No longer on the outs, God has taken you through Christ’s death and transferred you to His Kingdom, made you a part of his body. Family dinner just would not be complete if you were not there too.
Alienation and reconciliation, Jews and Gentiles, an Apostle incarcerated, writing to those the gospel has freed; the dynamics that run Paul’s show in the last part of Colossians 1 are about the ins and the outs, who is in, who is out, and how getting in on the “ins” happens. So, a sermon which proclaims this pericope will do it right if the Christ at the center is the one who brings those who are on the outside in, and as your hearers hear how this mystery is about Christ in them!
Mystery talk is mission talk. This is worth a simple concordance search and a little analysis. Look for mystērion, count them up, and then categorize them. You will find that the majority of the time Paul uses the word “mystery” in the epistles, he is referring specifically to the nations, the Gentiles, being included in God’s plan to save the world in Christ. He is explicit about this several times throughout the New Testament, pointing out this mystery was concealed until the time of Christ, but the Spirit drives the apostles and prophets of the New Testament to proclaim it. Therefore, it has been proclaimed to all the world. The texts that speak this way most clearly are in Ephesians and Colossians, but he is explicit in Romans as well.
Mystery talk is revelation talk as well. When Paul is running mystery as mission to the Gentiles, it is all about a secret which has been disclosed, discovered, out in the open, no longer hidden. There is a nice parallel between God revealing His will for the nations and revealing Himself in the incarnate Lord Jesus (deus revelatus). Want to know His will? It is revealed in Christ. Want to know anything about God? It is revealed in Christ. Want to know the secret, hidden will of God, the stuff that cannot be revealed in Christ? Do not go there. That is the Lord of destruction, the deus absconditus. You will get no good news there. But God revealed in Christ, there is definitely good news there, good news for you.
And it is the “for you” that is the Gospel. It is the “for you” that means on your behalf, in your place, and for your sake too. That is inclusion language, and is, in fact, what has been made known in the revealed God Christ, that you are included in His salvation plan. It is as if His salvation plan for the world had been locked up, preserved by His chosen remnant, but hanging on His promise and guarantee from Abraham (Genesis 12) and even earlier. His promise was finally disclosed once Jesus came to reveal God’s love for the entire world, Jew and Gentile, in Christ.
This means those who once were on the outs because of being outside of Torah, being outside of Law (being an outlaw in sin!), are no longer on the outs. Christ has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility (as Paul says in Ephesians 2:14. In fact, Ephesians 2:11-22 is the best immediate intertext to study alongside this pericope). Colossians 1:22 centers the destruction of that wall of hostility between God and man, neighbor and neighbor, in Christ’s flesh. Sinners are reconciled to God and one another through Christ’s death. Those once on the outside are now made to stand holy and blameless, established, presented as above reproach before God, a steadfast and stable status depending only on trusting Christ in His person, Christ in His work, Christ for your hearer, Christ for you.
Sinners are reconciled to God and one another through Christ’s death.
As I have said before, preacher: In emphasizing faith, do not talk about faith. Present the object to trust. Deliver the Christ who is that object. The One who moves your hearers from the outs to the ins is the human, fleshy, dead Christ of Colossians 1:20-21. The Christ to proclaim is the One who came in a body and, indeed, whose body suffers whenever His body, the Church, suffers (this is how Paul talks about His incarnation in Colossians 1:24). With that in mind, think about the ins and outs of Christ in His incarnation. Consider John 1:11-13: He came to His own, but His own people did not receive Him, but to all who did receive Him, to those trusting on His name, He gave the right to become God’s children. Christ, the alienated, accepts those who are alienated. In reality, He makes them a family, not on a contemporary analogy of a legal arrangement like adoption but born of God. It is heavenly DNA. You do not get more reconciled than that.
Think about the ins and outs of Christ in His passion, death, and resurrection. He was inside the city, outside the city, entering Jerusalem, and executed on Calvary. He used a borrowed donkey, a borrowed cross, and a borrowed stranger’s tomb; no things of His own in order that you might have all things. Jesus suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify you (Hebrews 13); the great reversal brokered in the flesh of Christ.
Think about the ins and outs of Christ as He welcomes His children to family dinner, as he gives His body for the feast, reconciling you in His body (Colossians 1:21) and revealing the mystery which is Christ in you (1:27). In other words, you are what you eat, Christ in you, you in Christ. If the koinōnia, the communion, the Lord’s Supper, is the birthright of the baptized, then recall the roll call of the guest list from Galatians 3:27-28 and point your people to the table from the pulpit. Reconciliation language is hospitality, family relationship, inclusion language, and it is all dependent on faith. The mystery revealed in a eucharistic way can conceive of the supper as the greatest surprise party ever: Mystery revealed! You are in! No longer on the outs, God has taken you through Christ’s death and transferred you to His Kingdom (1:13), made you a part of his body (1:21, 24). Family dinner just would not be complete (1:28) if you were not there too.
One more point to ponder. Thinking about how the Word of God in Christ lays out matter-of-factly from God’s perspective who is out and who is in is a great pretext for talking about the actual, material, social reality facing your own flock as well. Depending where you serve throughout the world, inclusion and exclusion in politics, family, and community will be a theme with various assumptions about Christianity’s position, alignment, and stance on this or that community. So, think about yours, and consider who the alienated are. Paul’s alienation to acceptance motif offers the preacher and the Church an opportunity for repentance as well as for hospitality, recognizing that how our human communities slice the pie with respect to material advantages, race and ethnicity, education, and ideological devotion, is always the topsy-turvy opposite of the Jesus ethic, the shepherd who pursues the least (to call her greatest), the last (to count her first), the lost (that she may be found), and the little (who are the largest in His Kingdom). This is the Kingdom sinners have been transferred to (Colossians 1:13-14), the Kingdom where erstwhile enemies are now heirs and inheritors (1:21-22).
The Lord bless you in your preparation to deliver His Word this week!
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Colossians 1:21-29.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you preaching Colossians 1:21-29.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
