Colossians 2:13-15

As a child I loved fairy tales: classics like The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and others. They helped shape my moral worldview, to distinguish good from evil, to know justice, to exercise my imagination.

The gospel as fairy tale

In Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy and Fairy Tale, Frederick Buechner reminds us that the world of the gospel is the world of fairy tale. He does not mean that the gospel is a myth, or that the Bible’s message is merely an entertaining story.

It is [he says] a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle .

Yet . it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name ….

That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.

The other day my friend Barry gave me a CD to listen to in the car – a mix of old and new Christian songs recorded for The Mandate in Belfast. Several of these songs keep reverberating in my mind. For me, the most powerful is this classic:

I stand amazed in the presence

Of Jesus the Nazarene,

And wonder how he could love me,

A sinner condemned, unclean.

How marvellous, how wonderful

And my song shall ever be

How marvellous, how wonderful

Is my Saviour’s love for me.

It’s good to be reminded of God’s love for us. It’s good to be reminded of the power and grace of the gospel. It’s good to come to the foot of the cross, as we read the word and as we celebrate communion, and renew our devotion to Jesus.

That’s what Paul does for the Colossians in Colossians 2. Paul reminds his readers of that ‘once upon a time’ event when Jesus died and rose for them, and how they received Christ as Saviour and Lord, and what it is like to live the fairy tale.

Trouble brewing

Paul’s readers have accepted the gospel and received Jesus Christ as Lord. But there is a problem. Their passion and devotion has cooled. They are in danger of confusing the Christian message with traditional religions.

False teachers have arrived, promoting another gospel, arguing that Jesus is not God but merely one of a host of spirits through whom you might hope to negotiate a path to God. And the Christians at Colossae are in danger of falling for what Paul calls a “hollow and deceptive philosophy” (v 8).

These false teachers are urging the Colossians to search for a deep secret knowledge of divine mysteries, and teaching that super-spirituality can be achieved by denying physical needs and punishing one’s body.

We are not Colossians. There aren’t many former pagans among us. We’re not enslaved by religious ritual, unless it’s the contemporary big-band, big sound, praise-and-worship kind. But we are Christians, and we are all human. Our freedom in Christ can be taken from us; it can slip out of our grasp; it can be voluntarily exchanged for something else.

So be on guard, be vigilant. Love the truth. Embrace Christ in all his fullness. Return to the fairy tale, and keep living it. Remind yourself of what the gospel means in your life. That’s what Paul does in 2:13-15.

It is a magnificent summary of the gospel, the heart of the letter to the Colossians: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ” (v 13a).

The true fairy tale

There was a time when you and I were hopeless, powerless, condemned and dead. There was nothing within us, and nothing we could do, that could change our status or bring about our personal transformation.

But God came to the rescue. The God we have offended and ignored, the God we often sidelined and sometimes hated – this God came to our rescue.

Through his Son Jesus, and through what Jesus achieved on the cross, God gives us hope, and power, and freedom, and life! While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). When you were dead, “God made you alive with Christ” (Col 2:13).

That’s the fairy tale of the gospel – the fairy tale that is true. Listen to what the Bible says next: “He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross” (vv 13b-14).

What Jesus achieved on the cross is the definitive response to our sin. Think of “the written code” as a promissory note, a certificate of indebtedness.

Each of us falls short of our potential, and each of us fails God’s high moral standard. When we sin, a mark goes against our name. Some of us have just a few marks; some of us have a huge pile. But just one mark disqualifies you from enjoying a personal relationship with God.

Jesus absorbed all our sin into his person on the cross, and cancelled the debt we owed to God. He nailed it. He wiped the record clean. As the nails went in, he freed us from our sins. That’s the fairy tale of the gospel – the fairy tale that is true.

Taking the bullet

In the 1993 film In the Line of Fire, Clint Eastwood plays US Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan. Horrigan has protected the life of the President for more than three decades, but he is haunted by the memory of what happened thirty years before.

Horrigan was a young agent assigned to President Kennedy on that fateful day in Dallas in 1963. When the assassin fired, Horrigan froze in shock. For thirty years, he wrestled with what I assume is the ultimate question for a Secret Service agent: Can I take a bullet for the President?

In the climax of the movie, Horrigan does what he was unable to do earlier: he throws himself into the path of an assassin’s bullet to save the chief executive.

Secret Service agents do not take a bullet for just anyone. They believe the President of the United States is so valuable he is worth dying for. At the cross the situation was reversed. On the cross, Jesus Christ, the President of the Universe, took a bullet for each of us.

The cross shows us how much God values us. And the cross makes us free. That’s the fairy tale of the gospel – the fairy tale that is true. But Jesus did more.

Victory over evil

“And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (v 15).

What Jesus achieved on the cross is the definitive response to our sin. It also marks the decisive defeat of our spiritual enemies. As the nails went in, the forces of evil were disarmed and overthrown.

There’s no secret: it’s out in the open. There’s no mystery: Jesus made a public spectacle of them. You don’t need to fear evil spirits. They are finished. Jesus is Lord. He possesses all authority.

Because of the cross, we are on the winning team. Skip to the last chapter of this book – the Revelation – and check out how history ends: we win! That’s the fairy tale of the gospel – the fairy tale that is true.

Historian Stephen Neill writes that “The death of Christ is the central point of history; here all the roads of the past converge; here all the roads of the future diverge.”

Is the death of Christ the central point of your history? Are you alive with Christ? Are you forgiven? Has Jesus taken the bullet for you? Has he nailed your sin? Are you free? Are you seeing it differently?

If you are, then live the fairy tale! “Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him” (Col 2:6).

Don’t let go of Jesus and look for the next spiritual hit. Stay close to Jesus. Read the Bible and ask God to help you understand it better. Grow spiritually stronger and deeper. Discover the power of Christian community. Discover your spiritual gifts. Discover God’s purpose for your life. Share the message with your friends.

And continue to see it differently.

——————–

E142 Copyright (c) 2003 Rod Benson. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: New International Version (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980). To talk with Rod about this message, email or write to P.O. Box 1790, MACQUARIE CENTRE 2113 AUSTRALIA. To subscribe, email with “subscribe-river” in the subject. To unsubscribe, type “unsubscribe-river” in the subject.