Colossians 2:17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.
It has been interesting to watch people around the world grasp at straws as they tried to avoid getting the flu. They have thrown just about everything at it, but it still continues to shut down economies and isolate people. I wish I was doing a PhD, because I know the perfect study to do. I would study the longterm effects on children and social relationships due to missing the facial clues naturally picked up from watching an unmasked face by infants. Those basic social skills have been lost on at least two years worth of infants.
But almost everyone has been grasping for a sense of normalcy. But so many have been grasping at the wrong things. This world and all its solutions, they are destined to perish, ending in a colossal failure. And those who trust in the answers this world system has to offer will face a catastrophe.
Even in the realm of religious answers, moral systems and humanist efforts, they are nothing more than a mist on a cool fall morning. It seems solid, but when you drive through it, or attempt to capture it, evasion is its answer. You can’t capture fog!
Paul in his letter to the church in Colossi works to counter a faction of the religious folk there. They think that keeping elements of the Old Testament Law will help them in their spiritual journey. They might even say that these rituals were essential to their faith.
But Paul counters by saying that those rituals were just a shadow and not the substance themselves. A shadow might give you a two dimensional sense of an object, but it is distorted at best, and only two dimensional. Paul warns that attempting to grasp the shadows sidetracks people from seeking the reality that is found in Jesus.
And for Paul, Jesus is the central and most important element of Christianity. Without Jesus, everything falls apart. Without Jesus death, burial and resurrection, Christianity is empty, devoid of power to help overcome the consequences of sin.
Are there things we are attempting to reach and hold onto that are really shadows of something or someone of much greater stature? Do we live in a neighborhood with gates in order to give ourselves the shadow of physical safety, when Jesus wants to offer us something much greater than physical safety, eternal security?
Do our investments become the shadow of Jesus’ provision for our needs? Do we grasp for private confession of sin and reject any public acknowledgement of wrong-doing, and accountability? Do we always reserve judgment even when clear violations of God’s justice are clear?
We now have the reality. Jesus has risen from the dead demonstrating that the penalty for our sin has been provided by His death, the innocent for the guilty. We must lay aside any sense of the right to eternal life based on anything other than, or in addition to, Jesus finished work. We must rest solely in Him, and in Him alone.
We are grasping at straws, but straw grasping is what humanity does best. We want any solution other than the one provided by our merciful and gracious God. To accept His solution is to admit that we have failed, and no one likes to admit failure. But fail we have! All our efforts fall short of what God requires, and is just a shadow of the new reality, the mystery of God redeeming the world through the death of His Son.
The Arnold Journey 