Colossians 1:15-23: Every Creature – Day1 series: Faith and Science, part 1

Does the universe make any sense? Does the cosmos have purpose? And what about us human beings? Do we matter? Is there any way to know? Listen to some people these days, including some vocal scientists, and you will hear the answer loud and clear: “No, not really. We don’t matter. We’re too small. The universe is pretty much pointless.”

Oh, once upon a time before we knew anything much about how big the universe is, how many billions of stars there are, how many billions of whole galaxies there are–once upon a time we human beings fancied that we mattered, that we were the center of the universe, that the whole thing was finally about little old us. But only the religiously deluded still think that. We now know we are tiny specks of life living on a tiny dust mote of a planet orbiting a tiny pin prick of light we call the sun, but that is just one star among a billion in the Milky Way galaxy alone. So, no, we don’t matter.

But is that so? Does the universe that science is uncovering in ever-more wondrous detail have no purpose and no meaningful place for humans? And does the Bible that in ever-more wondrous detail reveals God have any way to speak into what science reveals? Paul’s soaring words in Colossians 1 tell us that what we now call science and faith do inform each other and reinforce each other in wonderful ways if we have the eyes of faith to see. Even the Colossians 2,000 years ago needed to know this.

They wondered, too, if anyone was in charge of the universe, if anything mattered. They wondered if there was any future for the earth or if, as their surrounding Greek culture assured them, if we really were destined to exist only as vapors and spirits, set free after death from this tawdry and dirty world of earthworms and bird feathers. So– the Colossian Christians were tempted to buy into any number of competing spiritual and religious ideas.

And that is when the Apostle Paul decided to send them a letter. And his first chapter in that letter is remarkable in most every way. In most translations you will find somewhere in the neighborhood of eleven sentences between verses 9 and 23. But near as we can tell, in the original Greek Paul wrote exactly two sentences in those fifteen verses! The first whopper of a sentence has 218 words in it, running from verses 9-20. Verses 21-23 are one more long sentence.

Paul is all but tripping over his own words, piling on one subordinating clause after the next. Even as his thoughts spiral higher and higher, so does his rhetoric. Paul’s quill just can’t keep up with all the places to which his heart is racing as he realizes anew the truth of Jesus. And what a truth it is! But keep in mind Paul is talking about Jesus of Nazareth here. Keep in mind that Paul wrote this letter probably sometime between the years 55-63 AD, a scant thirty or fewer years after Jesus died. Any non-Christian in Paul’s day who read Colossians would surely find these words absurd.

This Jesus was someone who had died a quarter-century earlier! What’s more, even before he died, he was just a carpenter’s son, a peasant from the redneck backwaters of the empire. Even had Jesus still been alive, claims to his being significant would have seem far-fetched. Today it would be like claiming that some guy named Franky Carwinkle from Whippervale, Kansas, was the most important man alive. If you said that, folks would say, “Franky who? From where? Kansas? Never heard of him.” Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth, was a nobody from nowhere. And anyway, in this case he was also known to have been killed some years back.

And yet Paul says this Jesus is the creator of every blessed thing that exists, that this same Jesus rules the cosmos now, and finally that this erstwhile itinerant rabbi is the one in whom and through whom all of reality hangs together!

Jesus was the one who, when the Big Bang flashed, blew out the match with which he had lit the fire. He’s the One who, as that galactic soup expanded, cooled, and slowly gelled into stars and planets, he was cruising over top of that spectacle, shaping and molding it according to his and his Father’s and his Holy Spirit’s designs. And so although he was born one night and laid in a manger, he is also the one who, a few billion or so years before that night, created the atoms that made up the wood of that manger. And now through his resurrection, he is preserving every creature in whose creation he took such delight at the dawn of time.

He’s the One. He’s the Only One. And if he is who Paul says he is, then Jesus is the Key to reality: it all makes sense in him. Again and again in these verses, Paul throws in the Greek words ta panta which means “all things.” He says it over and over: all things, all things, all things. Colloquially, you could translate it “the whole kit-n-kaboodle!” Paul was talking about people here, yes, but his thoughts also range over the entire creation.

Paul does not want to leave anyone or anything out. And just in case we still have not gotten the point by the time we reach verse 23, Paul goes so far as to say that the gospel has been proclaimed “to every creature under heaven.” Clearly, this is an example of hyperbole. Paul is exaggerating. Even in 55 A.D. it was not the case that every person had heard the gospel much less every creature. It is not literally true that even every person had heard the gospel, much less the trillions of other creatures on the planet.

But it is literally true that the gospel has something to do with every creature, and that is Paul’s point. Paul is willing to exaggerate a bit if that’s what it takes to convey the message that Jesus has scooped up all things and everything. Paul makes a similar move in Romans 8 when he says that even the non-human creation bears within it somehow the seed of gospel hope. So strong is this hope in the breast of chickadees and sunflowers that Paul imaginatively declares in Romans 8 that the whole creation is groaning for Jesus’ return.

Paul even uses a word in Romans 8 that occurs nowhere else in the entire Bible: it’s the word apokaradokia, which literally means “to crane your neck.” The image is of the creation collectively craning its neck like a child at a parade eager to see the next spectacle coming down the street. The whole creation is waiting on tippee-toes, Paul says, because the whole creation, ta panta, the whole kit-n-kaboodle, is exactly the scope of what Jesus made and is even now in the process of salvaging.

Too often we picture salvation as a ticket out of this world. Some popular songs even talk about how this world is not our home and we’re just a’passin’ through. Some of you may also recall the millions of books that were sold a decade or so ago in a series titled Left Behind, but of course being left behind was what no one wanted. The goal was to be raptured and rescued out of this world. But as Hope College Professor Steve Bouma-Prediger once wrote, we should actually want to be “left behind” because the Bible tells us that it is this creation that will become the dwelling of our God and of his Christ! And you can see hints and whispers of this truth already now. The creation itself tells us that the God who took care to make every intricate flower petal, who painted the scales on every iridescent tropical fish, this is the same God who delights in that creation always.

Do science and faith inform each other, have anything meaningful to do with each other? Paul thought so. Paul found it impossible to praise Jesus for his glory without connecting it to the glory of creation. So the more we learn about creation through science, the more reasons we have to praise God, not just for making the whole kit-n-kaboodle but for redeeming it too. Yes, this is all about faith and not everyone shares our faith. But the point is faith makes us more interested–not less interested–in the world God made. And the reason is clearly on display in Colossians 1: it all comes together and hangs together in a final glorious purpose in Christ Jesus the Lord of ta panta, of all things.

The movie Grand Canyon is probably not widely known anymore these days; it came out over 25 years ago. But it’s a great film, and it chronicles the lives of a number of people who all live in Los Angeles, California. Through a series of incidents, people who otherwise might not know each other find their lives intertwining. Mack is a white guy who is a rich investment banker; and Mack gets to know Simon, an African-American guy who drives a tow truck for a living. And then their families get to know each other a bit, including Simon’s nephew who is a gang-banger caught up in all the terrible violence that such gangs bring to places like South-Central Los Angeles. But in many ways, the life of just about every character in the movie is fragmented and is at loose ends. Life seems brutal or random or both.

But then comes the final scene of the film when everyone takes a road trip to visit the Grand Canyon in Arizona. And in the last image of the film, everyone–the banker and his wife, the tow truck driver and his cynical, hardened nephew–everyone comes up to the lip of the Canyon and looks out on all that vastness. It is silent. But a look of calm soon washes over every face, even the teenaged gang-banger suddenly looks young and hopeful and full of the very promise that a young person should exude. “Well,” Simon finally says, “what do you think?” And Mack replies, “I think…I think it’s all right.” Something about the awesome beauty of God’s creation restored order and hope, purpose and meaning, to the lives of people who were not finding any meaning in their money or their guns or anything else.

When we look at the world God made and learn more about it through science and discovery, we connect this to the death and resurrection of the Jesus who also created it all and who has redeemed it all. And then we too can say, “It’s all right. The whole thing, ta panta, it’s all right.” Amen.

Let us pray. Dear God of such splendid created wonders, we give you thanks and praise for the gift of the creation and for the further gift we get through Jesus who has restored that creation and will preserve it for all eternity. We give you thanks for all the opportunities we have even now to see hints and whispers of the world that is to come. And we are so very grateful, O God, for your gift of life, for your love and care for every creature, for all things. We give you thanks and praise, through Jesus Christ our Creator and Redeemer. Amen.

Note: Rev. Hoezee’s sermon is part 1 of 8 in a series on Faith & Science on the Day1 Network. For more information about the series and a transcription of a conversation between Rev. Hoezee and Peter Wallace of Day1, see this link: https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5d9b820ef71918cdf2003cca/every_creature_faith__science_series_part_1