What if the body isn’t a problem—but a place where God shows up? Col. 2:6-19
Colossians 2:6-19
Hear the Word of God. Our ears are open.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to walk in him,
rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Watch out that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.
In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by the removal of the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ;
when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
And when you were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses,
erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross.
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.
Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food or drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths.
These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the body belongs to Christ.
Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, initiatory visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking,
and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with a growth that is from God.
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Because we are united with Christ, in whom the fullness of God dwells bodily, we have access to a new way of being—one not driven by fear or ego or our lowest possible survival impulses… but by the Spirit.
We can live in our “spiritual bodies” even now—creative, compassionate, and whole.
What Paul lays out here is a Divine Mystery in a Human Body – and that through Christ who was God poured into a human form we too are a divine mystery in a human body.
“For in Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9, NRSV).
Let that sink in. The whole of God... in a body.
God didn’t disdain the body. The Spirit of God has walked with people from the very beginning – but then…
God entered it. Honored it. Filled it. Lived in it. In Jesus of Nazareth.
Then Paul turns the mystery toward us:
“And you have come to fullness in him...” (2:10)
Fullness. Not scraps. Not leftovers. Fullness.
You’ve been filled—not with anxiety, not with shame, not with all the worst headlines of the day or the scariest, emptiest moments of your childhood – or the chronic anxieties of survival – or the awful woundings of betrayals, losses, aches. You have been filled with Christ.
A spiritual circumcision Pual dares to say:
“In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision...” (2:11)
Now let’s not belabor the metaphor (though if Paul was on Twitter today, this line would absolutely trend). But let’s leave it alone.
This is not about the literal act, but about the cutting away of the old, reactive, fearful ego-self—the fleshly self that still thinks it's alone in the world, still scraping and clawing for a sense of worth. That impulsive, needy, domineering, tense, reactive self has been severed – the absolute dominance it had on you has been cut away. It’s still there, but you have another choice.
Paul says we’ve died, been buried, and been raised with Christ.
So what does it mean to live in this “resurrected body” now?
Not just someday. What does it mean to choose that other body now?
III. The Spiritual Body and the Sacred Brain
This is where today we can talk about scripture and science, specifically neurology.
That "fleshly body" Paul talks about—it’s like the primordial operating system of the human mind:
The reptilian brain, always scanning for danger.
The limbic system, triggered by shame or desire.
The ego mind, puffed up or collapsed in depending on what someone said to us at breakfast or if we failed or succeeded.
This is the part of us that NNNEEEEEDDDs to be right. NNNEEEEDDDS the person we’re talking to to admit we are right and they are wrong and…. There…ha! If you will look at the feelings you have in a given conversation, you’ll see it in yourself. I know I’m not the only one! This reptilian brain can also go for the opposite – it can NNNEEEED you to be the one who is wrong, the one who doesn’t get heard, that no one listens to, that ….whatever. If you watch yourself in your conversations and about things that get you riled up, you can see it. It’s like one of those puzzle pictures that just looks like a bunch of shapes and colors but then you see the number 5 or the lion…and then you just can’t UNSEE it.
But Paul says we’re no longer operating on that system alone.
We’ve been raised with Christ. The old grooves of panic and performance – or you’ve got to be the best or you’re no good or “your problem is__________:” these no longer have the final word.
And maybe—this is what it means to live in the “spiritual body” now:
Where the prefrontal cortex is engaged. Where we can pause when we feel overwhelmed, angry, attacked, down…and we breathe in the life God gave us, the fullness of deity in Christ. And say God “I know there’s room for you to act here – help!”
A life where reason and imagination, logic and love, creativity and order and compassion all work together. To inspire, to lift, to nurture and cultivate humanity.
Where your left brain and right brain are no longer in competition but are both offered in worship to the One who holds all things together (Col. 1:17).
But Is It Scary?
I think it’s scary – because I really believe it’s possible and I see how we don’t choose this. We miss the mark.
And it’s scary to think we might be lifted into rhythms of grace. Because then who will be the winner and the know it all and the hero and the problem solver? Who will we be without our enemies?
To believe that we might be “held together” in Christ, that people could show up for us—and we for them—like puzzle pieces clicking into place in the great, grace-filled jigsaw of the Kingdom of God. Whew.
But it’s scarier not to try.
Scarier to stay in the grooves of fear, in all the old pain. .
Scarier to keep hustling for belonging… when Paul says, “you already belong.”
V. Invitation: Walk as You Received
Paul begins this passage with a simple line:
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him...” (2:6)
The same Christ you received—the one in whom all the fullness of God lives—
that Christ is the One who now lives in you.
So, walk in him.
Live in him. Take a moment a few times a day to ask where you’re living from, to ask for help living into this new Spiritual body – your whole brain lit up with the Light of Christ.
Let go of the tired grooves. Stop beating yourself up. Stop yourself when you want to beat up someone else or life. Just pause a minute and see if you can breathe and pray and slip into that grace and mercy filled space between the old circumcised self and that new, true self in Christ.
Offer your beautiful, intricate, sacred brain to God.
Live not in fear, but in fullness. Amen.
