Central United Church
“Living Well”

A sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Christine Jerrett at Central United Church on November 21, 2010 (Reign of Christ Sunday).

Scriptures: Colosssians 1: 11-20


What do the following hymns have in common?

“Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine”
“To God be the Glory”
“All the Way My Saviour Leads Me”
“Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross”
“Pass me not, O Gentle Saviour”

All these songs were written by Fanny Crosby (1820 -1915). She wrote eight to nine thousand hymns over her lifetime. She spent much of her life serving those who were poor and needy, often using the money she had earned from her hymns to support her work with the poor. As if those two things are not remarkable enough, she did all that while she was blind. 

She had not been born blind. When she was six weeks old, an incompetent doctor treated her for an eye infection and left her without sight. When, later in her life, she wrote about being blind, she thanked God for it: “The first face ever to gladden my sight will be when I get to heaven and behold the face of One who died for me . . . I truly believe God intended that I should live my days in physical darkness so that I might be better prepared to sing His praise and lead others from spiritual darkness into eternal light. With sight, I would have been too distracted to have written thousands of hymns.”  Later she wrote, “Blindness cannot keep the sunlight of hope from the truthful soul.”

Fanny’s life could not have been easy, but her hymns convey great confidence and faith in God. They witness to strength that holds even in the face of difficulties. When the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the church in Colossae, he was trying to draw them into that same strong confidence: “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from God’s glorious power”. 

The Christians in Colossae had lots of options open to them when it came to spirituality. Theirs was a city where there was a multitude of cultures of religions telling people what they needed in order to live the good life. Yet, for all the options open to them, it seems that they were not living better lives. They were feeling pressured. They were confused as to how to sort through the conflicting demands on their time and energy. They were increasingly frustrated with the way their lives felt fragmented. Paul wrote to Christians in Colossae to help them pull their lives back together again. He was trying to impart to them some spiritual wisdom. He wanted to help them clear the clutter so that they could focus on what is essential.

Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish theologian of the nineteenth century, used to pray for the ability ‘to will one thing’. People who will one thing know who they are, he said. They are no longer distracted; rather, they are focussed, clear about their mission. Consequently, they live with authority.

What is ‘the one thing’ you want in life? Can you answer the question? A more important  question: does the ‘one thing’ nourish your soul? Does it integrate your life so that all the pieces find an appropriate place?

Paul was very clear: the one thing he wanted to know was Jesus as Lord. When that is your focus, he writes, all the other parts of life hold together. Then, no matter what happens, you can live with hope. 

Remember, this is a man who was writing from a prison cell. He had been beaten and arrested. He had been chased out of countless towns. He knew what it was like when life hits hard; when you’ve been tossed about and broken; when you are feeling weary and frayed at the edges. 

He does not offer platitudes. They are not deep enough to hold a life together. He offers Jesus. He is convinced that everything finds its purpose in him. He holds everything together. “From beginning to end he’s there, towering above everything, everyone. In him, all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies . . . He puts your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust.” (Colossians 1, The Message)

That does mean that as followers of Jesus we have everything figured out. It does not mean that we never encounter problems that threaten to overwhelm us. It means that we just keep placing the disconnected, confusing and confused pieces of our lives into Christ’s keeping. He takes them and holds them together and works them into God’s saving purposes for our lives.

Marva Dawn is an author and theologian who, every day of her life, deals with multiple handicaps and illnesses. As a child, she contracted red measles which destroyed her pancreas. Now she deals with diabetes and kidney problems and blindness and intestinal troubles and . . . the list goes on. She writes that she frequently finds herself discouraged. When that happens, some people say to her, ‘You should not be depressed. You’re a Bible teacher after all.” That just makes her more despondent. Then she also feels guilty about being depressed. That makes her feel defeated, which leads to more feelings of guilt. She finds herself caught in a vicious cycle.

She writes that, what helps her is that she reminds herself that Jesus does not say to anyone who is struggling, “You ought to get out of that pit.” He does not say, ‘Here are ten easy steps for getting out of pits. Follow them.” Jesus jumps into the pit with us and, with him, comes power to reconcile all things.

The most hope-filled promise I cling to is that, whatever happens, Christ is working to bring every bit of our lives into God’s good purposes. Nothing in all creation has more power than the risen Christ. The cross says that our God takes what the world considers failure and uses it for our salvation. The resurrection shows us that God is able to take even the most devastating, destructive event and, somehow, redeem it. God is able to weave it into God’s good and holy purposes for our lives. 

At the time when we are struggling the most, we may not be able to see how that is happening. Indeed, we may not be able to see God’s redemption for a long time. However, we can trust that Christ is able to confront and break the power of whatever evil has befallen us and use it to accomplish God’s loving intention for us.

A few moments ago, as we were baptizing Margaret, Maddie poured water into the font and Robbi said, “This is the water of baptism. Out of this water we rise, forgiven of sin . . .”  Now, every moment of our lives is bathed in the grace of God. Nothing in all creation, nothing in life or death, nothing visible or invisible, nothing present or still to come, can ever separate us from the love of God that has met us in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8: 37-39). By that love, your life is being redeemed, made holy, set apart for God’s good purposes. All of it. Live into that hope. It is gift of your baptism into Christ Jesus our Lord.