Colossians

The opening of the letter is familiar: greeting, thanksgiving, and a request. The sender introduces himself with all the authority given to him by God the Father. The thanksgiving shows the Apostle’s personal gladness at the Christian energy the community demonstrates, evident in their faith in Christ and in the love they share. The hope of the life “reserved for you in heaven” (5) supports that faith and results in love. This hope is already becoming real in the daily life of the community. Finally, connecting to the letter’s central theme, the Apostle states that all of this has been made possible because they received “through the word of truth” (5). It is this truth of the Gospel that Paul will defend against syncretistic influences and other false teachings that threaten their loyalty to the Word of God they received.

Clear and consistent Christian practice is the main focus of Paul’s ongoing prayers for the believers in Colossae. He requests wisdom and spiritual insight (9), gifts of the Spirit that help the community personally know God and understand His will, “pleasing him in everything, bearing fruit in good works” (10). The task is challenging, so he continues to ask God to grant them the strength and perseverance needed to fight daily to expand God’s kingdom (11). Finally, he urges them to thank the Father who “brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son” (13), which is the kingdom of light (12), after rescuing them “from the power of darkness” (13), meaning from the life of sin they once lived (cf. Eph 1:7).

To clarify the truth of the Gospel, Paul begins by quoting and adapting a liturgical hymn from early Christian communities, vividly describing the person of Christ, who is both Creator and Savior, the center and key of the universe and human history. Although the foundation of all the Apostles’ preaching is the “historical saving event” of Christ—his death and resurrection—this event was not a spontaneous decision. Paul views Christ, who died and rose again, as the central figure from the very beginning, the true protagonist of God’s creative act: “in him all things were created” (16), and the true “image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (15). Since all humans are made in the image of the “living God” (cf. Gn 1:27), it is the image of his Son, the conqueror of death, that governs and encompasses all humanity and all creation that came from the loving hands of the Creator. This absolute lordship of Christ places him at the center of the Christian community, which he describes as ‘the head of the body… of the Church’ (18), because through the Church, the extension of his body, he announces and proclaims salvation and reconciliation to the entire universe. This is where the missionary calling of all the baptized resides, making the Church the sacrament of universal salvation. From here, Paul derives the tangible effects of faith in everyday life.

This salvation offered to all and already experienced by the Colossians, formerly pagans and now reconciled by the blood of Christ, is the great “mystery hidden for ages and generations and now revealed to his holy ones” (1:26). God had formally promised a Messiah to the Jews, and they expected him for themselves. But in God’s plan, the Messiah was also destined for the pagans, that is, for all men and women in the world, regardless of religion, race, or nation. Paul has received this secret, and it is his task to announce and proclaim it. That is why he teaches, admonishes, works, and struggles with the energy and effectiveness that come from the power of the Word of God that he proclaims. The revelation he bears is not mere information but the richness—shared and given—of participation in the glory of God.
This missionary work is primarily characterized by suffering, fitting for an apostle who follows in the footsteps of the Crucified One. Paul describes this suffering for the Gospel with one of his brilliant and paradoxical phrases, in which he expresses his joy at being able to complete “what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, which is the church” (1:24). He does not mean to say that Christ’s saving actions—the death and resurrection—were insufficient, thus requiring our suffering, but rather that, considering the close communion between Christ and the Christian, he sees his own suffering as a continuation of his Lord’s saving suffering.