We will lay down our lives for another
In those holy moments, channeling God’s intimate involvement in our lives
For those of us fraught with authority issues, we must back off when it comes to Jesus. We may have had problems with our parents, librarians, and traffic cops, but there’s no appeals court or argument with the head of every principality and power. We can’t get any higher authority than God. His power and love need no court.
Memorial of Saint Peter Claver, Priest
Colossians 2:6-15
Luke 6:12-19
It’s not often that we hear about the power of Jesus from the perspective of raw masculinity. We’ve got the cleansing of the Temple, where Jesus wielded a whip. But that’s about it. There are no fistfights, other weaponry, gym memberships, or gridiron escapades with some form of a ball or stick.
Our references to Jesus, according to almost all popular notions, focus not on manliness, but on his restorative powers as a healer, teacher, and his sacrificial persona — the Lamb.
These things — healing, teaching, and sacrifice — are not necessarily exclusive feminine attributes, but we must admit that the strength of women lies in nurturing and giving of self. A mother can be fiercely protective, but not in a lethal way, as men might exhibit the protection of their family, friends, and citizens. Many of us men envision courage and strength as keystones of our nature.
Both sexes in holy moments, channeling God’s intimate involvement in our lives, will reach the same commitment to protect and nurture the innocent, injured, and troubled. They will lay down their lives for another.
Today’s gospel presents the proper, non-gender-limited* image of Jesus’ powerful capabilities. Or, to put it more accurately, the appropriate human image for both sexes. He related to men and women in equal measure, a quality uncommon before him and since. He gave of himself.
Strictly speaking, Jesus’ character is entirely foreign to anything purely masculine or feminine. Look at this description. “Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all.” (Luke 6:19)
That power of Jesus, a strength uncommon in any other human, is explained further in our reading today from Colossians: “For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily, and you share in this fullness in him, who is the head of every principality and power.” (Colossians 2:9-10)
That’s a mouthful. There are, though, three data points for us — fullness of the deity in a body, our sharing of that fullness, and Jesus as the ultimate GOAT (the greatest of all time).
What is the fullness of the deity, bodily? That would be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, wouldn’t it? According to Paul, the author of Colossians, we share in this fullness. Harken back to our description as made in the image of God. Make no mistake, our sharing in God’s power is complementary, not substitutional. We complement him, mirror him. We don’t take his place. Jesus remains the head of “every” principality and power. We operate as his collaborators, not minions. The role of supreme authority rests in one place.
For those of us fraught with authority issues, we must back off when it comes to Jesus. We may have had problems with our parents, librarians, and traffic cops, but there’s no appeals court or argument with the head of every principality and power. Can’t get any higher authority than God. His power and love needs no court.
The concept of ‘fullness’ is introduced earlier by Paul in Colossians, Chapter 1: “For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell.”
Everything that is God is within Jesus. The persons of God reside together, as one. It’s not easy to grasp, of course. I like the example of our likeness to God, in God’s image, as one of personalities and roles. For instance, we men are fathers, and women are mothers, not just to our own, but to the young around us. We reach out to care for others, as if we are charged and assigned to do so. That makes us like God the Father.
We are also spiritual beings, sometimes out of body. We transcend this existence. In heaven, awaiting the restoration of creation, we will be like the angels — spirit beings. And, of course, we are men and women of physical natures, and Jesus promised that we would be returned to body and spirit. We say Jesus took upon a human state, but in better terms, Jesus exhibits what a human is supposed to be — like him.
The universe was built for and by Jesus to live with us, we are told. Well, no, that’s not quite right. We are to live with him.
Jesus came first, then us. It’s a complex concept to grasp, but remember that in Paradise, as depicted in scripture, God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden. I envision that was the second person of the Holy Trinity.
That fullness of Jesus’ power, as translated in earlier verses of Colossians, extends to us formally. When creation fell, God promised the redeemer, the one we know as Jesus, would rescue us. He did so, as Colossians explains.
Jesus is “the head of the body, the church.” More specifically, “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead (in other words, he rose from the dead first), that in all things he himself might be preeminent.”
To be preeminent means to exist as the one in the highest position, that existed before all others, and whenever he walks into the room, we bow down.
Jesus, upon his death, took all the righteous who had died since the beginning of time with him into Heaven. Moses or Abraham couldn’t do that. Only the preeminent power. And then, he returned to creation as the risen Christ, body and spirit.
In one of Paul’s longest sentences on record, verses 15-19 of Ephesians, he explains the fullness of the Holy Trinity in Jesus as shared with us in great detail.
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
To summarize: in all things, bowing before the Father, we are to have faith, rooted in love, and like our brother and Lord Jesus, we are strengthened by God who dwells in us.
Jesus may not have had a gym membership. Still, through his tasks of carpentry and, by extension, mastery of all construction materials, including stone and metals, he likely was fit and physically capable. He exercised both mind and spirit.
We can look forward, even in this age, to channeling the gifted powers of God. Not to tamp down our lethal natures when called upon, but to call more readily upon God’s fullness in us. Be strong in body and spirit. Be holy in both.
Powers that God will only wield through us, when we are in total union with him, can be known as from God. That’s possible here, Paul tells us. But it’s indeed based upon knowing the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, surpasses feats of strength, and overcomes evil by laying down our lives.
*Gender is no small subject for Christians. I recommend HANS URS VON BALTHASAR AND CONTEMPORARY FEMINIST THEOLOGY, by Michelle A. Gonzalez. “Feminist theologians find an unlikely partner in Hans Urs von Balthasar, a theologian who also takes the category of gender as essential to his understanding of theology, the human, and divine action.” Gonzalez wrote, “Balthasar’s model of humanity is based on an understanding of the female as primarily receptive and the male as active.”