"For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through Him to reconcile himself to all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His Cross".
Colossians 1:19,20.
I was reading a piece today about the need for us to 'do' and to 'be' church well. When we make it too casual or too regimented, we miss the point, which apparently is to transport us via word and sacrament into the heavens.
Worship, ministry, service, fellowship - apparently, it's meant to be where we're taken to somewhere far, far, away, so unsearchable, unspeakable things become a vehicle that heralds us to the transcendent.
Now, I have no objections whatsoever to hymns and texts or entire sermons that remind us of the majesty and unreachable heights of the holiness and glory of the God who reigns above all, but I also have an observation.
When we read passages like the one I've quoted above, then we're reminded of something equally as shocking but so wonderfully true.
When Adam was cowering in the fig leaves, it wasn't just the thought of God's majesty that terrified him - it was the thought of trying to simply be, devoid of any of the care, splendor, freedom and goodness that had been bestowed so richly but lost so totally when he'd been poisoned by a lie. The problem wasn't that he had never trod some etherial realm (actually, Eden was the only 'paradise' that was required) - it was that he and Eve had lost sight of the radiance of what was all around them. Slighting the goodness of what was, they had sold out for the crass cackle of an empty allure.
If we think church is about escaping the body for some spiritual 'experience', however devotional we deem this, we're in danger of missing a far greater truth - the one Paul and others express so well.
What brought the first steps of recovery for Adam was God walking in the garden, looking for him. It's when the Lord steps into our stone - cold dead state that heaven is revealed.
It's not a mistake that redemption comes through Christ being 'God with us' - touching our deadness through the common - Word, Water, Bread and Wine. Allowing us to fellowship with Him through these, because He was here.
God is in Christ - the Christ who has come amongst (to, for) us - as reconciler, redeemer, saviour.
There's a danger when God 'escapes' us by being somewhere else. Church, spirituality, godliness, and everything that entails, becomes something uncoupled from what and where we are most of the time... In truth, that easily leaves us like Adam, back amongst the fig leaves. That leaves us wondering why try and be 'church' at all. If all we are is a company of wretched beggars, naked save for another's love, what makes us think for a moment that we can presume we can calmly reside before the throne of blinding holiness?
Is there an account of anyone (of us) in scripture who did?
The truth, of course, is that Heaven surrounds us, but most of the time, we fail to see just how close it really is. What we do glimpse, mercifully, on occasion, is the tender mercies given to us in Jesus Christ - and that is exactly as it should be.
There's a reason that Christianity is so good, so truly merciful, and, when realized, so shocking. It's because God is in the material - flesh and blood, time and space, and it's there that He's deeply at work.
The author of the article does get one thing absolutely right. It's when, as he notes, the magnificent happens in the mundane that God is truly with us and glorified. When the treasure is evident amidst the earthen vessels (us), we worship and feed upon the love of God in Christ, present among us, in a manner that truly is good.
So, this week, come, without your pretenses and gnostic notions - come and taste the sweetness and satisfying grace of God with us in His beloved Son, who truly, by His giving of Himself, sets us free.
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