Thursday, June 26, 2008

JESUS SUSTAINS ALL

Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus Christ upholds the universe by the word of his power, and Colossians 1:17 says that in him all things hold together.

This means that while Jesus was speaking to first-century denizens of the Middle East about camels and needle eyes, he could have caused Neptune to explode, or a different galaxy to change locations in the universe, or cause a certain bird to eat a certain insect on the plains of the Serengeti (though it probably wasn't called 'Serengeti' then). Could have...and probably did (well, we don't think he caused Neptune to explode).

We think this phenomenal, even impossible, and the thought causes many a theologian to wax apoplectic. But is it so different (in type, that is) from what we do each day in our own bodies? Which of us thinks about making our hearts beat, or our lungs expand and contract to draw air and then expel it? Which of us directs cells to collect nutrients from blood, from food, from oxygen? Who thinks about instructing other cells to divide, fight bacteria, or collect and dispose of waste on a microscopic level?

Knowing that, it is not so far out of the realm of imagination that God, while carrying on with man, is carrying on (in a different way) with millions of planets that are circling myriads of stars, which are growing, plateauing and declining.

So, since we don't consciously control our hearts, our breathing, our circulation, is it too radical, to overwhelming, too humbling to suppose that at this very moment Jesus Christ is making my own heart beat? And yours, too?

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