By Steven Norris
Where do you come from? Who are your people? Our families of origin can tell us a lot about a person. Some of it, we are proud of — legacies of faith, hard work, respect, and a good name passed down from generation to generation. For others, we may have received a legacy of pain — the result of broken relationships, bodies, families, and hearts.
At the same time, I might also ask you another question: Where are you going? If the answer to the first question helps me know a lot about a person, this second question is even more telling. We don’t have any control over where we are from or our family of origin. However, we have quite a bit of say so in where we are going.
Therefore, let me ask: Where are you going? Where is your personal life headed? Where are your relationships headed? Your job life? Your finances and material resources? Your faith and spiritual life? Where do you hope to be in one year? Five years? Twenty years? What does success, happiness, retirement, family, or love look like for you?
This Sunday, many Christians around the world will celebrate “Christ the King” Sunday. Many will read the following words from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossian church: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him” (Colossians 1:15-16).
Christianity asserts that all of creation ultimately finds its beginning in the person of Jesus. He is the source of life, meaning, and purpose. In him all things were created. Not only that, but Colossians states that everything is created through him and for him.
Let me say this another way: Jesus was not God’s “Plan B.” It is not as if God had a perfect plan, humanity foiled it, and God had to send Jesus to fix it and bring it back to perfection. Colossians suggests Christ has always been God’s “Plan A.” Everything was created in Christ and is moving to its perfection in and through Christ.
In other words, Christ is the bookend of all creation — the Creator from which everything comes and the Goal to which everything is heading. Not only that, but he is the bookend to our individual lives. Our lives, jobs, families, church, educational system, government, economy, and society have meaning because they fit into God’s bigger plan. There is nothing that is outside of the rule and reign of Christ.
On this “Christ the King” Sunday, maybe people of faith need to remind ourselves that we have been created byChrist. We have been created for Christ. Christ is our source and our goal. When we find ourselves adrift in the sea of purposelessness, let us remember that we find our meaning and purpose in him — the bookends of everything.