Complete Care

In this life, when we need help from somewhere, we find out the competence of the provider and the quality of what is supplied. In the Christian spiritual life, we look for healing and rescue from the powers of sin and death, and the one delivering that is God through Christ, the Son of God. Just who is this Son? What does he offer? Strong declarations about the identity of Jesus, the Anointed One, and what we have once joined to him come through Paul’s letter to the Colossians. In the first section of that Epistle we learn how Jesus is to be viewed:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 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. 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, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.  (Colossians 1:15-20)

The extraordinary nature of these assertions begs us to ponder them and repeat them. In the passage, we learn that though God is invisible, Christ is the icon or image of God and that all things were created through him. (verse 15) We learn that everything that God dwells fully in Christ; as the perfect image of God, he is himself, God. (verse 20) Christ is the beginning, before all things, so there never was a time, when the Son did not exist. All reality holds together in him. The path through death into resurrection is assured because he is firstborn from the dead.

We look to this one. In things we cannot do for ourselves, this head of the body is the one to whom we turn. When we put ourselves in his hands, what do we gain? Working backward through the passage below, let’s make a list. We gain rescue and release from the domain of darkness, resulting in the experience of forgiveness. It brings us out of the power of darkness and into the realm of light. In the kingdom of the Son, we gain a share in the inheritance of the ones made holy in the brilliance of God’s light. We are also made strong, not with just any power, but with the glorious power of God, and this prepares us to endure the hardest things that come against us. Notice how St. Paul lists these gains for us who give ourselves to Christ:

May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:11- 14)

What complete care! I love this chapter from Colossians. Between All Saints Day, Nov. 1, and Thanksgiving Day later, these verses come to us on the Last Sunday after Pentecost. How fittingly it teaches us for what to be thankful and how with all the Saints we share in God’s generosity.