kingdom and the American college experience. Knowing where you are is the first step in finding your way.
Prayer: God, equip me for my life on the margin between your kingdom and the world. Amen.
5 – First Things First
Colossians 1:15–17 — (15) He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation; (16) 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. (17) He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Occasionally I wore a striped shirt to the university where I worked as an administrator. It reminded me of my role as referee, adjudicating the distribution of limited funds and perks among competing departments and professors. This happened because there was no single, unifying principle, goal, mission, or vision that bound us together. (If there had been, there would have been much less need for anyone to “administer.”)
Today’s passage is a song the early Christian church used—a chorus about Jesus Christ. It is a rave review of many of the great things about him that show him to be the greatest and most powerful thing there ever was (except for God). It is not unlike the praise songs popular today.
Often Christians look forward to a future when Christ will come and bring his kingdom into earthly reality. In fact, that temporal and chronological view is probably the most frequent word picture the New Testament offers. However, here in Colossians we get a spatial orientation. Yesterday you read how God had moved you from one (evil, earthly, fleshly) kingdom into another better one. No waiting; it’s a done deal. The great transformation and liberation has already occurred and you now can explore that new life with a Lord who is cosmic in scope yet makes sense out of everything for each individual person.
This hymn or chorus is full of spatial language. Actually, it’s full of a lot of little words: prepositions. The creation of all things—especially all power—took place “in” Christ. The creation flowed “through” him as agent, so that he put his stamp on all of it. And it is “for” him—directed toward him as goal for use in accord with his purpose. He is “before” all things, in the lead, more important than all, and in the words of the poet T. S. Eliot he is “the still point of the turning world”—at the center. Jesus Christ is the glue that holds everything together.
Prayer: Help me to hold to the center, to Christ, and to know that he is at the heart of all my understanding. Amen.
6 – When Things Fall Apart
Colossians 1:15–17 — (15) He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation; (16) 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. (17) He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Didn’t we read this yesterday? Yes; but in college repetition can really help.
Jonathan Edwards, an early American minister, missionary, and theologian, argued that it was only God’s constant presence that kept the physical universe from collapsing back into the chaotic disorder from which God had ordered it. There is another way to read this idea that “in him all things hold together” that might mean a lot for a college student: that it is in Jesus Christ that things “hold together” in terms of making sense. It is only in Jesus Christ that you can truly and finally understand that things (at least eventually) make sense. Only by locating everything in Jesus Christ can life, death, joy, suffering, past, and future become acceptable.
In his poem “The Second Coming” the Christian poet W. B. Yeats wrote, “Things fall apart/the centre cannot hold.” When there is no center, things do fall apart. In a wry criticism of the American college, Robert Hutchins, the then young and revolutionary president of the University of Chicago, observed that higher education lacked any centering vision or purpose; it went something like this:
Question: What holds the college together?
Answer: The heating system.
In such an environment, is it possible for Christians to know God in a center-less and secular college environment? Paul, writing to Christians who wonder about the relation of Christ to other claimants to your religious faith, quotes an early Christian hymn. The song hails Jesus Christ as primary (“image of the invisible God, first born of all creation”) and as that which integrates everything, holds the entire cosmos together, and gives it all meaning. Everything connects and interrelates in Christ and Christ invites you to participate in that sense-making activity.
The tune of this early hymn may no longer be known, but the central message of a Christ who makes sense of everything is an incredible blessing—especially to anyone in the college experience.
Prayer: It is wonderful to know that Christ puts all the pieces together when things fall apart. Thank you. Amen.
7 – Getting It Together
Colossians 1:18–20 — (18) He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first born from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. (19) For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, (20) 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.
The coach, the teacher, the president—these authority figures are important to the running of a college. If any of them leaves, there is a vacuum. And vacuums demand to be filled. Fast. A replacement is necessary for stability, for things to make sense and feel right. Of all the college employees whose leaving creates critical vacuums, athletic coaches are the best (or is it worst?). Particularly urgent to replace are the football and men’s basketball coaches. Alumni want to know what will happen to the team for the next season. Student athletes need to have a new father figure . . . quickly. The press wants news.
Fortunately Christians will not be threatened by a vacancy at the top. Christ’s tenure is secure because of his resurrection, and we are not vulnerable to any leadership change crisis. In this early Christian hymn, the focus has shifted from the cosmic Christ (verse 15) to a more personal level—God’s desire that you and God be reconciled. The facts about Christ and his cosmos are now tied personally to you through a historical event (the cross) and the community of the church (body of Christ).
Opening this letter with such a positive affirmation of his readers and of the positive and absolutely cosmic scope of the work of Jesus Christ (from creation to reconciliation) is such good news. It is like a welcome sign just for you at the gate of your college. Studying this letter should produce a lot of strengthening to your faith and some specific answers to some of the many challenges to a Christian student in college.
Prayer: God, help me get my head around Jesus’ cosmic creativity and his work on the cross. Amen.
8 – Lord, When Was I a Mad Scientist?
Colossians 1:21–23 — (21) And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, (22) he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him—(23) provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel.
The mad scientist is (usually, thank goodness!) fictional and is often portrayed in bad movies where his diabolical plot to take over the world issues from a genius-level IQ gone berserk. By contrast, college folks tend to think of the mind as good. The Greek philosopher Plato (427–347 BCE) is an early advocate of the view that the mind is the essentially good core of humans. In college circles it is pretty much assumed that the mind has great potential.
You are the intellectual great-grandchild of the Western philosophical tradition (Plato and company), the grandchild of the Enlightenment (Kant and company) and the child of modernism. Part of the inheritance you share with your predecessors is an enormous confidence in human reason. The founders of those traditions