Saturday after Populus Sion, The Second Sunday in Advent
Posted on December 14, 2019 by under
Scripture: Colossians 3:1-11 (NKJV)
3:1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.
8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.
Devotion
At first we might get the impression that St. Paul is telling us to ignore our physical life. Perhaps we should forget that we are material beings, like the Gnostics would say. After all he says, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” And again he says, “put to death your members which are on the earth.” At first he seems to denounce the physical body, but look at what follows—a list of sins of the flesh. It is the sin that is condemned. We must acknowledge the good creation of God, including our physical bodies, and cherish them. We must conform both our minds and bodies to Christ so that both mind and body might glorify Him.
From that perspective we can then understand what Paul means when he says, “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free.” Clearly Jews and Greeks still existed in racial terms. Slaves still woke up the next day as slaves. St. Paul isn’t denying God’s creation. The passage simply tells us that we are all one with regard to our standing before God. We are all equally justified in Christ, no matter our racial or social distinctions. We all should fulfill our vocations, as we were created, to God’s glory, and we are all justified one way through our one Christ.
We pray: Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to make ready the way of Thine only-begotten Son, so that by His coming we may be enabled to serve Thee with pure minds; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
