Notes from St Mary’s
October...
Fifteen to twenty years after Jesus rose from the dead a church was founded in a city called Colossae. The city was around 100 miles inland from what we now know as the southern Turkish coast. It was a Greco-Roman city and a major trade route and crossroads for Asia and Europe. It was a new city founded on a crossroads and there a church was established. It was a city that was not only on a trading crossroads but a cultural crossroad. To the east, Asia, to the west, Rome, to the north, barbarian lands, to the south and east, Persia.
Each of these cultures had influence and power within the city. It was a melting pot of ideas and tensions between parties that each vied for power, influence and control. For the small church of perhaps 20-30 people this all must have seemed like their task was impossible. How could they make a difference against all these forces many of which were tightly bound to the worship and cultic practices that were diametrically opposed to the worship of Jesus Christ.
But as this church was founded and grew but over a number of years the pressures of the culture began to wear the church down. They were struggling against the competing pressures from the competing cultural and religious forces. There was a risk that they would simply disappear under the waves of influence and power of the ideologies and beliefs that swirled around their city. In an attempt to shore up this church the Apostle Paul wrote to them. His letter is found in the New Testament. The opening lines contain a prayer which ask that God would strengthen them with “all power, according to his[God’s] glorious might, for all endurance and patience and joy” (Colossians 1:11).
In a place where powers were threatening, Paul reminds them who really has all the power. In a city where the church is finding it hard to keep going Paul reminds them of all the endurance and patience they can find from God and His glorious might. He foes on in the letter to remind them that the God who is glorious in might is Jesus Christ by whom all things were made and hold together (v16&17).
So what? Well, our church of St Mary’s was built on a crossroads. North, south, east and west met. When it was built the country was in turmoil and the church, across europe was in the grip of the reformation where people began to reject the authority of popes and looked to the Bible as the source of ultimate authority. England had Henry the 8th on the throne. The church of England was just being established over the following years there would be bloody battles taking place as political and religious forces pressed in. Not only that but there was the influence of pagan worship too. Then there were the harsh realities of the weather in what was then a considerably colder climate. In many ways everything was pitted against the establishment of the ‘New Church’ Yet it was built and has stood for the last 500 years. Various powers have threatened to overwhelm in that time but non the less our church endures. It is, I believe a reminder to us that there is one who has ‘all things’ (Col 1:16) under his authority and still seeks to ‘rescue us from the dominion of darkness’ (Col 1:13) and ‘bring us into the Kingdom of light’ (Col 1:12). According to ‘His glorious might’ (Col1:11).