United in Love

United in Love

“I want their hearts to be encouraged and united in love, so that they may have all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself.” Colossians 2:2

I’ve always loved a good mystery. In fact, one summer during junior high I read one Hardy Boys Mystery book a day! Good mystery authors leave clues throughout their story but are not obvious about them. Hopefully, by the end of the story you look back at characters and plot twists and go, “Aha!”

What God has done in Christ is called a “mystery” by Paul. It is a term borrowed from surrounding religious language. At the time it referred to initiation scripts or rites that allowed only those who were specially trained to access the “hidden” things of their religion. So, people were always on a quest for more knowledge, more understanding and the deeper things of God. Of course, this created classes among the devotees; those who were new to the faith, those who were gaining knowledge, and those, at the top, who had gone to “the next level.”

It is important to note, there is no such language as “the next level” when it comes to Christ. There is no experience that initiates us into another stratosphere of acceptance in God. There is no deeper knowledge that puts us above less mature Christians. There is simply no level of attainment to boast about at all.

What Paul does, in hijacking the term “mystery”, is to turn it upside down and inside out. The “mystery” is what he has already freely proclaimed to them: “this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” You see, there is no deeper level in Christ; he already dwells within you by faith.

That leaves us free to do exactly what Christ would do: love. Paul says he wants our hearts to be encouraged and united (or knit together) in love. That is the true nature of the church. The greatest mysteries are the simplest ones.

Martin Sheen tells a story about a conversation with a priest. “I was traveling and went to confession in this very remote place, and suddenly he said, ‘Well, we don’t know what God is, do we?’ …Every time we try to identify God, we are sure to identify what she is certainly not. And the genius of God is that he dwells where we would least likely look, within the depths of our own being, our own shallowness, our own darkness, our own humanity.”

The relentless presence of Christ is to be found within each of us! That is why being “united in love” is our highest value. Every time we complain bitterly about another brother, we are complaining about someone within whom Christ dwells. Every time we tell a sister how wrong she is, and insist she change to our expectations, we are mistreating the very temple of God.

That is why I urge people to stay in fellowship where they may have a disagreement or conflict with someone. If the highest value is love, and you feel others are not loving, then you be the loving one! What if, every time our ego got knocked around a bit, we responded with the love of Christ? What if, every time someone challenged us about our abilities, our intelligence or the depth of our commitment, we responded with the love that God showed the world in Christ?

The church is united in this love. That is why so many churches are dying. We have turned love for Christ into rules to follow. We have turned His grace into legislation we want to enforce. We have turned the wonder of worship into a popularity contest for good music. I’ve seen people divorce themselves from fellowship over female ushers, greeters not dressed nice enough, children being too noisy (oh that more churches had that “problem”), not enough “hell” being preached, a “sugar coated” gospel. You can add to the list I’m sure.

What if every group of believers made a six week covenant to be “united in love.” And, what if that was ignited by the simple realization that Christ Himself dwells in each of us? Going further, what if, instead of “helping” those on the margins, we began to actually identify with them in love?

I can tell you what will happen; we will experience “the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ himself.” In other words, the spiritual experience you crave, the “next level” you keep hoping to attain, the “higher knowledge” you think you need will be richer than you can imagine.

So, though there is no “deep mystery” for those who follow Christ, if you truly want a next-level experience; love. It is then that you and I will truly experience God’s mystery, Christ himself. Do you understand? We experience the riches of Christ to the extent that we are being and acting united in love! It is that simple. No deep symbolism. No higher knowledge. Just the hard, day-to-day work of loving your neighbor as yourself. Oh, and Christ is in your neighbor.