You Have Received Christ
January 5, 2014 | Anita Retzlaff
“Grace to you and peace from God our Father!” I greet you on this Sunday of Epiphany with that greeting of Paul's to the Colossians some 2000 years ago. We observe Epiphany today, the coming of the light: the journey of the Wise Men following the star to Bethlehem and meeting Jesus there. For us, this is also the first Sunday of our New Year – 2014. In our culture it is a time when people enter into an, as yet, unblemished year with resolutions to live a better life; to exercise more, to eat less, pay more attention to family, work less, to be thriftier and for some who want to kick the habit, to quit smoking. Just look at the advertising around us right now and you will see all of the supports that we can hire and purchase to help us with our resolutions to live successfully and to look the part.
Paul’s letter to the Colossians is a great New Year’s message. It is not about resolutions to lose weight but about reminders of how to act in the world because of the Good News that came to light at Epiphany. I would encourage you to go home and read the Book of Colossians. It is merely 4 chapters long. Read it in a couple of translations and get a feel for the community and the energy that is present there. My impression of the people who followed Jesus in the city of Colossae is that they were people very much like us. They seem to be a community trying hard to be faithful to The Way of Jesus and enhance their spiritual lives in whatever ways they can. Paul’s correspondence to them is an encouraging word and a warning not to be side-tracked or conned or bullied into doing a host of “religious” or “churchy” things in order to try to prove their worthiness.
Paul is direct and I appreciate Eugene Peterson’s translation in the Message. That is what you find printed in your bulletins today. Paul says, “You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him.” This is positive encouragement. Paul isn’t scolding the people but rather reminding them that, yes indeed, they have decided to follow Jesus and so they are absolutely and completely included in the fullness of Jesus’ love; in salvation. There is nothing more that they need to do. However, now that they are awash in divine love, accepted, forgiven and treasured; they must get out there and live like this is so! Here is our New Year’s message. Get out there and live like you have received Christ. “If you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ;” says Paul, “act like it.” I don’t think you can get more direct that…. but what does it mean?
Paul says in a nutshell, “Go out and live your lives with gratitude and love.” As Peterson translates in 2:7, “Let your living spill over into thanksgiving.” In chapters 3 and 4 he encourages everyone to treat each other with love and respect in all of their relationships. And in terms of knowing how to act: “Look up and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that is where the action is.” (3:2)
Today that means we must be wary of the ways in which, on behalf of the church, we tend to exclude others, make membership rules that don’t fit, have attendance expectations that are prohibitive for some and plan everything around money. Of course we have responsibilities around finances and governance but those are not our primary missionary activities. “You have received Christ – go out and live it!” Our primary function is to live in thanksgiving and to go out and be Christ-like in the ordinariness of our days: not perfect human beings but compassionate ones, healing ones and hopeful ones.
We acknowledge our thankfulness on this Epiphany Sunday in the service of communion of which we are all invited to be a part. Our New Year’s reminder from Paul is that we are already insiders because of what Christ has already gone through for us, destroying the power of sin. “All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross… God brought you alive along with Christ.” (2:15ff.) So, we are free to come to the table of our Lord today, with gratitude and with the complete knowledge that we have received Christ because Christ has first received us. Thanks be to God.
