Colossians 3:1-17 John 20:1-18
Overcomers
The Medieval mind was essentially orderly and methodical. As C. S. Lewis states in his book, The Discarded Image: “At his most characteristic, medieval man was not a dreamer nor a wanderer. He was an organizer, a codifier, a builder of systems. He wanted a ‘place for everything and everything in the right place’. Distinction, definition, tabulation, were his delight. Though full of turbulent activities, he was equally full of the impulse to formalize them.”
It was the age of synthesis as men strove to create a perfect model by which all of life could be explained as a whole and, consequently, ordered as a whole. The compartmentalization of the post-enlightenment era would have distressed the medievalist greatly as, to him, life was a whole…admittedly made up of various parts, but whole, nonetheless. Just like the human body is composed of ten major systems…the skeletal system, the muscular system, the nervous system, the cardiovascular system, the lymphatic system, the respiratory system, the digestive system, the endocrine system, the urinary system, and the reproductive system …many systems and yet essentially only one entity.
In this unified environment, medieval man attained his greatest heights of achievement. Painters, sculptors, writers, philosophers, architects, astronomers, scholars, and theologians all worked together to produce a harmonious picture of reason amid the threatening chaos of the period. These men were overcomers in every sense of the word as they viewed all of life as one unified unit with one meaning and one purpose and one goal.
The biblical authors likewise understood all of life in terms of an essential unity under the Sovereignty of God and thus all was explained with reference to the will and purpose of a God who was intimately involved in every detail and every aspect of human existence. This understanding has largely been lost since the so-called Enlightenment and consequently people have become fragmented in their thinking and in their living.
This fragmentation can be witnessed in the life of many typical modern church goers. God is designated a spot in the limelight on Sundays and perhaps one other day in the week, while all the other days are lived under the tyranny of any number of man-made rivals.
The result of this fragmented way of thinking is a form of schizophrenia. If there is no unified thought, then life may be expressed and lived in any series of inconsistencies and incongruencies, paradoxes and puzzles, contradictions and contrasts. One may be a pious churchgoer on Sunday and a pompous cad on Monday without any disturbance in the realm of the conscience.
However, the Enlightenment was not the first to produce such an abhorrent aberration. Ever since the Fall, mankind has always sought to straddle the ravine between irreconcilable differences. Paul seems to be addressing this tendency in our Epistle reading for today. “If,” he wrote, “we believe that we have been raised up together with Jesus, then why continue to seek the things that are below?” The mind ought to be set on the things that are eternal not on the things that are transitory…on the things that are heavenly not the things that are earthly.
His point is that we cannot live fragmented or compartmentalised lives if we are in Jesus. We are either for him or against him…either in or out…either above or under. Consequently, certain things are to be put away and others embraced as we seek to bring the whole of our lives in harmony with the reality of his total sovereignty and authority over all things in both heaven and earth (Matthew 28:18). If we have been reconciled to the source of all life through Jesus, then it follows that we ought to live that life according to his terms and not our terms, or, indeed, the terms dictated to us and expected from us by the world, regardless of how “rational” or “pragmatic” or “appealing” they may appear to be. Jesus is either all and in all, or he is not at all.
Resurrection Sunday is not merely a story to be told once a year at the appropriate time. No, rather it is a revolutionary force in the life of all who believe. Because Jesus is risen, we too are risen in him, and because he has overcome, we too will overcome. The disciples on that first Easter Day understood this only in part and so we find them dejected and defeated at the empty tomb. If Jesus was dead and not risen, and his body stolen and irretrievable, then any kind of faith was simply pathetic and they of all people were greatly to be pitied. All of life has no meaning with a dead saviour.
For this reason, they turned away from the empty tomb and went home. What else was there to do? All hope had died on that Roman Cross. Purposelessness and meaninglessness had set in, and desolate despair was the rule of the day.
Yet, for whatever reason, Mary Magdalene could not dismiss her Lord that easily. While she too, no doubt, could not fathom all that had transpired since Passover, she could not walk away. So, she stood, not knowing what to do…baffled, perplexed, and overwhelmed by grief and yet hoping against hope that she might at least be able to complete the burial rites for the Rabbi she had loved and followed for the past three years.
The Scriptures do not give us any reason to think that her faith in the Lord’s teaching about his resurrection on the third day was any better or clearer than that of Peter and John, but it does tell us that her heart rebelled against this apparent disorder in the life of one who had been so ordered…one who had never been out of step with the will of the Father…who moved only according to divine direction. And so, she waited to be given some reasonable explanation for what seemed to be so unreasonable.
It is this kind of thought that Paul developed into a full-blown lifestyle. No deviation ought to be permitted as the authority of Jesus permeates every area of existence.
The resurrection brings life, but not a life that is to be had and not lived. This is because the life we have in Jesus is preceded by a death to the life that we had before. As Paul said in Colossians 3:3, “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” And therefore because of this death, Paul first calls us to put to death our members that are on earth, and then he gives us a general list of behaviours that are unacceptable for those who have a new life in Jesus.
But it is not death that renders these behaviours unacceptable…it is life. We have put off the old man, Paul says, and we have put on the new man. A new way of living is required for the new man and consequently the old man must be discarded.
But note that the logic behind this is the fact that Christ is all in all. There is no room for compromise…there is no room for anything contrary…he is either Lord of all or not Lord at all. He will not share us with a rival. Every area of our new life must be surrendered to him and controlled by him. And so, Paul listed several things that are incompatible to life in the Kingdom of God from verse 12 on.
This wholly closed system presents a problem for modern humanity as we like to shove God into one pigeon-hole among many others which allows us to live multiple lives depending on the situation at hand. This is why many believers can wear Jesus like a thin coating of sugar on a bitter pill. They live as if we can mix and match the old and new as easily as one mixes and matches clothes for work or play.
To them, sexual deviation, uncleanness, fleshly passion, evil desire, and covetousness present no problem. They simply cannot comprehend why these two sets of behaviour are mutually exclusive and incompatible…totally incongruous and contradictory. Many live segmented lives with apparent ease. Remember, even the goats argued at God’s throne that they had done nothing wrong in their own estimation and were therefore not worthy of censure or condemnation.
This is not the life of the new man…this is not life in Jesus. In his first epistle, John said that if we claim to be in Jesus that we then ought to be like Jesus…in other words, if we have life in him, we must live like him. If we say we are in the light, we cannot walk in darkness. Followers of Jesus do not only call him Lord. Followers of Jesus obey him as Lord. Followers of Jesus stand steadfast despite worldly wisdom and worldly peer pressure. Followers of Jesus unapologetically acknowledge that all of life is subject to the sovereign will and rule of God. Followers of Jesus live all of life as one unified entity with one meaning and one purpose and one goal.
And so we return to Medieval thought…or, dare I say, Hebraic thought…a synthesis of the whole organisation of our “theology, science, and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe”. (Lewis) All of life must be interpreted with reference to the will and purpose of a good creator God who is lovingly and intimately involved in every aspect of human existence.
The resurrection of Jesus is a call to a new kind of life from what we lived before we believed in him. Through his resurrection, we too have been raised to where he is, seated at the right hand of the Father. And so, according to Paul, we must seek the things that are above where Jesus is, and, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, we are to clothe ourselves with a new manner of living in which the love defined and demonstrated by God himself governs our actions.
By God’s amazing grace inclining our minds towards good desires and good decisions, and by his continual help in causing us to bring the same to good effect, we too may triumph in Jesus over Satan, sin, and death, and subsequently in Jesus, we too may enter through the gates of Paradise. So, as we come to his table this Resurrection Sunday, may we, like Mary Magdalene, embrace our living and life-giving Saviour, so that we also may be sent out to announce that he has overcome all and that, in him, we too may become overcomers.
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2023
Thank you, Johann. Easter Blessings🙏🏼❤️
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