Above these divine and inspired word– this holy and living text– hovers this summary inscribed by man:

“The Preeminence of Christ”

A title to hold together words which cannot be bound. They live, they breathe, they transfigure hearts, lives, marriages, families; even though they directly mention none of these things, because in essence they do, when they begin with this:

“…the firstborn of all creation…”

How many cycles of the sun passed; how many babies born, elders buried, and how much history was mapped out between “Let there be light” and “For unto us a child is born”?

But He was there. Before all things. In all things. Preeminent.

And who am I to withhold anything when all things are from Him and for Him?

This does not constrict. This sets free.

Freedom and redemption from a life lived without Him, a life of struggle against self and world, a life of fear, a life “lived” but not truly lived–a life without hope.

“All things were created through Him and for Him.”

This rescues me out of fear; it calms the anxious heart, and makes known to me His preoccupation with peace. He wants my heart to know that peace fully, intimately; that calm in the midst of storm, that blessed assurance in my everyday and the whole of my life– that He’s got this.

It was always His.

And why would I want it any other way?

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I want it a different way; my way. I may not say this to His holy face, but my day speaks it. My actions, my affections, my heart which is not hidden from Him, they speak to what I claim as preeminent in my life.

But then gently, graciously, lovingly He places His hand on all that I have struggled to create on my own; apart from His wisdom, His direction, His strength; and all falls apart under His merciful touch.

Chaff. A flower here today and gone the next. The house built on sand and left vulnerable to the wind, the rain, the storms of life.

“And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

And that is it.

In a handful of simple words a shattered life is made whole.

He is a God of order, not confusion.

And He calls us to place a childlike faith in this ancient yet eternal promise:

In Christ, all things hold together.

This makes a feeble, weathered, tired, anxious, scarred, broken and uncertain heart secure.

Hope to the hopeless. Father to the Fatherless. Love to the unlovable. Grace to the least of these.

He spoke and waters calmed. Hungry were fed. Sick were healed and dead were raised.

But then He closed His mouth.

For that moment in time when all would be determined.

They taunted; told Him to speak the word and be saved; to open the holy mouth that had proclaimed miracles and proclaim one for Himself.

But He spoke nothing.

And all fell apart.

And all was dark. And all hope lost; for them, for us, for me, for you.

And when all seemed lost and the sky darkened and it seemed as though death had won this one, He was still holding all things together.

Three days time would prove it.

He is still in the business of holding all things together. Even when the skies turn black, and the doctor’s news erases all hope, and the papers are signed and the rings removed, and the job is lost, and the bills go unpaid. When the rope that we struggled so desperately to twine together perfectly comes unraveled, He is still holding all things together.

There were three dark days in that tomb.

How long has your tomb stay been?

Take heart–He has triumphed over death! And for what more could we ask? For if God was so good to give us His only child, His Son, and watch that Son falsely accused and murdered on our behalf, will He not also give us all else that we need?

They pierced His side, and the blood did flow; and it was that stream of crimson sacrifice that flows through the fibers of our hearts, our spirits, our souls, our lives, holding all things together.

Death could not hold Him, because in Him all things hold together. He had to triumph, and that He did! And because of that victory all of life holds together. All hope holds together. All peace holds together. All of me holds together.

And He can hold together all of you.