[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation… He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15, 17, NIV)
The jokes are abundant, and maybe they should be.
“There seems to be nothing Jordan Spieth can’t do right now. In fact, he is piloting the charter from the John Deere Classic to Scotland.”
“Jordan Spieth is stopping in Greece on his way to the Open Championship. They need his help with the bailout.”
If you know Chuck Norris, you know where this is heading. On the big screen, among our public service agencies, even in our joke telling, there is something in us that yearns for a hero. And when it comes to golf these days, Spieth is the closest thing to the perfect specimen.
And yet, even as we have exaggerated our heroes, we are unwilling to believe beyond the things we face from day to day. So Hollywood offers us comic book mighty men but simultaneously exposes their weaknesses. They are antiheroes, supernaturally gifted yet flawed and vulnerable.
Painted this way among them are postmodern pictures of Jesus. No one is perfect, movie producers are convinced we believe, so they give us a Jesus who not only was tempted as we are (Hebrews 4:15), but who gives into those temptations and wrestles with sin and fear. They’ve stripped him of his deity.
This is not the Lord of salvation we find on the pages of Scripture. There we have the man who is God, walking among those who had every need we do. When these men and women knew their own frailties and owned up to their sin, they found in Jesus the one who is able. He is healer and shepherd, friend and king.
Consider today’s pronouncement from Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Paul was a learned man, the kind we would know as careful in choosing his words. Measured. Pedantic. Yet here in Colossians 1 his expressions are limitless, like the one he describes. Jesus Christ is the image of God, the creator, the sustainer, the head, the firstborn of the risen dead, the holder of all supremacy, the dwelling of God’s fullness, the reconciler, the peacemaker, our sacrifice.
This is the kind of hero we need. This is the hero who gives life from God. This is the one to whom we can turn and say, “I have no strength of my own, but you have so much to give. Please be my Savior, please be my Lord.”
—
Jeff Hopper
July 13, 2015
Copyright 2015 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.