22 Nov Friday

The Colossians is a thanksgiving hymn to the Father, who delivers us into the kingdom of His Son. Then the hymn itself gives adoration to the Sonby naming his qualifications and characteristics making him worthy of this adoration. Christological means that it is a hymn about Christ in his full nature and substance. Because he holds these states of being, he is qualified and authorized “to reconcile all things for him.”

This reconciliation is effected “making peace by the blood of his cross.” I imagine that the cross is the new tree of knowledge and its fruit is not the pomegranate juice of the tree in Eden, but rather his own blood, which we consume in communion of the Eucharist. The language of “blood of his cross” not only suggests his physical body, but implies a poetic image of the cross tree itself bleeding. This is a complex image for the modern person to wrap their imagination around. The question is: how can blood be life giving to say nothing of making and restoring peace?