Fullness

Amy Oden

Church of the Resurrection Insights Blog

Colossians 1: 15-20

“The fullness of God” – this phrase caught me up short as I read Colossians 1 for the umpteenth time. How had I missed it before? As I paused to re-read verse 19, I felt my chest open up with longing and possibility, surely a holy invitation to rest in these words awhile.

This led me to check out The Message translation because Eugene Peterson so often offers a refreshing turn of phrase. Here it is: “So spacious is he, so expansive, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding” (The Message, Colossians 1:19)

Wow, a powerful image for what it means to say Jesus is fully God! Imagine God’s fullness as Jesus’ ever-expanding arms, encompassing more and more, all of life reconciled and healed here. These descriptions speak to me, pull me into a vision of fullness that can hold all my life, all the world’s joy and suffering and everything in between.  

What if the “fullness of God” in Jesus is not a divine status set above us, but is an expanse holding us? What if Jesus’ way of being is so “so spacious … so expansive” (The Message, v. 19) that nothing is left outside of it, nothing thrown away or wasted, nothing unacceptable or unreceivable? This is the good news I want to live in.

My prayer today is that I follow Jesus into the abundant, overflowing Way, spacious and expansive.