We begin reading the Letter to the Colossians this week in our liturgy. Paul never visited this church near Ephesus. Commentators don’t agree about the situation Paul addresses in the letter. It’s not about human behavior or questions about human morality as the letters to the Corinthians are. 

The Colossians have faith in Christ; they love for one another. But some of them are trying to understand the cosmos. What’s this world beyond our human world all about? 

Don’t leave Jesus Christ out of that larger world, Paul says. He speaks to the Colossians– and also the Ephesians– about the Cosmic Christ. 

“Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and for him.He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the Body, the Church.He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things for him, making peace by the Blood of his cross through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.”  (Colossians 1, 15-20)

Is Paul’s letter to the Colossians a timely message for our age too? Jesus Christ seems to have little place in our discussions on cosmology. Jesus Christ is not just Jesus of Nazareth, rejected by his own people in a little corner of the Middle East long ago. He is not just a teacher who tells us how to get along with one other. “Jesus is the image of the invisible God…in him were created all things in heaven and on earth.” “He holds all things together” for 4.5 billion years and beyond.. He brings peace through the blood of his cross. He lives and reigns with Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forever.  

Like the Colossians, we need to hear this, today.