Colossians 1:15-23aa
You are holy and blameless. Hard to believe, isn’t it? We know we are anything but, and we’re right. We have done what is wrong and failed to do what is right. And that is why Christ came. That is why the very image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, became the firstborn from the dead. He is the Head, but what is a Head without a Body? And that is where the holy and blameless things comes into the picture. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and not only to dwell, but to reconcile us to himself by making peace by the blood of His cross.
So now holy and blameless is what God has declared you to be. It’s not yours to become. It’s what you now are. We begin in that declaration and we remain in the faith, the gift of God, that receives that declaration through God’s enduring Word of Absolution. It’s in that Absolution we pray God to keep us stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel, because it’s in the One who rose to give it that “all things hold together.”
You have been reconciled to be presented holy and blameless. Everything that would stain, trip you up, pull you back? We have been crucified to that in Jesus, having “peace by the blood of his cross.” Christ is our only Tomorrow. So don’t strive to become. Be. Continue. Continue as what God has declared you to be, not because you became that on your own, and not because you can remain that on your own, but because the Head won’t abandon the Body and your are the Son’s gift to the Father. Who are, after all, to unwrap another’s present, and we are wrapped up securely in Christ.
Wade Johnston
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