreover, in the total picture there is a time when we walk with
Mary Magdalene in the garden, and encounter the one whom we
thought was dead.
As we look at the cross of Christ, and see beyond the cross, the
total picture -- the total mosaic -- grows and reaches beyond the
physical boundaries of this present world to embrace heaven
itself.
*****
My brother recently edited a collection of poignant letters
sent home during World War 1. The writer was our mother's brother
Frank. At the age of
nineteen Frank, one of those who “went with songs to the
battle" was blown up on the Somme. 1 was reminded of another
relation from that generation, a little bit younger than Frank.
As a teenager he had considered the ordained ministry. For a week
during the war he accompanied the local minister on his rounds
"to get a feel of the thing," and found himself going from one
bereaved household to the next. He said, “I couldn't do it,
and gave up all ideas of the ministry"
As for myself, I was the minister at St Andrew's in Bendigo for a
long time. There was much documentary evidence for that period to
be found in boxes of old papers. There was also a stained glass
window in memory of the then minister, Jimmy Crookston, who had
served for a while as chaplain and had then come back to the
parish because the need was great there, too. Under Jimmy's
window was the simple notice, "He preached Jesus and the
resurrection."
That was the need at the time. It is, of course, the need in
every age: Christ in you, the hope of glory.
___________________________________________________
A sermon presented
by the Rev Dr Stuart Murray at St Aidan's Uniting Church North Balwyn,
on 18th July, 2004.
IT MAY BE
REPRODUCED WITH ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
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