we're more than messengers... we are the message

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So this morning, out of fairness, I temporarily changed time back from “Daylight Savings” to  ”But we still need that hour’s sleep.”

There was nothing we could do but go along with the absurdity Saturday night, seeing as showing up an hour late to church Sunday morning isn’t a viable option when you’re the preachers’ family. But when the alarm went off this morning it dawned on me that a short-term realignment to Central Time – or even Mountain Time – could be a great idea.

I understand the utility of the idea of measurable time, but that doesn’t mean we can’t step out of it when it suits us. However, like so much that we have designed for our own benefit, we have become slaves to – rather than masters of – time.

UNBOUNDED FREEDOM! I thought about this (as much as my sleep-deprived brain allowed!) at my Sunday-morning study group, EveryDay Christianity. This week we discussed the Letter to the Colossians. As a “read-through,” Colossians is one of the most beautiful literary works in the Bible. Then, verse-by-verse, it is packed with pithy take-aways.

My first take-away is this, and it’s the passage I used as the cornerstone to “The Unmaking of a Part-Time Christian” (2008):

Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules?  (Colossians 2:20)

Here’s what’s in my mind and spirit as I begin this new week: I’m remembering that I live in the unbounded freedom that is mine as a Child of the Living God. I am not bound by the paralyzing constraints of a world hobbled by unrealized redemption.

This concept is huge, and – of course – it has very little to do with sleeping in a couple of hours to thumb my nose as Daylight Savings Time. But the idea is essentially the same. As Children of the Living God, “why do you live as if you still belonged to the world?” (NRSV)

WE ARE THE HOPE OF GLORY! My second “take-away” from Colossians is this:

God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)

The way God has chosen/is choosing to make things clear to the world is through you, and through me. “Christ in you” is “the hope of glory.” In other words, we are not only the messengers, but also the message. The quality of the message is equal to the extent that Christ is revealed in and through our lives.

My essential thought for today’s post, then, is this. We can either live as though we still belong to the world… or we can be a living message; Christ in us, the hope of glory.

- DEREK