Held

“And Christ is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17)

It is not a verse you think of as the incarnation. It seems so big, so grand, so ethereal: how can all things hold together in Christ? But it is the concrete he holds together. My body, my bones, my soul. Your body, your bones, your soul. Touch the beauty of the solid-ity of your hand.

The Creator God.

And us. The creation.

Separated. A holy Creator God and his unholy creatures.

This Holy God took flesh. Took body, bones, and breath. Touched the olive trees of Israel, ate bread, dipped his feet in the waters of the Sea of Galilee. Both God and man, he brings all creation up into the reality of God himself. The Creator-creature, together, in Christ. 

How do all things hold together? His wisdom as God and his perfected experience as human. As true Adam, he guides his own known creation.

How do all things hold together? In true power and love in the God-man. All of our broken abuses of power redeemed; all of the great power of God mediated in this broken, needy creation. In his grand power as King, as conqueror of death, tamer of chaos, the giver of all. As Lamb, as the one in complete love laid down his life and ever lives to intercede for us, who called himself gentle in heart, and lives this gentleness as our Shepherd still.

How do all things hold together? Jesus: man's finitude given Life by the Eternal. By our finite times being swept up, united with the Ancient of Days in the Lamb slain before time. Our uncertain days, our worries, are truly in the flesh of the Living One who reigns on high even now. The Eternal One, from before time, who created a perfect garden of communion holds us again in Christ. The Omega who sees the end of all things is steering all things toward a beautiful end in Christ. 

Touch your hand, in the beauty of its solid-ity. It is of the same material as the exalted man, the Son of God, has and is lifted in governance.

It is in our dear Lord, our gentle King, that you, every day of your life, every hair, is wrapped up and held together. In himself, he draws you up into the Creator God and holds you together with him who is Life. No matter what, you are held, held together with God himself in God himself by God himself.