He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Col. 1:15-20 NRSV
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his hosts!Praise him, sun and moon,
praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!Let them praise the name of the Lord!
For he commanded and they were created.
And he established them forever and ever;
he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.Praise the Lord from the earth,
you great sea creatures and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and mist,
stormy wind fulfilling his word!Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars!
Beasts and all livestock,
creeping things and flying birds!Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and maidens together,
old men and children!Let them praise the name of the Lord,
Psalm 148 ESV
for his name alone is exalted;
his majesty is above earth and heaven.
He has raised up a horn for his people,
praise for all his saints,
for the people of Israel who are near to him.
Praise the Lord!
Our text today ushers us into a glorious mystery: Christ is the “image of the invisible God” through which “all things were created.” Here we are given a vision of the cosmic meaning of Christmas: Christ is the heart of creation, all of reality pulses with God’s wisdom and sings his praises. Through the incarnation, Jesus shows us how to join in the chorus of creation, calling us to praise the Creator with our lives.
The famous opening of the gospel of John brings us to the heart of the mystery: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… All things came into being through him, and without him not one one thing came into being.” (Jn. 1:1,3) The Greek for ‘word’ is logos. The author of the book of John is here picking up a word from Greek Philosophy and applying it to Jesus. Word or Logos refers to the rational structure of the cosmos which our minds can understand. We can also think of the book of proverbs which speaks of the wisdom through which God made the world. The author of the book of John is identifying Christ as the wisdom which underlies the cosmos, the wisdom through which God created the world. Hutterite writers talked about the “two books” that God has given us: his word in scripture, and his word in the “book of nature.” If we take the gospel of John at its word: Christ is revealed to us not only in the scriptures, but also in God’s creation.
How might we think about this? Think of how a master musician–-maybe one of Decker’s excellent guitar players–plays his instrument and brings beautiful music into the world. This is a good image of how God creates. It’s not a one shot deal, as if God made the world and then stepped away from it; rather, God’s creation is ongoing, constant. I, you, the trees, the animals, the whole cosmos only exists because God lovingly holds us all in existence: As Paul tells us, “In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) Just as the music would stop as soon as the musician stopped playing his guitar, just so, all of creation is held in existence, instant by instant, by the gracious love of God. Genesis has God blowing his breath into Adam to bring him to life: we might imagine every breath we take as God continuously breathing us into life.
The image of our guitar player also shows us what it means to say that God creates the world through his wisdom, word or logos. The guitar playing depends on the wisdom or skill of the guitar player: the song that we hear shows the skill of the guitar player. Just so, God’s wisdom is revealed in God’s creation: when looking at his wondrous works, we see the wisdom of God glimmering in them. As Paul said: “since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made. (Rom. 2:20)
The astonishing claim that the gospel of John makes is that God’s wisdom has been made manifest, it has been revealed to us in a new way: “The Word became flesh and lived amongst us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of Grace and truth.” (Jn. 1:14) In Jesus, we have the wisdom of God in human form. In Jesus we see what it means to be truly human, what it means to embody the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God in Jesus is not ‘common sense’ morality, but, as Paul tells us, it is the “foolish” wisdom of the cross: Jesus shows us a way of being human that freely and lavishly loves others, especially the poor and the downcast–in a world that is so often more concerned with getting more stuff, and making sure that me and mine get ours. Peter Riedeman writes that creation “remains in its right place” and continues to praise God by reflecting the wisdom of God. “A lily does not need to do anything specific in order to praise God… Simply by being and growing it praises God” Only human beings have forsaken their true vocation and have idolatrously wandered off the right path. The message of Christmas announces that Christ, “the image of the invisible God” has come to restore the broken “image of God” in human beings. We are called to praise the Lord with our lives, so that our communities can be a foretaste of the coming new creation when “God will be all in all”. We do this by freely and lavishly loving others according to the “foolish wisdom” of God. In this we will be joining the chorus of creation, praising her rightful Lord: “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, “To the one who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13)
Coffee with Kierkegaard 
I love the image of the guitar player keeping the music going and God keeping all creation going by the breath of His life. It’s easy to become like the unbeliever who says “where is the promise of His coming, for since our fathers died, all things have continued the same since creation.” (Paraphrased 2 Peter 3:4)
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Hello, thanks for reading! I think in many ways the question you point to is the question of Christianity: it God has come to us in Jesus, why are things still as they are? It’s a questions we believers certainly wrestle with ourselves. Christians are now in the position of the OT prophets, in the dark, waiting for God: As Flemming Rutledge says in one of her advent sermons: “advent begins in the dark.”
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