10 Jul Wednesday

Christ is first of all creation, and because He is the Word of God, and creation came from the Word, all creation is created “in” him. This little “in” seems to connect with the “in” language of John’s Last Supper speeches, especially chapter 17, where the church is exhorted to “remain in Christ.” To step out of that “in”-dwelling is almost as if to step out of creation, and therefore into chaos, into the darkness outside of the light of Christ.

The next truth is that Christ “holds all things together”, the glue of creation, if you will. Opposite to this, the modern person thinks that the individual holds one’s own self together. We use that phrase, “Get it together!” Christ is also the head of the body the Church. In a culture of headless horsemen individualism, there is no head. “All the fullness was pleased to dwell” is a highly technical philosophical word in Greek.

But it is the last verse, at the core of the kerygma, is the work of Christ; all that came before regards his the nature of his being, which authorizes him to do the work, and the work is reconciliation by means of the bridge that connects heaven and earth, — blood. Blood is life, and life is from God. This bridging which is blood binds and reconciles the two worlds when they step out of the participation of being “in” Christ. This peace, this reconnection, this restoration, this redemption is the work of Christ through his precious blood. When we see and experience the blood shed of the post-modern world, we glimpse the chaos and the disconnect, and we all truly feel powerless to do anything about it. Hence the divine intervention/incarnation of Christ to work through his precious blood the bridging back to God. On the other hand we tend to think of peace as the result of some sort of diplomacy and compromise. Reconciliation is not diplomacy.