The mystery of God, namely, Christ

Colossians 2:1-15 (TNIV) -

1 I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally.2 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ,3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.4 I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.

5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him,

7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your sinful nature was put off when you were circumcised by Christ,

12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins,14 having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.

15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

My thoughts -

You've probably grown tired of reading me write this, but what we believe, to the non-believer is crazy. It doesn't just seem crazy, it's totally nuts. There are a lot of good sounding arguments against it. There are a lot of reasons that what we believe just simply can't be true. It's, at best, fantasy and wishful thinking and at worst lunacy or a lie. While God may be a mystery to all, to the non-believer Christ just doesn't make any sense.

First, what's up with being fully God and fully human? Rationally it would seem that you'd kind of have to pick, right? Christ could be either God or human, but both? And at the same time? How can this be? 2000 years later I still don't think we really understand this. I can't explain it, at least. And even accepting the incarnation of God in the form of Jesus, crazy as it sounds, beyond the logistics is the question: why? Why would the eternal take on the form of the mortal? We who are incapable of fully loving others can't comprehend the depth of love that would allow such a thing? The divinity of Christ and the humanity of Christ both fail to make sense.

But suppose we accept both of these? Suppose we accept that Jesus was God Incarnate, both fully God and fully human, now what? We still have the scandal of the cross. Are we really to believe that God became human and then chose, being mortal, not only to die but to die as a common criminal? To be executed by the state? This was no glorious death in battle. He was just another guy the Romans executed. No big deal. Gruesome, yes. Barbaric, yes. But not particularly glorious. Not the way you'd write it up if you were making a movie about it. Our heroes tend to die a little better than that. Jesus didn't even put up a fight. What kind of a god doesn't even go down swinging?

We have to accept the scandal of the cross. We have to, because that's what makes what God chose to do for us so danged amazing. It doesn't make sense. It isn't rational. It's the kind of crazy thing you see from people who are in love. It doesn't feel like a perfectly calculated plan. Jesus was born almost anonymously to working class people at a time where no one really wrote about you if you weren't rich and famous. It's like God just threw him down here because, well, something needed to happen. The people God so loved couldn't just continue on in sin like this. Intervention was necessary. It may seem crazy and impulsive but something had to happen. And then to die like that? That's no way for a king! But then, Jesus didn't really live like one, either, did he? Such power and he never really behaved in the way that we would imagine the powerful behaving. When we have power we use it to be served, yet Jesus used it to serve. Jesus turned everything upside down.

It doesn't make sense. It sounds crazy. Paul knows that. We've read a lot of Paul over the last few months. I'm not saying all of this "crazy" stuff on my own. It's coming from Paul. So Paul's writing to the Colossians and he's telling them, in effect, I know this sounds crazy. I know this is nuts, but that's Jesus. Jesus didn't make any sense, and that's what's amazing about him. Don't let anyone fool you by trying to make it make sense. Don't get sucked into a false Gospel that waters down the lunacy of God's love for us. Live in this crazy love. Embrace this crazy love. Share this crazy love with others. This crazy love has, against all odds and against reason, freed you from your bondage in sin. Nothing rational would do that. Nothing rational would intercede on your behalf.

What we believe is crazy. What God did for us in Christ doesn't make any sense. And that's okay. Better than okay that's ideal. I wouldn't want it any other way. Without the scandal of the incarnation and death of God we wouldn't have the resurrection and life in Christ. We who live it, we who experience God through Christ, we know that it doesn't have to make sense, rationally. It just has to be experienced, and shared.