As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.
(Colossians 2:6-15)
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It's not a band. “Jesus And The Other 'Gods'” I mean. It sounds a bit like one, but it's not. “Hootie And The Blowfish” was a band. “Jesus And The Other Gods” isn't a children's book either. No. That would be “James And The Giant Peach.” “Jesus And The Other Gods” is my paraphrase of what I believe Paul was discussing in this passage from his letter to the Colossians. What do Christians make of Jesus when faced with a society where there are all sorts of spiritual alternatives available, and when even things that aren’t very spiritual are calling us to serve them? Why follow Jesus? What's different and unique about Jesus? Why choose Jesus in a culture where there were multiple other “gods” to choose from? The strange thing is that 2000 years later the situation really hasn't changed that much. In fact, the situation never changes. There are always many different gods to choose from – and unless we have some idea of the difference that Jesus makes, we're going to have a difficult time making ourselves known. And understand that when I refer to “other gods” I'm not talking about other religions, or others way of understanding “God.” I'm literally talking about other gods – things that take possession of us and control our lives to the point at which we're serving them. We're also talking about things that do this within our own environment – within the church. We're talking about other gods that can easily capture Christians and pull them away from God, while at the same time convincing us that by serving them we are serving God. So how do we go about telling the counterfeit gods from the real thing? Well, as we’re often told about counterfeit money, experts don’t learn about counterfeit money by studying it; they get to know counterfeit money by being so familiar with the real thing that they can easily detect a fraud. That seems to be Paul’s basic approach here to Jesus. Get to know Jesus and you’ll never be taken in by a shoddy copy. So what does Paul actually tell us about Jesus that none of the false gods of our society can offer?
He tells us that the things we should be looking for if we’re following Christ are that we find ourselves rooted in Christ, built up by Christ, strengthened in faith and increasingly thankful. Those qualities all represent the positive difference that Christ makes in a person’s life. To be rooted in something means to have an anchor that keeps you strong and grounded. A root is basically an anchor. It holds you in place. At home we’re growing a couple of eggplants in a large container in our backyard. Sometimes we get some pretty strong wind that makes me wonder if the eggplants aren’t going to be torn right out of the pot – but they’re always there the next day, seemingly no worse for the wear. Christ does that for us when we get buffeted by the spiritual winds that sometimes blow and threaten us. He holds us firmly in place. But we do change – as Paul said, Christ also builds us up. The eggplants are growing! They’re getting bigger. In the same way, we grow. Attached to the root, we become more of what God wants us to be. Attached to the root we shine more brightly and are more easily seen – not for our own glory, but as a reflection of Christ. And as we grow, we become stronger. Suddenly those spiritual winds we face stop frightening us and we realize, in Paul’s words in Romans, that if God is for us, no one can be against us. I’m reminded of a story about Martin Luther who one night was lying in his bed, bothered and disturbed by – something. And then, in his dairy where he recounted the story, he wrote that “I realized that it was only Satan, and so I returned to sleep.” This is the strength we get when strengthened by Christ. It’s the assurance that no matter what happens around us, evil cannot defeat us. And then finally, we become truly thankful. Here, perhaps, is where Paul’s words “be thankful in all circumstances” become a reality. With nothing to fear we can be simply delighted with the world around us, and thankful for the blessings that are always there but that so many miss – blessings that Christ makes us aware of.
And then we ask - what does Paul tell us about false gods? He begins by saying that the false gods are hollow. They have no substance, and therefore no real power or strength. They can do nothing for us. They can’t help us; they can’t really comfort us. They can only control us. Think of things like drug addictions or alcoholism. All drugs and alcohol do when they reach the stage of addiction is control us We reach the point at which we are serving them; we are in bondage to them – and there’s no easy escape. He tells us that they’re deceptive. They lie. They promise us something that they can’t deliver. Drugs and alcohol seem to promise us an escape from whatever it is in our life that isn’t right, but what they really do is imprison us in a dark cell where hope is lost. He tells us that they are based on human tradition – meaning that they’re made by us. They may imprison us, but they don’t challenge us. They don’t ask us to change. They want us to stay exactly the way we are. As soon as you hear the words, “but we’ve always done it this way,” that’s probably a sign that you should find another way to do it – because you’re being held captive. And Paul says that the false gods are worldly spiritual forces. They suck us into the desire for “things” – cars or money or big houses or whatever it is, they force us to set our sights on those things rather than on the real God and we spend our lives trying to get things that are often out of reach. A couple of years ago I read of a survey done by one of the major banks that found that a huge number of Canadians (I don’t remember the exact percentage, but it was huge) expected to finance their retirements through lottery winnings. That’s either naïve hope or utter hopelessness. That’s all the false gods of the world have to offer us.
Jesus and the God revealed by and in Jesus, is life-giving. The false gods of the world are life-sapping. And the thing is that they’re all around us. We can’t isolate ourselves from them. They’re everywhere. Sometimes they’re external, like some of the things I’ve mentioned. Sometimes they get inside us and manifest themselves in pride or arrogance or negativity or hatred or anger or bitterness. But they’re there. They draw us away from God; perhaps they make us give up on God; usually, in one way or another, they take over our lives and force us to serve them. They’re kind of like the Borg from Star Trek – “you will be assimilated. From this time on you will serve – us!” As Craig Lounsbrough wrote, “Be confidently assured that any ‘gods’ that we build will always have voracious appetites, and sooner or later they will gorge themselves on that which built them.”
That’s why it’s so important for us to stay rooted in Jesus, built up by him, strengthened by him and made thankful to God – the real God – as a result.
There are a lot of gods in the world. But in the end they all disappoint. Only Jesus gives life.
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