The Cosmic Christ, by Sister Rebecca Shinas
Observation: You'd be hard-pressed to find a more sweeping vision of Jesus anywhere in the Bible. Jesus is called the "firstborn of creation," and also "firstborn of the dead," through him all things were made, in him all things hold together, and through his sacrifice on the cross God is pleased to reconcile all things to the Divine Self.
Application: WAY too much of American faith seems to be about "Me and Jesus." Much of the church in our culture holds to the central principle that each individual person is "saved" by his or her conscious decision to accept Jesus Christ as his or her personal Lord and Savior. It may surprise you to know that nowhere in the New Testament--not once, from the very first genealogy of Matthew's Gospel to the final "Amen" of Revelation--does the phrase "accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior" appear. Not once.
And yet in many, many places, including this first chapter of Colossians, the early witnesses to our faith emphasize exactly how BIG and all-consuming God's salvation through the cross of Christ really is. Through Jesus, God is pleased--not disappointed or begrudging, but pleased--to reconcile all things, whether on earth of in heaven, to Godself. If they had language about solar systems and galaxies, clusters and super-clusters, dimensions and other planes of existence, they would have used that too, to emphasize that God's will to make peace with the whole creation applies to every conceivable part of that creation.
Does God want us to live into that peace? To let it affect our individual lives? To join Paul in proclaiming it "to every creature under heaven" (which, I assume, would involve caring for our fellow animals on this planet)? Yes, of course. But do I believe that this breathtaking cosmic symphony of love will come to an abrupt, awkward end and leave me behind if at the time of my death, I have doubts about some fine point of Christian doctrine? I really don't think so.
Even in Colossians, it does say faith is vital. This reconciliation will be felt more deeply in our hearts if we can reconcile our own consciousness to it; the sooner, the better. Why waste another day at war with myself and the world, when there is peace to be had in Christ? But faith or no, individual acceptance or no, there is something much, much bigger than ourselves going on in the cross of Christ than we are able to know or understand. Thanks be to God for that.
Prayer: God, thank you for making peace with me, with us, with the whole creation. Amen.
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