NRS Colossians 1
13 He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers-- all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

About five years ago I was visiting with a man I'll just call John. John was then about 76 years old and he had about three weeks left to live. Nine months earlier, John had been diagnosed with a very advanced and very aggressive cancer that chemotherapy and radiation had maybe slowed but not overcome. John was usually a pretty reserved kind of guy, didn't say much. During our visits he would typically update me on how his stocks were doing as he watched the tickers on MSNBC, but he hardly ever mentioned what was happening to him physically or spiritually. When I'd ask, he'd answer, "Oh, fine. I'm good," and then turn up the volume on the TV. On this visit, though, he opened up to me as best he could, and he said to me, "I'm really feeling okay about Jesus, but God, well … God and I have never seen eye to eye." When I asked him to explain, he said, "Well, I've always felt like I could talk to Jesus, but God is, you know, so hard and mean. I've always thought it best just to keep my distance." I told him to keep talking to Jesus, and he'd be okay.

John was not the first, and he certainly hasn't been the last person I've met whose image of God and whose image of Jesus were poles apart. For many people, God still conjures up the image of an old white guy with a long white beard, wrapped in white bed sheets and sitting on a white marble throne while white-winged angels play their harps of gold. And like a lot of other old, white males, this God also has a kind of hair-trigger temper. He gets really mad really fast, as in, like, anything can get him going. He wants us to worship him constantly and tell him how great he is, but if you tick him off, then you'd really better watch out. He'll flood the earth, or he'll rain down sulfur and fire, or he'll smack you with a lightning bolt. This God is, in other words, very big on vengeance, so best to lay low, keep your head down, and by all means, do not get in his way.

On the other hand, there's Jesus. If God is the bad cop, then Jesus is the good one. He's the kind of guy you could play a round of golf with, or chat up over coffee, or just, you know, have over for burgers and fries. He's got long hair and a beard; he wears sandals and builds cabinets on the side; but most importantly, he's a stand up guy. Jesus will stand up to the Old Man for you. I mean, if you cross a line and God comes gunning for you, Jesus will take the heat. When God wants blood for your trespass, then Jesus is the go-to guy who will open up a vein for you.

Now perhaps I stereotype, but, I think, only slightly. For many people, I'm afraid, the relationship of God to Jesus is creepily similar to the classic dysfunctional family. In that scenario, Jesus is like the eldest son standing up to the alcoholic father when dad gets drunk and starts to whale on mom and the kids. This is not what the Bible teaches.

According to the Bible, "Jesus is the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15), which is to say, if you want to know who God is, you have to look at Jesus. You can, of course, look to other things for insight into the nature of God. Philosophy, science, art, prayer and personal experience, all these things have yielded many different rich and thoughtful ideas on the personality and purposes of God. But as Christians, we maintain and believe that if you really want to know who God is and what God's about, then Jesus is the ultimate source. As we hear in the Letter to the Colossians, "For in him [Jesus], the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (2:9). I think it was the theologian Karl Rahner who said that Jesus is God's Word in that Jesus is everything that God could possibly say to us in one person.

And the God Jesus reveals is utterly astonishing, totally awesome, and wholly, completely, entirely worthy of our worship and praise, assuming that the Jesus you're looking at and listening to is the one who acts for us and speaks to us in the pages of the New Testament. Unfortunately, that's a really big assumption, since many people have never actually met the Jesus of the New Testament, which includes, I'm sad to say, many people who regularly fill pews on Sunday mornings. They know the Jesus of stereotype. They know the Jesus of popular culture. They know the Jesus frozen in Sunday School illustrations or the Jesus slept through in church, but they do not know: the Jesus that called to Mary in the garden outside his tomb; or the Jesus that opened to Thomas' doubting fingers the wounds in his hands and side; or the Jesus that knocked Saul to the ground on his way to Damascus. The Jesus they know is, in the words of the old Doobie Brothers song, "just alright," a nice guy, easy going, someone to turn to when you're in trouble, a good person for advice and moral wisdom; or in other words, boring.

That's possibly the greatest blasphemy you could ever commit against Jesus, to make him boring, because the Jesus of the New Testament is, when read in the fullness of the Hebrew Scriptures, really, honestly knock-down, drop-dead amazing. Please don't think I'm tooting my own horn here, but I have to tell you, that after not a few of years of reading and studying, preaching and teaching, Jesus is still astounding me. You know, it's like every time I think I've got him figured out, then - BAM! - there's something else about him that just kind of leaves me slack-jawed and flat-footed. And that's because in Jesus I believe - in my heart of hearts, I believe - that we see the whole infinite drama of God. In Jesus we see God's judgment and mercy meet. In Jesus we see God's passion for justice and passion for reconciliation intersect in a way that transforms both justice and reconciliation. In Jesus we see the power of God, the suffering of God, the awesomeness and the nearness of God, the height and the depth of God, the past, present, and future of God all in one person.

In Jesus we see God, but not as you would see a picture in a frame or an image on a screen. Rather, in Jesus the picture steps out of the frame, the image jumps off of the screen, as God in Jesus comes into our lives. In Jesus God's heaven comes to our earth, into our homes, where we work, among our friends, in the faces of our enemies, on the best days of our lives and the worst. In Jesus the Kingdom of God is at hand, yours and mine, living and active, to judge and to forgive, to cut and to heal, to kill the old self and to resurrect the new.

Sometimes I get asked why I wear a robe on Sunday mornings. Most of the time I joke that it's because when I wear a robe, I never have to worry whether I've left my pants unzipped. But sometimes it's because I don't want you to see my knees knocking.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.