Enter the mighty garden gnome, lord of ornamental grass and tulips. You needn’t fear moles or marauding slugs. Rest easy, knowing that something blocks the path of careless kids with lawnmowers. Garden gnome says, “You shall not pass!” therefore the geraniums and lilac clusters are safe.
For any problems larger than the patch of garden under your front window though, the gnome isn’t so mighty. He’s only a decorative ceramic. Introduce social ills or global crises, and the little statuette assigned to be “keeper of the garden” vanishes into insignificance.
I wonder if we habitually think of Jesus like that gnome.
What picture governs your thought about Christ? If it’s the bearded figure from an illustrated children’s Bible, then let me respectfully say you may not go far on the strength of that image alone.
Even with an optimistic outlook, we all know that statistically speaking, we’re going to experience broken hearts, financial pressures, marital friction, failing health, and finally, end-of-life scenarios. When the Greyhound bus of trouble finally gets on a collision course with us, a gnome-like Jesus will seem laughable.
I can always tell when people have only entrusted Christ with their gladiolas. In the face of larger concerns, they write him off as useless. Really, what’s a sentimental religious ornament going to do about anything important?
Life is headed our way. Let’s entrust our future to a Jesus who is bigger than an aircraft carrier. According to the Apostle Paul, that is exactly the kind of Christ into whom we’ve believed.
Jesus was a historical figure, a Jewish man who lived in the Middle East two thousand years ago. And more. So much more. It took the penetrating insight of apostolic revelation to make clear just how profound this figure was and is today.
Yes, Jesus can fit inside story-book Bibles. He loves for children to hear about Him. But the Christ you need (and thankfully have available) is too big to fit on a Sunday school flannel board.
One of the densest and richest portrayals of Christ in the New Testament can be found in Colossians 1:15-20. Consider the grandeur of the Apostle Paul’s description:
He is the image of the invisible God.
Without Christ, God is invisible, up for grabs, and subject to interpretation according to sinful, ill-informed imaginations. Human beings end up redefining Him to a doll-like figure in their image.
But in Christ, we have the complete and accurate expression of God. When sin shows up with all its ugliness, Christ stands in contrast to it, as the full picture of God’s holiness. When life presents itself as pointless and mundane, Christ exhibits all the awesomeness and wonder of God’s glory. As “the love of the many grow cold” (c.f. Matt. 24:12), Christ radiates the warmth of God’s love, a reality that cannot be quenched. And when the prospect of eternal damnation looms, Christ stands, full of God’s salvation.
And we’ve only gotten started.
He is the Firstborn of all creation.
His position—first—indicates He is preferred and blessed above everything else that exists. Why? because all things were created by Him (as the active agent), through Him (as the instrument), and for Him (as the very reason for its creation). Furthermore, all things hold together in him (keeping the physical order from collapsing into chaos).
As the designer, the engineer, the instrument, and the very glue of our universe, it’s safe to say He deserves the central spot in our lives. He belongs first. When He’s not, things get weird. It’s like deploying the U.S. Marines to a flower garden, where they’re assigned to keep the rabbits away from the petunias.
Don’t be guilty of the same type of misappropriation. Since Christ is first, Christ goes first.
He is the Head of the body, the church.
As Head of the universal church, Jesus Christ is our source of spiritual life as well as our authority. Any time in history when the church wandered away from Him, it suffered. You’ve heard the old phrase “Like a chicken with its head cut off.” Once decapitated, the chicken flops around chaotically. So has the historic church whenever Christ was denied His place in the driver’s seat.
Christ is preeminent, supreme. Ultimately, all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell in Him. Any truth, teaching, belief, or experience should be evaluated according to Christ as the standard because (please remember), all the fullness of God is in Him.
At the end of Colossians 1:15-20, having surveyed such a vast Christ, the apostle nearly begs his readers to continue in the faith, and not to shift into some other, lower gear. Christ was never meant to be a slice of life, but the One who overlays the whole.
We’re not being asked to give Him a larger chunk of our weekly schedule but to live all the varied segments of our lives within Him. In light of the fact that he is preeminent over all things, doing this doesn’t make us heroes, just reasonable.
Leave the garden duties to the gnome.
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This is an updated edition of a post originally published on John Myer
Featured Image Image by marvinbla from Pixabay
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