Getting It Together

“Pastor, I feel like I’m falling apart. Ever since I turned 60, it’s just one thing after another. Seems like I see my doctor more than my friends these days.” “Pastor, I don’t think this world is going to be here much longer. With all the terror and the pollution and the immorality, things are falling apart. Surely it can’t go on much longer.” When things are falling apart or life seems to be slipping away from us, we may wonder what God is doing about it.

Our text today helps us to find out. Whether you are one of those people who have it all together, or you feel like life is unraveling, it brings to us a truth we need to know. It is the last Sunday of the church year. Next week, we’ll ring in the new with the season of Advent. We close this one by remembering who holds everything together.
This text from Colossians describes Christ in powerful terms: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation, the first to rise from death; in Him dwells the fullness of God.” And then the line that is the focus of this message: “in Him all things hold together.” Without Jesus, everything would fall apart. Think about that. Everything. What holds the pages of a book together? Glue and thread. What holds together the chair upon which you are sitting, or the car you drive? Fasteners like nails and screws and bolts and brackets. What holds you in your chair, or bed, or car, or keeps you anchored to the ground? Gravity.

What holds the universe together? Christ. He is the designer, the maker, the one who keeps everything in its proper place. Without Him, everything would fall apart, even for the unbeliever. When He created the world, God’s Spirit hovered over the chaotic waters of creation to bring order and life and harmony. He got it all together in a way that was perfect and good. People were created in the image of God, holy, to share communion with God. Then came doubt, disobedience, and humans began pulling away. Sin threatened to bring it all into chaos again.

Remember the comic books where the bad guys had a disintegrating ray-gun? It would make a building, a person, a tank, a plane – poof – disappear. Well, there is a weapon that is more powerful than the weapons of Star Wars or the lasers of today. It has been around for a long time. Sin destroys the forces that hold us together. Sin tears apart families, breaks hearts, creates anxieties, destroys peace of mind. It can even disintegrate our bond with God.

If you have experienced a relationship that falls apart, you know how that feels. Someone loves you, is committed to you, and then the bond that holds you together starts pulling apart. There is coolness, distance, even hostility. Why? Sin is often at the root. There may have been offending actions, or neglect of showing affection and concern. Other interests, or other people, may have driven a wedge of jealousy. Sin creates conflict, jealousy, fighting, chaos. Each person doing what is right in their own eyes. And sad to say, the evening news shows the power of sin to this very day to destroy and disintegrate in unbelievable ways.

Sin is the most destructive disease known. But there is a greater power. Colossians shows that God was not willing to let sin disintegrate the world He made. He launched a counterattack. He sent to earth His Son to get things back together again – to reconcile, to bring back into unity, what God had made. Adam was made in God’s image, but Christ is the very image of God. In Him we can see perfectly what our Creator is like. The Word by which God said “let there be,” and creation came into being, now took on flesh, became one of us. John’s Gospel says it so well: “The Word became flesh, and dwelled among us” (John 1:14).

Jesus showed God’s way to get it together. His Word was not quick to condemn, but sought to save. He personally reached out to many who had strayed away, who had wasted their bodies and squandered relationships. People who did not have it together. He came to reconcile, to bring us back together by undoing the sin that is always undoing us. Jesus destroyed the disintegrating power of sin. In fact, He nailed it to the cross, so that it cannot keep haunting us.

We have seen too well how terrorism and conflict and chaos around the world leaves people feeling hopeless about what might happen. Jesus faced an even more chaotic world. Every human being, as a sinner, needed to be reconciled to our Creator, and the devil would fight Him on every front.

Jesus did not run for political office to make the world a better place, although we need good politicians. Jesus did not set up a hospital to cure illness, although we need them. He undid the very action that started the disintegration of all things. Jesus had it all together. He did what Adam did not do, and what we have not done: perfectly kept God’s law. He lived in harmony with his Father. He never sinned. Yet, He was willing to die for sins He did not do.

During the cold war years, our world hung on the brink of a nuclear war several times. If the button had been pushed, the destruction would have been catastrophic. But when did our world’s future hang most in the balance? It was the day the Son of God died on the cross. The One who holds all things together, died. The One in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form, died. If He had remained dead, the results would have been catastrophic. We would be without hope. Our sins would continue to spin us away from God. The powers of darkness would have us for eternity. The universe would have disintegrated.

But Christ lives! He is the first-born from the dead! The One who created all life, defeated death by rising again on Easter! It was like throwing the switch on a powerful magnet. The love from God’s heart powerfully draws back by the cross those who were repelled from God by sin. That includes you and me. The Word of God, which created, and which also came to restore what sin had damaged, also comes personally to us. God still speaks to us in His Word, the Bible; He still gives faith and forgiveness and life when His Word is heard and read.

It seems fitting that people who by faith belong to a God who holds it all together would be people that have it together. What about you? Do you have it all together – good job, good home, good health? Maybe, and maybe not. Christians, too, face trials with health and family and finances. Yet, our life is centered and grounded and anchored by faith in Christ.

He also establishes strong bonds with us to keep us from getting lost again. We live in a time, of course, when everybody wants to do what is right in their own eyes, and may look down on any restrictions God places on our freedoms, even when it is for our good. Many accept laws of nature like gravity and friction, but deny the moral laws of the Creator that are even more crucial to life. They want to be free to do what they want, to be their own God. What would life be like without gravity? Well, you could jump over your house. You could fly like a bird! But there would be problems. A stiff wind could blow your house away. Your car wouldn’t stay on the road. Your coffee wouldn’t stay in your cup, water wouldn’t stay in the lakes, and the earth would have no reason to stay in orbit around the sun. We would be in trouble without gravity.

He who created the gravity that keeps things in their proper place has created even more powerful bonds that keep us in the right place: the bonds of love, faith, and community. You have probably witnessed the power of love. It can bind together a mother and a son who is serving overseas. It binds together families spread across the country. It binds God to you. God loves you as if you were the only person on earth. Even if everything in your world seems to be falling apart, God, in love, is at work to put the pieces together, even when the mess He is cleaning up is one we made. He will not leave us.

There is the bond of faith. God gives us the power to trust Him, to believe His promises. The more we read the promises of His Word, the more secure we are in a chaotic world. Faith binds to you His promises to forgive and empower and provide. He has promised that even the power of death cannot separate you from him – you are an heir of everlasting life.

There is the bond of community. Christ, Paul says, is the head of the Church, His body. We are a part of His family – His sons and daughters. We are connected to one another by His love for us. We are to love as He has loved us. His Word, which is at the center of our fellowship with His people, gives power to fight off temptation. Instead of conforming to the world, we seek to conform to the mind and life of Christ. Through repentance and forgiveness, we fight to keep sin from destroying our relationships.

The community of God’s people is God’s instrument in His ongoing mission to reconcile a fractured world. He would work through you and me to pull together, one by one, a world falling apart. We can speak of His powerful love in Christ that reconciles us to Him. We can reach out, like Jesus did, to those whose lives are falling apart, and show tangible kindness and love. In the place of the disintegrating power of sin, He gives us a reconciling power. He has given us authority to speak a word on His behalf – a word of forgiveness and life and peace to all who believe. He gives authority to forgive those who repent, to heal what was broken. As people see Christians share a bond of faith and love, they see community. That is a powerful sight!

Only God knows how long your body will last, and how long it will be before the world falls apart. So don’t worry. God has it all together, even when life seems to be falling apart. God still holds in His hand the world He made. God holds you in His hand, too – secure in the bonds of love, faith, and the community of His body, the Church. And who knows, He may give you the privilege today of being a living sign to a dying world of the Christ that holds it all together. Amen.

LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for November 25, 2007
TOPIC: Why Preach?

ANNOUNCER: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus answers questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer

KLAUS: Hi, Mark. A blessed Thanksgiving weekend to you and all of our listeners in the U.S. And to our friends in Canada, a belated Thanksgiving Day. So, Mark, what do we have before us today?

ANNOUNCER: Well we have this question, kind of a semi-rhetorical question, which comes to us from a listener who is not necessarily all that pleased with Christianity. They say, “Why do Christians feel the need to preach?” Everytime they turn on the TV, they hear Christians preaching about political issues, about morality and values, or some other hard-nosed lecture about something.

KLAUS: Wow, is that all they ever hear?

ANNOUNCER: Well, I should say Christians certainly have every right to express their opinions about such matters, but the actual central message of Christianity is about more than politics, morality, and values.

KLAUS: Agreed. Along with answering this question, Mark, from this fellow, I think I’d like to answer the questions of all those on the fringe, who have a Christian in their family who’s always “working on them.” They nag, they nag, they nag… Jesus this, and come to church that.

These folks get very frustrated at their Christian family members always talking to them about Jesus. First, let me concede that there are a lot of different ways for God’s people to share the story of the Savior and the salvation Christ has won for us upon Calvary’s cross and at His empty tomb.

ANNOUNCER: Could you explain some of those ways?

KLAUS: Well, I can give an example or two. I was in Israel once when some really dedicated Christians came through. They were really fired up. After one of their worship services, they fanned out in their hotels and witnessed to the people who worked in the hotel. Two or three of these witnesses would corner a staff person and tell them of the wonders of God’s love and Jesus’ sacrifice. And when I say they “cornered” them, that’s not an exaggeration. They got right in their faces – looked them in the eye, grabbed them by the lapels, and started to talk very forcefully.

ANNOUNCER: I don’t suppose that kind of approach worked very well?

KLAUS: Well, it didn’t. Since most of the staff was made up of people from the Philippines who didn’t understand English, all they got was scared. For those who did understand English, it was pretty intimidating.

ANNOUNCER: But I can also understand why those evangelists wanted to share their faith.

KLAUS: Well, I can. There are a number of ways to do that and also a number of ways to talk to people that aren’t much better than that.

ANNOUNCER: For example?

KLAUS: When somebody goes up to another person and says, “You need to be saved. You really ought to go to church. You need to go to church !”

ANNOUNCER: But what’s wrong with that? They should go to church.

KLAUS: Of course they should. But I don’t go to a dentist, or to a physician unless I need a dentist or a physician. I’m not going to go to church until I think I need the Savior.

By saying go to church, the well-intentioned evangelist is cutting out the most important part – why their friend should go to church; how will going to church help them; and, of course, who is the person that is going to be helping them.

ANNOUNCER: So we need to make sure that God’s solution answers the needs of that person.

KLAUS: Bingo.

ANNOUNCER: And, back to our original question – why do Christians feel the need to preach?

KLAUS: It’s this way, Mark. If a certain doctor gives me a medicine which cures me from my sickness, my sickness that every other doctor said was hopeless and terminal; I’m going to remember that doctor.

In this case, Jesus is our doctor. His blood is the medicine that cures us of the illnesses which would lead us to eternal death. Jesus is the only doctor who has this medicine.

Now, let’s go back to the story. If I meet someone who is sick, who has the same incurable illness that I had, what should I do? What would I do?

ANNOUNCER: You’d tell them about the doctor and the medicine.

KLAUS: Absolutely. I’d tell them once, twice, repeatedly. I’d tell them ’til they went to that doctor. I’d nag and I’d plead and I’d exhaust every possible angle. They might get tired of hearing me talk about the doctor and the medicine, but what can I do? I know my friend, my family member’s life depends on meeting this doctor, and taking His medicine, His free medicine which is absolutely guaranteed to save them.

That’s why we preach Jesus. Faith in Jesus is not something which is optional, it’s necessary. Through faith in Jesus, they will be saved. Without faith in Jesus, they’re doomed. That’s why we preach Jesus. What else can we do?

ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.

Music selections for this program:

“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC

“Wake, Awake” arr. by Henry Gerike. Used by permission.

“I Lie, O Lord, Within Your Care” by Jochen Klepper & Joseph Herl. From Sing With All the Saints by the Children’s Choirs of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church (© 2006 St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Ft. Wayne) Text © 1998 GIA Publications, Inc. Tune © 1999 Joseph Herl