Christ at the Centre

In my report to the Association’s Annual General Meeting last night, I referred to this verse in Paul’s letter to the Colossian church: 

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy.  Colossians 1:17 

There is a feeling that the world is tearing itself apart at the moment. You could look at the situations in the Middle East and Ukraine; or, coming closer to home, university protests, the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, the rise in instances of domestic violence, not to mention so many elements of the State and Federal political discourse that cause great concern.  

The world without Jesus cannot hold together.  Large personalities can stem the tide – create a sense of hope even.  Consider Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mikhail Gorbachev – they were God’s instrument for the destruction of a previously unsolvable problem.  Bright lights shining hope on the darkest of circumstances.  Each provided a centring for the place where they were.  But, once their time was up, history bears out that things fell apart again – and the centre these leaders once held strongly could not hold once they were gone.  

Christ is different – He trampled death – He defeated it. He rose again.  He was victorious, for our sakes, for our flourishing, for our eternal good. 

We are a community of Christians gathering each day so our children may learn and experience what it is to grow up to love and serve Jesus.  We have no business in despairing for the world because we believe that God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:17  

Global peace, good government, social order, norms as we’ve known them to be – all of these may seem to be coming crashing down around us. For followers of Jesus, we live with an assurance that Christ holds all things together.  

If Paul were a scientist today, he would say that if you can think of gravity without reference to Jesus, your view of Jesus isn’t big enough.  If you can think of your day-to-day routine without reference to Jesus, your view of Jesus isn’t big enough.  If you can think of anything without reference to Jesus, your view of Jesus isn’t big enough. 

That’s our great news.  The one that we love is connected to everything.  The hands that were pierced for our sins are the hands that hold everything together.  

Only the creator has the capacity to hold creation together and Christ is the creator.  This means we are living in Christ’s cosmos.  Will Jesus let His universe fall apart? No!  

Christ did not create the cosmos and then withdraw from it. Christ sustains all creation through active participation. Creation is being sustained by the word of Christ. In Him all things hold together. Every star and galaxy, every blade of grass and every grain of sand is sustained and continues to exist because the word of Christ actively holds it all together.  

Whether or not life is falling apart for you, at some point it will feel like things are very much out of our control.  Our lives need an organising centre with enough spiritual gravity; willpower is not enough.  

Family and friends, careers and causes, hobbies and interests are good things. Campaigning and agitating for justice and purity are good things; but if they are all we are known by, they lack the necessary gravity to keep us properly centred.  

Christ alone is the centre that holds. When the centre is Christ, many good and wonderful things find their appropriate place. This is how we are called to organise our lives. Christ at the centre and let everything else orbit around him – NOT US!  

What “centre” will our school be known by?  What will be the centre of our school’s life?  People, things, causes, experiences? They may give us our bearings and stability.  

But Jesus pushes us to go deeper, to look within and discover who or what our life is centred on, and then to re-centre. On Him. 

When Jesus challenges His disciples with the question “Who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29) Peter answers immediately, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God, the living one.” This is more than just an answer. With those words he has re-centred his life. Christ is the axis around which Peter will present his body “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” 

“Who do you say that I am?” As a school, we need to live out the answer. With Christ at the centre, in all, with all, for all, at all times, in all places, in all spaces.  

Will we care for the poor (in heart, in spirit, physically, materially), feed the hungry, and defend the oppressed. Will we offer forgiveness despite your anger? Will we pray when we are too busy to pray? Love your enemies despite your fear? Deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Jesus, each and every day?  

To finish on a hope-filled note:  we should celebrate the ways Christ is at the centre of what happens already:  the regular cadence and deep challenge of our multiple staff devotion gatherings – whole staff, primary staff, secondary staff, admin staff, grounds and maintenance staff, just to name the bigger clusters.  Whole staff retreats where these challenges are unpacked with the help of expert guest speakers, then discussed, prayed over and committed to God intentionally.   

And then, some student stories. I mentioned the Year 11 formal story in my newsletter recently – of the profoundly positive effect the whole cohort had on a jaded security guard who’d never met a more considerate and other-person focused group of 16-year-olds in his work life.  This is an example repeated at all ages and contexts as our students engage with students and staff from other schools (e.g. in sport) and on excursions.  

How about the Primary “choosing kindness” initiative?  Go have a look at the rising wall of balls on the Year 1-2 building – it’s so encouraging.  And then there are the multiple examples of worship leading by students seen week in and week out.  Not to mention students of all ages in the school praying for one another, spontaneously and intentionally, as they see a need.   

And let me make, here, a little plug for the Christian community friend-raising endeavours of Friends of Donvale.  Join them for their prayer and fellowship gathering on a week you can make it – I’m sure you’ll want to return. 

Will we practice generosity of every kind, in the declining moral, physical and financial economies we find ourselves in? WithChrist at our centre, the evidence points to the answer to this question being a resounding YES! 

Shalom.