Many Lives Hidden in One Christ

"For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory." Colossians 3:3-4

I recently read this verse and was drawn to the fact that when Paul says 'your real life', he is talking to everyone who reads or hears his words, but, when Paul says 'Christ', he means the one, singular Christ. So Paul is saying that many individual lives are hidden in the singular Christ.

It happens again in the next phrase - "when Christ, who is your life". Christ is my life and is also the lives of many other people, yet He is one. This means I am not only individually hidden in Christ, but I am part of a whole that is ALL hidden with Christ. God sees ONE Christ and we are all included.

This changes everything.

When I choose to follow Jesus, I give up my right to make my mark in this world. As believers, we all combine to make just one mark - the mark of Christ. There is amazing freedom in this for me because my mark can look like a mess on its own, but within the whole body of Christ it is made beautiful. I can stop trying to make sense of all the bad choices I made that turned out right, and all the good choices I made that turned out wrong. I can stop attributing every bad thing that happens in my life to the punishment of God and every good thing to the blessing of God. I can stop wondering why Hugh Hefner is rich, and why I am ... well ... not so rich. I can take the good and the bad together and know that it will all work together alongside the lives of other believers to form the mark of Christ on the world. My mark, both the good and the bad, is hidden with Christ's. This is grace!

I can now hear Paul say "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion" and know he is not talking about my individual life. He is talking about all of us - together! Our work will be carried on to completion. Christ's work will be completed and I am a part of it. This is real hope which is very different from the false hope that my individual life is somehow guaranteed to work out good.

This should be obvious. We all have seen people die at tragic times. God doesn't say - 'ok, your work is complete', and then send a serial killer after you. Death is tragic and painful, and it always will be, but our hope is this: 'the good work that was started in us' will go on. I can rest in that. I don't have to be an all-star; I can just be me.

So rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn. Feel free to see the great things in life as incredible acts of grace and the horrible things in life as great tragedies. Understand that the people who die in a great earthquake, or when planes crash into skyscrapers do not die because they are better or worse than us. They die because life and death happens. And in the midst of life and death, we all get to make a choice to hide our living and our dying, our victory and our tragedy, within the victorious mark of Christ or to have it stand on its own. It is a choice to determine if you will find your life by losing it, or if you will attempt to gain the whole world, and in doing so, lose your soul.