Contemplation on Colossians 1:13-14
He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. – Col 1:13-14
This morning, walking into this verse, I happen upon this ancient Being. His back is to me. There’s something familiar in his posture; I can’t quite place it at first. The sun shines behind him on the horizon so he’s all aglow with light and I can’t see his features. He is crouching, on the banks of this great, rushing river of inky black.
I cannot express the terror that rises in me at that black, snaking current. The kind of terror that makes me lose control over my body. I am paralyzed. I don’t move any closer to it or him. The way it stretches into the distance as if it were an ocean. The force of it. Like a dam has broken somewhere. To me that river is raging and roaring; a deep that I can’t see the end of. It frightens me with its power and vastness. I keep thinking it’s bigger than anything. That nothing can overcome it or stop it.
But my eyes catch his figure again and I wonder. Maybe?
He doesn’t look bigger – but something in his demeanour is bigger, more, than that current. Maybe it’s because he is calm, and quiet.
As if waiting for something. He’s unmoved by the danger rushing by the tips of his toes. The way that black stuff tries to eat away at the bank beneath him. I have watched mudslides and tsunamis on TV – the way they sweep everything away, drown things and smash things without any seeming ability to stop them. That is what that black is like. There are places where it’s deceptively still – but it’s the stillness of quicksand – a quagmire that has no bottom and will suck you in.
It terrifies me also because I think maybe humans had a hand in making it. Helped create it. If all the humans were wiped off this earth would it still exist? That is an awful thought. That something in me contributed to the size of that current. Is it true? I don’t know much anymore, all my answers left me a long time ago, so I don’t know. I’m uncertain about everything.
But suddenly he stands, his motion breaking my philosophical spiral, and I watch him, speechless, as he steps off the bank, as he wades right in, fearless, and dips one, big, muscled arm into the current, scooping something out. As if the huge force of the darkness is nothing to him.
He cradles that little thing he plucked out of the dark in his palm, holds it up against his chest as he wades back out, pays no mind to the things smashing into him along the way, the broken, jagged edges that hide in that dark current.
I walk further into the verse, intrigued by what he’s doing.
In many cases the Greek uses the word sozo for rescue. But this verse uses something different. Errusato. It’s an obsolete verb, a really old word drawing a picture of a current rushing by and plucking something out of that current. And it’s in the middle voice – it is something done to or for one’s self.
He’s rescuing that thing from the current for himself.
And the dark doesn’t stick to him either. It melts away -shrinking back from him. He can’t be contaminated.
Not like me. There are days when I get hypnotized by the dark current rushing by me. Days when I forget how scary it is for a moment and get stuck studying its eddies and whirlpools as if they offer me something.
I don’t know how I get drawn into that current – it’s different every time. And yet the same result. The same kind of empty drowning. One minute I’m on the bank and the next I’m in that force, trying not to let it drown me. Blind as a bat as to which way to get out. Is it because someone hurts me and I let myself turn Sith? Is it the news I hear about babies dying in a war no one stops? Is it just inevitable?
All I know is that my perception’s often twisted into seeing only a world of a dark tragedy. Unhappy humans who never get anywhere, live out the same story again and again with no change for the better. Including me.
The trouble is, when you’re in the middle of that current, pulled down into the dark, you can’t map out its ends or its beginnings.
How could you when it’s dark?
Its power feels immense and unstoppable as if it is the only thing that is real. It carries you along with it, rushed downstream in its current – bobbing about smothered in blindness because that is what the dark does; makes you blind.
But the dark is no thing to this timeless Being. That figure I keep catching sight of on its shores, fishing for things being hurled downstream.
And then he turns towards me, and I catch my breath. Because it’s him – Jesus’ dad. I only recognize him because he looks and moves just like Jesus. I still can’t really make out his features, but I think they’re made up of Love.
We stopped talking years ago, before I left church. I had all these things built up in my head about the God I grew up with. That he was scary. That he was sometimes mean and sometimes nice depending on how badly I messed up. That he was too big to care. That he was too alien to be friends with. That he demanded my perfection if I was to talk to him. He was exacting in his demands for purity. When I was little I tried to be good for him and let him pummel me as much as he wanted… and after a while I couldn’t handle looking at him. I could never be good enough.
And even if I recognize his way of moving – the kindness in his features because of Jesus – I’m fully aware that he’s more than what I think I know. That he’s not a gender or a human. Sometimes that sends me into hiding. That other sense of him. But not today.
I watch him. He’s cradling that little thing in his palm against his chest and I’m curious. What is it?
He takes it with him as he strides away from the dark and he deposits it (still dripping black stuff from the current) into this other place, this magical kind of Kingdom. A place of Wonder where my favourite person, Jesus, is in charge. Where all the big things live and roam about like Charity and Love and Truth and Beauty. Where they rub shoulders with black covered kinds of creatures that are still recovering from the current. Still dripping with bits of the stuff that seems like it would tarnish those big things of His. The Good. But as I watch I realize they don’t get tarnished. They stay what they are because they’re his.
And there in that Kingdom where Light is… I see that little thing shining beneath the black, and I realize it’s my soul. It’s bright. And it’s eternal. And the dark may still coat the outside but underneath it’s shining, clean, because it belongs to him too.
I study the verse to see more of him. Curious about what it might tell me he’s like. The word “transferred” is two Greek words smushed together – meta and istemi (with/accompany, and: to stand or bring or continue… covenant etc.) The great big Being that brought me here, came with me. Made a covenant to stay with me. I turn my head just slightly and see him standing just behind me, quiet, content. Humming. Delighting that I am in this Kingdom. He knows I’m still struggling to be easy in his presence. He lets me hang out with Holy Spirit as a buffer sometimes – she’s mysterious and somewhat foreign to me, but she’s lovely and gentle with my heart. Most of the time I’m with Jesus though. Carried around in his pocket when I’m scared of the world. Held tight in his arms when I don’t know what to think about me or God. I always know what to think about him.
The word “redemption” in this verse is apolutrosis – two words again smushed together meaning away and something to loosen with or untie or destroy. To loosen the hold or untie the hold of that dark. Holy Spirit has been working with me since I met Jesus, sometimes we use his crowbar of Love to loosen that black stuff that clings to parts of me. Sometimes we just use her soft wind. She’s patient. And when it comes to bringing me into the three in one’s presence, she’s stubborn. Every time I hold back out of fear or shame she bugs me til I give in. She keeps bringing me to Jesus so his love can loosen the hold of whatever is caging me.
I get tired sometimes. I don’t have the ability to get rid of that stuff on my own. Sometimes I just have to lie there in Jesus’ arms and let them do the work. They’re fierce about letting me rest in them when that happens. Sometimes I’m too sad, or too angry, so Jesus gets quiet, but won’t let me go. I have to just sit there and stare at those big creatures of his – the Good that camouflage’s herself under ordinary encounters. The Beauty that wanders around my home’s forests and oceans like a giant pheonix I can’t look away from. The Truth that comes and hunkers down next to me and whispers hope into the wind. Always twined with Grace of course – Truth and Grace are inseparable in this Kingdom. Those are his things. But Love is the biggest of them… the oldest. I’ve been told Love is just Yahweh’s real name – and it’s him that made all those other wild things. If I’m being honest, it’s Jesus’ Love that works the best to loosen the dark for me.
Kingdom of Wonder, indeed. If only we could all see where we’ve been brought. Where we belong. If only we could all see them working, the Three in One. I don’t really know how it all works – that Three in One… it’s a bit weird. But. It’s lovely too. Because it means they’re serious about relationship. About Love snowballing itself.
I look down at the verse again. Aphesis is another Greek word for forgiveness – which is again from two words – away/from and hiemi (to send away). Freedom. Their forgiveness, when I get tired of letting that black stuff on me dictate my actions, is what sends it away.
So here I am in this picture – watching that timeless Being, that Yahweh, the I Am, drawing me out of the current. Picking me up and carrying me with him over to his Son’s home. I thought it was Jesus that did that – and it was – but I guess it was both of them. Anyway. He lets me hang out with Jesus, his favourite and my favourite person. We might bond over that one day soon.
I know Jesus has been reminding me with most of his words that he really loves his Dad and that his Dad is worth knowing.
So here I am, in his Kingdom of Wonder. A world filled with their secrets – all those creatures that get bigger the longer I wander around with them. And I am brought there by those three. Plucked up out of the darkness and carried safe against Yahweh and then set free.
How cool is that?
