Good Friday
Through
Death (Colossians
1:13-22; 2:9-15)
When I entered seminary to prepare for
pastoral leadership, I was asked to write the gospel in a sentence. With my
Sunday School faith I wrote, “Jesus died for my sins.” As I said, it was a
Sunday School kind of answer.
John 3:16 is often quoted as the gospel
in a sentence, “For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall
not perish, but have everlasting life.” The gospel or the good news is that God
loves you and wants you to live with Him forever. But for seminary, something
more was needed. Not everyone is satisfied with simple faith.
On Good Friday it is our custom to
reflect upon the meaning of the cross of Jesus Christ. What is the meaning of
His death for our lives? In the letter to the Colossians, we encounter a much grander
presentation of the gospel. It is a gospel with cosmic proportions. If I were
to put it into a sentence I’d say the good news according to Colossians is,
“God
has mended all things, in relationship to Godself, through the death and
resurrection of Jesus, thereby making all believers complete in Him.”
The key words in that statement need to
be unpacked. Those key words are God,
mended, and complete.
The apostle Paul is credited as the
author of Colossians. Paul explains the good news about Jesus in terms of creation.
The pronoun used to refer to God or God in Christ is used 35 times in these verses in Colossians. God is the main character in this message about Jesus.
And the message says that we were once
held captive by darkness. Like Adam and Eve cast out of paradise, we were
estranged from God, hostile in our minds toward God and doing evil deeds. God
rescued us from the power of darkness.
In the cosmology of the Bible, darkness
has symbolic meaning. It is that primordial nothingness, that sea of barren
waste where no life can exist. The darkness does not wish to be ordered or
controlled. It is by very nature chaos, disorder and lifelessness. Yet the
darkness presents itself as liberty, freedom and autonomy. The voice of
darkness says, “You don’t need to obey the commands of God. You can be your own
God and do as you like.” Under the influence of darkness, we lived selfishly
and sinfully, estranged from the source of life.
But God, in His perfect love, acted to
rescue us from darkness by transferring us from the clutches of chaos and into
a new life lived under the influence of Jesus Christ. Paul describes this new
life in terms of circumcision. Circumcision is the sign in the flesh that one
belongs to God and His chosen people, Israel. But Paul refers to circumcision
only metaphorically when he says that we were circumcised with a spiritual
circumcision. The sign that Christians belong to Christ is we live under the
influence of Christ, free of darkness. We are empowered by God to throw off the
fleshly desires that once led us into empty diversions.
How were we given this power? Through
death. The death of Jesus upon the cross is the death of our former lives under
the influence of darkness. In baptism we remember our death with Jesus. This
leads us to the next key word in my gospel in a sentence, that is the word mend.
God has mended all things, in relationship to Godself, through the death
and resurrection of Jesus.
Paul uses the word reconciled instead of
mended. To reconcile means to change the condition of a broken and constrained
relationship back to one of harmony and peace. In other words, through the
death of Jesus upon the cross, God has mended our relationship with God. Our past lives lived estranged from God and
in bondage to selfish impulses is nailed to the cross with Jesus. Our former
life under the influence of darkness is crucified with Christ. Sin’s power over
us is dead.
You may doubt this as you are aware of
selfish and sinful impulses that continue to taunt you. But as far as God is
concerned you are free. You only need to believe and live into that belief with
greater trust.
Japanese soldier, Hiroo Onoda, finally
surrendered. Cut off from his chain of command, he carried on guerilla warfare
in the Philippines. Leaflets were dropped announcing the end of hostilities,
but he thought it a trick from the Americans. Onoda chose to continue the
fight. In 1974 the Japanese government arranged for Onoda’s former commander to
travel to the Philippians and convince him to surrender. When Onoda finally
laid down his rifle, he wept uncontrollably. For 29 years he had needlessly
battled a war that was already over. The gospel is a victory shout from the
battlefield! Christ has won the war! Now is the end of hostilities! Come out of
your foxholes and live in peace!
The result of this peace with God is the
completion of our lives.
“God has mended all things, in
relationship to Godself, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, thereby
making all believers complete in
Him.”
We are forgiven and freed from darkness.
We are presented to God blameless and holy. No longer limited by darkness, our
lives are now free to pursue fullness in life through our mended relationship
with God. Paul said that God was pleased to reconcile all things to Himself by
making peace through the blood of the cross of Jesus Christ.
Through the death of Jesus, we live in peace with God under the
influence of love.
Through the resurrection of Jesus we rise into new life, everlasting and
complete.
This new life lacks nothing good.
Life in Christ is a complete life, a
satisfied life.
King David points to such a life when he
wrote,
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalm 23:5-6)
in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalm 23:5-6)
We were dead to God and lifeless in our
bodies because of our estrangement from God, but now through God’s effort to
rescue us, we are made alive through Jesus Christ. Whatever spiritual forces of
darkness that once held influence over our hearts and minds, no longer has
power. Christ has triumphed over them in His cross.
If you’ve felt powerless to change
unhealthy habits, this is good news. The power that God exerted to raise Jesus
from the dead is yours through faith! The victory of Jesus on the cross is our
victory over anything that may limit our lives. Because a complete life is lived
in reliance upon Jesus.
Today as we walk the Stations of the
Cross and reflect on the passion of Christ, know that His suffering and death
leads to your freedom and the fullness of life.
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