Juxtapose

I waited for an hour today in the lobby of Memorial Hall, my ears plugged with the sound of Smalltown Poets and their beautiful poetry, my eyes fastened on Colossians, my legs folded beneath me and my jacket wrapped tight against the chill of the doors immediately to my right. I've been thinking a lot lately. Colossians is such a great book. I wanted to yell to everyone walking by in the building, "You have to read this, guys!!" Somehow, through the cowardice of humanity and the guilt of human shortcomings, I did not, in fact, stand and proclaim my own death to the rudiments of the world.

I love that Colossians tells us that our personal "handwriting of ordinances" was blotted out and nailed to the cross for our sakes' as Christ triumphed over them, stamping on the ordinances, the laws, the traditions which were, as He said, "contrary to us," and that they were merely written by a hand, one that was human and whose work could easily be erased (and it was).

It is on this basis that no man can judge by man's yardstick, on this basis that we are told in verses sixteen through the end of the chapter that all these manmade ordinances (touch not, taste not! Handle not!!) are superfluous - a drop in a sea of the deathblood of Christ. They add nothing to what is already a miraculous work which needs no adornment or fanfare to allow for its majesty.

In case I was wondering, the next chapter (chapter 3) tells us all the stuff we really need to worry about - it's not the rudiments of the world, not the rules, not the manmade, not the minutiae of the methods for avoidance of trimming the edges of our born-again beards, the lacy edges of the Neo-Law Method of Christianity. It's the basic, the fundamental, the things we already know but try to forget about as we work on wearing garments with only one manner of fabric and not eating pork products. It's the stinky, difficult things - the mortifying of the members, the death of every part to God Himself and not to a New Law - that we are so unwilling to do. It is the fornication (physical and mental), uncleanness (in speech and in thought), the inordinate affection, the evil concupiscience, the coveteousness. We shrug off this wax covering, our coccoon of anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication, and lying, and take up our new selves, whole and yet ignorantly blissful in our sins nonetheless. We don't need a New Law to remind us of our sins and the price that needs to be paid. We need only to look for what has already occurred.

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:

In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with [him] through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; [And] having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days] which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ.

Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.

Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh."

They say that when a baby is born and it's shoved out into the world under so much pressure compressing and squashing its little body, it forces all the amniotic fluid out of its lungs so it, overall, actually helps the baby breathe, despite the way it looks at the very moment when just the head is sticking out, the rest of its body trapped inside its mom. And thus we are shoved into the world, the death of Christ crushing us and yet clearing us to breathe in real air. It looks like it shouldn't be, but it is - the jealous, irrepressible, loving bondage of Jesus' blood to our souls is one that is so filled with grace in a way that the Law never could have been. Bondage under the old Law is the freedom that is easy to keep, with all its clear lines and boundaries that give surety to life. The Old Law is a bondage that we cannot break in good conscience. Freedom under grace and the cross is bondage that we cannot deny.