Last year (2024) the Words for Worship material had us concentrating on Jesus as one with the Father. Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. Nothing exists in the entire universe that did not come into being “in him.”
Scientists have spent their working lives trying to explain about the beginning of the universe and the farther they go into space the more there is to find. The Big bang theory tells us that everything, including everything we are as human beings, was once essentially nothing. The universe began, scientists believe, with every speck of its energy jammed into a very tiny point. This extremely dense point exploded with unimaginable force, creating matter and propelling it outward to make the billions of galaxies of the vast universe. Astrophysicists dubbed this titanic explosion The Big Bang.
Today, the consensus among scientists, astronomers and cosmologists is that, the Universe, as we know it was created in a massive explosion that not only created the majority of matter, but the physical laws that govern the ever-expanding cosmos.
It makes my head spin at the very words that everything that exists at this moment comes from the energy of that moment.
If we read Colossians 1: 11–20 It tells us, it is infused with, and animated by, the ‘glorious power’ of Christ in God. It explains how we are made by, in and of God’s goodness!
I find it interesting that in most of the information I have gathered from books and the internet that the word created and creating are at the centre of all their research and explanations of how the Earth and the whole universe developed.
Being a Christian, I can see that at the centre of all their research they are still focused on something at the centre of the Big Bang. The scientists talk about the universe as stretching all the time. So creation as I see it is still happening which is part of Gods plan.
The New Testament writers speak about Christ as God’s wisdom to help explain his significance. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation. “Colossians 1.v15. “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.”
In Paul’s letter to the Colossians he begins his prayer for them by thanking God for the Colossians progress in the faith. He also prays that they might understand even better.
We move on to the unseen now as Paul says “What God has reserved for believers has not yet been fully revealed, but it already exists in heaven.”
Paul talks to the Colossians about The Good News and that this news is effective to change lives and bring about spiritual growth. Spiritual growth yields a clearer and deeper comprehension of Christian truth and conduct that pleases the Lord, through which a believer will have the endurance and patience to stand firm against evil.
Paul also presents Jesus as the supreme creator and redeemer. Paul exalts the conceptions of Christ and the parallelism in thought and language strongly suggest that these verses quote an early Christian Hymn about Jesus.
Many Hymnists have written some wonderful words in their hymns and one of my favourites is:-
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim./ In the light of his His glory and grace.”
Gaynor Gordon
September 2025