July 21: Amos 8:1-12 Psalm 52 Col 1:15-28 Luke 10:38-42
Reflection on Col 1:15-28:
This is cosmic big picture stuff! The Big Bang and Evolution claim that time and chance produced the universe and life – a mere random process. This passage makes a different claim: By the Son, the second person of the Trinity, all things were created: through him and for him. Random things do not cohere, but in him all things hold together – make sense. Human agency has a tendency to unravel this coherence – the bible calls it being God’s enemies. And this person in whom all things hold together “made peace with the blood of his cross” reconciling all things to himself. Indeed good news and a mystery.
And yet such a proclamation produces suffering. Paul “in [his] flesh completes what is lacking in Christ’s affliction for the sake of his body, that is the Church.” How much are we prepared to suffer in the proclamation of a counter-cultural good news? Do we, too, want to “present everyone fully mature in Christ” (cf Col 1:28), as Paul does?