The Incomparable Christ

REFLECTION QUOTES

“For all of us have a basic, intuitive feeling that once we were whole and well; at ease, at home in the world, totally united with the grounds of our being; and that then we lost this primal, happy, innocent state, and fell into our present sickness and suffering. We had something of infinite beauty and preciousness – and we lost it; we spend our lives searching for what we have lost; and one day, perhaps, we will suddenly find it.”

~Oliver Sacks, British-American neurologist at NYU
School of Medicine, in his 1973 book Awakenings


“Behind the debris of our self-styled, sullen supermen, there stands the gigantic figure of one person because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone mankind might still have hope: the person of Jesus Christ.”

~G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English writer

“In Jesus Christ the reality of God entered into the reality of this world…. Henceforth one can speak neither of God nor of the world without speaking of Jesus Christ. All concepts of reality which do not take account of Him are abstractions.”

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German theologian and pastor,
executed for his opposition to the Nazis

“The American Jesus is more a pawn than a king, pushed around in a complex game of cultural (and countercultural) chess, sacrificed here for this cause and there for another.”

~Dr. Stephen Prothero, professor at Boston University

“The business of the poet and novelist is to show the sorriness underlying the grandest things, and the grandeur underlying the sorriest things.”

~Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), English novelist, poet, and short-story writer

“We live in a broken world and we want hope. And we go to movies—we read stories—because we get to see broken people become whole. And that’s the message that Jesus gives us.”

~Matthew Luhn, Pixar Story Editor and Artist

SERMON PASSAGE

Colossians 1:13-23

13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.