Scripture of the Day
"He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." -- Colossians 1:17
Reflection
The writer Calvin Miller once observed that our problem is this: we usually discover Jesus within some denominational framework, some cultural context, some limited encounter -- and having caught a small glimpse, we paint him in smaller strokes. We reduce the Lion of Judah, as Miller put it, to something more like a kitten.
This is a temptation in every generation. We encounter Jesus through a particular tradition, a specific community, a formative set of experiences -- and we mistake our partial view for the whole. The Jesus of our Sunday school becomes the full Jesus, when in fact we have barely begun to comprehend him.
Colossians describes a Jesus so vast that the imagination strains to hold him: the image of the invisible God, the one through whom all things were created -- things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones and powers and authorities. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Every blade of grass, every galaxy, every moment of history -- held together in him.
That is not a Jesus who fits comfortably into our preferred categories. He is always larger than our latest understanding of him. The anointed life is, in part, a life of continually expanding our vision of who Christ is -- refusing to let our experience of him become the ceiling of what he actually is.
Question for Personal Reflection
In what ways might you have painted Jesus in strokes that are too small -- reduced him to fit your comfort or experience?
Action Step
Read Colossians 1:15-20 aloud as a prayer of worship, letting the scope of who Jesus is land on you.
Prayer
Lord, you are larger than our categories and grander than our traditions. Expand our vision of you. Make us people who keep discovering how much more you are. Amen.
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