Advent - Colossians 1:19-20

I feel like there's so much that could be unpacked here...

• "all his fullness dwell him in" - so besides the entire Gospel of John how can anyone deny that Jesus is God? I don't understand anyone who claims to take the Bible as an authority and then deny Jesus' divinity.
• "through him to reconcile everything to himself" - not all people are saved, it's a clear reality. So what does it mean for all things to be reconciled to God? Feels like that could go a lot of places.
• "making peace through his blood" - before the cross there was an absence of "peace", and through Jesus' blood peace has been made. Moreso than just that, the "make" (eirenopoieo: εἰρηνοποιέω) is in the aorist which I understand to be a tense that means a thing "has happened" and "is done happening". ie. it's a completed action in the past.

KISS

I'm going to keep-it-simple-silly here... I don't have the energy for arguments or unpacking some of these theological ideas that I genuinely do love. I found some old notes on this exact passage in Logos about reconiliation of angels and some grammar questions. However, for this Advent reflection I think there's just a simple truth to see, and it's one of the biggest points of the Story of the Bible - Jesus makes peace, and he made peace through hard work, death.

The glory of the peace Jesus made is lost on anyone who doesn't recognize that the world is broken. Jesus brings a new reality by unleashing Heaven to earth through his victory on the cross. We live in an interim "already but not yet" where the King Jesus is the rightful ruler over all creation, but he has yet to come back and fully claim his own. The peace he made is a gift to all of creation, for all of creation is his to reconcile.

If Jesus calls your name, what are you going to do? What can you do? He defeated death and holds the universe together... you think you can say "no"? What about Jesus not calling the name of someone in your life? Is peace not afforded to them? The Biblical truth is that it's fully and totally up to Yahweh to give his own to the Lord Jesus, and to keep each one without losing a hair on their head. Those who are not of his kingdom will get what they naturally want in the end. What that actually is I do not know, but it is not eternity in the presence of a Good King because if God hasn't chosen you, you can't love the Good King. If God hasn't chosen you - you can't want the Good King. In the end, we all get what we want - the benefit of those chosen by Yahweh is that we are freed to want what is actually good for us. We are freed to love and live according to the purposes of our design.

Today I pray Jesus impresses the reality of peace, and the freedom to want the peace he made, deeper into my heart, amen.