There is a video making the rounds on the internet of the singer Rufus Wainwright joining forces with a fifteen hundred voice choir to sing Leonard Cohen’s classic “Hallelujah”. It’s sublime. The lyrics, of course, matter, but there is so much more involved that contributes to the impact. There is the unique and lovely voice of Wainwright. The animated direction of the conductor. The faces of the members of the assembled choir, a diverse group sharing their vocal gifts. And before any of the folks came together there was the arranger who imagined the melody and the harmony, the back and forth, the ebb and flow of the music.
To view this video - click here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGRfJ6-qkr4
To view this video - click here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGRfJ6-qkr4
It is transcendent. I can describe it to you, but description only gets you so far. It has to be experienced. One must watch and listen for oneself. It is possible, in watching, that you will find your emotions swelling, that you will be lifted up, that you might perhaps find tears in your eyes. And it is just a song.
This morning we consider Church. And we consider Christ. We are pushed to consider what goes on in this place. We will try to put into words what we suspect may be beyond words. There is something that pulls us out of bed on Sunday mornings. You could be home, perhaps still asleep in bed. You could be home at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee. You could be on the couch with a blanket on this particular day watching the final round of the Open Championship. Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson are probably on about the fifth hole right now.
We may be here because it is our heritage. People we love have come here before us and we follow their example, we follow in their footsteps. We come to study - for Sunday School, on Wednesday evenings to engage the minds God gave us in pursuit of greater understanding of the things of God. We come to worship, to pray, to gather around the Lord’s table along side of brothers and sisters in Christ. We gather in order to not be alone. To experience support and encouragement, and at the same time to offer support and encouragement. To know that there is a place where our presence matters, where people will miss us if we are not present. All of this may describe what draws us to church - but none of these things get at the transcendent core of what we are about.
In the opening chapter of the letter to the church at Colossae, the Apostle Paul attempts to remind the people of what brings them together as the Church. This passage is known as the Christ hymn. It is Paul at his loftiest and most poetic. He is summoning words to describe that which defies description. He portrays the church not by what they do, but by who they are. Not by what we do, but by what we are.
The Son is the image of the invisible God,
the one who is first over all creation,
Because all things were created by him:
both in the heavens and on the earth,
the things that are visible and the things that are invisible.
Whether they are thrones or powers,
or rulers or authorities,
all things were created through him and for him.
He existed before all things,
and all things are held together in him.
He is the head of the body, the church,
who is the beginning,
the one who is firstborn from among the dead
so that he might occupy the first place in everything.
(Colossians 1:15-18, CEB)
Christ is the head of the body, the head of the Church. Christ existed before all things and in Christ all things are held together. Paul is pushing us to do work. Pushing us to consider the Christ we follow and what is at stake in our choice to follow and be a part of the Church - Christ’s body.
Back in my college days - and this will come as a revelation to most of you who most likely have never utilized something like this - back in those days there was a resource known as Cliff’s Notes. Cliff’s Notes were thin pamphlets that would communicate summaries of great works of literature. The themes, the characters, the plot twists and turns. Say, for instance you were assigned to read my favorite book after the Bible, Don Quixote. Don Quixote is a hefty bit of reading. Cliff’s Notes would give you a quick and efficient overview of some of what you would know if you had actually taken the time to read the book. This approach may be enough to get a busy student with too much to do and to little time to do it through an impending exam. What it will not do is give that student the transcendent experience of actually reading and engaging this masterpiece. You can quickly and efficiently gather information, you cannot quickly and efficiently experience a transcendent work of fiction.
And you cannot know Jesus quickly and efficiently.
You meet Jesus in a moment, but having met Jesus it will take every breathing moment you have remaining in your life to begin to know Jesus. There may be hurried moments in life when someone is trying to explain an urgent matter to you. You may become impatient and ask that they skip to what you need to know. There may be times when that approach will work. It will not work with Jesus.
Simply put, we dare not try to make Jesus seem tame or manageable. If as we talk about him, Jesus begins to seem either tame or manageable we are not talking about the Jesus of the Bible. Understanding the Son of God - just pause there for a moment, the Son of God… - comes in bits and pieces and even as a truth comes into view we will immediately come to understand how much more we do not understand.
Writing about this passage, Matthew Flemming states that, “Given that Christ is the very structure of creation to live in accordance with his gospel is to follow the grain of the universe.” Which is to say, because Christ is one with the Creator, to follow Jesus is to get in sync with the creation.
Knowing Jesus is where we will find purpose, joy, and unity with our Creator. It is not an impossible thing, which is remarkable in itself - we can know Jesus! However, it is not a do it today and forget about it job. It’s a lifetime commitment. To learn, to grow, to seek to know Christ and in knowing Christ to know who we are and what we are about as Christ’s body. Perhaps more effectively stated it is a lifetime commitment to desire to know Christ. To desire Christ. To feel deep within ourselves that need to “follow the grain of the universe”, to get in sync with creation and with the Creator.
This desire becomes all the more acute in times where things have the feel of falling apart. A week ago we considered the quality of events going on in the world. The relentless pounding of bad news following bad news following bad news. This week has continued the theme. It feels more rather than less this morning as though the world is falling apart. Under such a barrage of news it can feel like what we must do is hold things together. Grab on to whatever we are able to grab on to and hold the world in place. That project is doomed to failure.
But here is good news. Paul tells us, that Jesus existed before all things and all things are held together in him. Not held together by the Colossians. Not held together by us. Held together in Christ. The Christ Paul calls us to contemplate. Contemplation that is not about satisfying religious curiosity, but about keeping sane and finding a way to move forward day by day, in our lives, in our world.
Our hope, our call as participants in the Church - the body of Christ - is to continuously seek to know, to understand and to follow the One in whom all things are indeed held together.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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