God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.
Colossians 2:13-14
What???
Much thinking required.
This is hard.
Maybe there was a problem in Colossae that Paul was responding to. What were they up to? Well a little bit of research reveals that Colossians is one of the prison letters that Paul wrote when he was imprisoned the first time. He had gotten word that the people of Colossae were fighting and trying to settle some doctrine that confused them. In this light, we can read this as a sort of Pauline smack-down: Together with Christ, you're forgiven, the legal record is erased, Jesus was nailed to the cross... for you... for each and every one of us.
On the other hand, there seems to be some compelling evidence that Paul did not write this epistle, that it was in fact written by someone on the ground in Colossae, but somehow became attributed to Paul. The anxiety the Colossians were having seemed to revolve around the symbolic observances of new Christian laws. They were good on the big things, but bogged down on the fine print. Well, regardless of the topic, the advice is sound: Together with Christ, you're forgiven, the legal record is erased, Jesus was nailed to the cross... for you... for each and every one of us.
One of my most powerful and vivid memories of Cursillo weekend involved a cross and setting aside our anxieties and worries. It was, if I recall correctly, the second evening when we were all tired and confused about what we were doing at Cursillo in the first place. But this exercise was very centering and comforting. Together with Christ...
JoEllen Kelly
