Colossians 1:12-20 + September 10, 2024

The day we brought him home, I began a routine every night at my son’s bedtime. After our prayers and before the blessing, I say to him, “James Julius, you are my beloved son; in you I am well pleased.” It’s adapted from the words of the Father at Christ’s baptism. Today’s Bible reading says the Father now identifies us with His beloved Son: The Father qualifies us, or makes us sufficient, to share in Christ’s inheritance; He transfers us into His beloved Son’s kingdom.

Well it’s a great thought, and they’re easy words to say to an infant: “James Julius, you are my beloved son; in you I am well pleased.” A long time goes by, night after night after night, and I remain well pleased. But of course the time inevitably came when the Old Adam gained the upper hand. It had been a rough evening. Rebellion, and raised voices. I was disappointed in him. I was angry. I was not well-pleased. Did you ever see The Incredibles? Great movie. “I’m not happy, Bob. NOT HAPPY!”

What then? Do you still say the words? That’s the clarifying moment: when you are not happy, not well-pleased, but just the opposite. Then grace must triumph over works, the regenerating waters cleansing, through tears, sin’s stain. For how is it with our heavenly Father? Would it not be just for Him to look on me and say, “Christopher, in you I am not well-pleased”? “If You, O LORD, kept a record of sins, who, O LORD, could stand? But with You is forgiveness.”

If we can’t forgive even before the apology comes, then we do not know the God who, “when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” For “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Without any merit or worthiness in you, He has qualified you. In our world, you qualify by enduring a trial or scoring well on a test. But before God none of us qualifies without the imputation of Christ’s quality: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” [Col 1:13–14]. All the action is divine. He delivers us from darkness, He transfers us to His Son; Jesus redeems us, in Jesus we are forgiven.

When God made our first father, He made Adam in the image of God. Adam was not the image of God, he was made in the image. Adam’s creation anticipated the incarnation, when the image was revealed. Christ Jesus “is the image of the invisible God.” Much ink has been spilled on the mystery of what it means for man to be made in the image of God, and how it relates to Christ. But Dr. Luther describes it very simply: Christ is “exactly identical to God the Father” - they share in one single divine essence and yet are distinct persons. And this means, Luther says, that it is God’s own blood poured out for us [see LW 57, pp285f], and the rule of God is now on earth in what Jesus says and does.

So the simple words from Christ’s baptism shine His image onto us. The cross rectifies the image once mangled in our concupiscence. God’s own blood, Luther says in the Large Catechism, has turned “an angry and terrible Judge” to a kind “fatherly heart” [Creed, III, 65]. You are reconciled to the Father. However far you have fallen, however grotesquely your impurities have defaced the image, the blood of Jesus is for your reconciliation. Reconciliation with the Father, and among the brethren. His blood qualifies you. The word to the Image echoes onto you, without hesitation, from a forgiving Fatherly heart. The words are to you, but not dependent on you: “You are My beloved sons and daughters; in you I am well pleased.” +INJ+