Today marks one year since the riot on Capitol Hill during the turbulent transition between Donald Trump’s presidency and that of Joe Biden.
Last January I wrote about the road that led to the Capitol riot and the divergence that caught many of us by surprise. In a year, much has changed. Trump is no longer a central figure in American politics (at least not visibly). Other issues have overshadowed the 2020 election and consumed our political attention.
However, there is still so much the same: left and right continue to shout across an ever-widening divide, Twitter continues to resemble a graffitied brick wall caught in a gang war, and Christians are still wrestling with our place, purpose, and methods in the public square.
This year, as we look back at another tumultuous year, and look ahead to another one, I think its valuable to consider and take to heart the following words found in Colossians 3:1-4:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
The Imperative
Seek and set your mind on the things above.
Specifically, seek and set your mind on Christ.
What a reassuring imperative as we walk in the midst of a “crooked and perverse generation” (Phil. 2:15)! We don’t need to be consumed with the storms of politics or pandemics. We certainly ought to be wise about all things, including those. And this is not an imperative to retreat from the public square.
But it frees our minds and hearts from being burdened by the things of earth and instead allows us to experience life. This is a life that is free not because we’re ignorant of what’s happening all about us. Instead it’s a life that is free because we are not ignorant of what is truly going on.
Setting our minds on the things above doesn’t mean ignoring our earthly home and the darkness it faces. But it means not being consumed with worry, fear, anxiety, and desperation about the things that trouble the earth. There is a distinction between acknowledging the darkness around us, and despairing of the darkness around us. There is certainly darkness around us! But are we consumed by it? Our culture is more and more resembling “enemy-occupied territory” every day. But are we hanging our heads in defeat and surrender? Are we crawling away to limp on in a desperate and bitterly subversive campaign of sabotage and scorched earth?
To set our minds on things above is to see the way reality truly is. It’s not to ignore nor to despair but instead to understand more robustly.
The Grounds
Why are we to set our minds on things above?
We are to set our minds on things above on the grounds that 1) we have died, and 2) Christ is seated above, and with Him, our life, hidden in God. Let’s examine those in backwards order.
Verse 1 tells us that Christ is seated at the right hand of God. And verse 3 tells us that our life is hidden, secure, with the triune God in that throne room. In fact, verse 4 goes a step further and tells us that Christ Himself is our life! When He appears, we shall appear with Him in glory. These verses strongly assure us of our very strong security in Christ before God.
Romans 8:34 proclaims the same message:
Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
And verse 35 begins with a resounding rhetorical question: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”
Christian, if you are seeking hope for another year of un-rest and churning chaos, you must look above! There! Do you see it? Your life! Securely seated at the very right hand of God. And He is interceding for you. The Apostle Paul saw it and it’s why he says in Romans 8:37, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.“
The Condition
Not only is our life hidden in Christ above, but we can and must set our minds above because we have died.
The very opening of verse 1 gives us the condition that this imperative falls on: if then you have been raised with Christ.
We can look at this as an if/then statement:
If you have been raised with Christ -> then seek and set your mind on the things above.
Alternatively, if you have not been raised with Christ -> then you have nothing above to seek. The only place you have to look for hope is earth. (We cannot be surprised when those around us, outside fellowship with Christ, seem so desperate. They have no hope! They have no security! They have not died and been raised with Him.)
Now of course, in order to have been raised with Christ, the implication is made that we must have died with Him. This implication is made explicit in verse 3: For you have died.
We have indeed died, been buried, and been raised with Christ. Romans 6:4 states:
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
So, on the condition that we have died and been raised, we now seek and set our minds on the things above. Therefore, we do not need to fear about what policies may come from the White House, or what new doctrines will slink forth from academia, or what new variants will emerge from the virus, or what freedoms we will lose, or what economic woes will befall us. We have died to all of that. We are now free to let the “peace of Christ dwell in us richly” (Col. 3:15).
Hope for Another Chaotic Year
We love to hate on 2020 and 2021 seems to have done its best to make us thankful for 2020. And now many people are making social media posts about how they look forward to this next year, 2022, and hope it will be better than the last. And while it’s certainly not wrong to hope for a good year, I’m afraid that 2022 will have its fair share of chaos and tumult.
Christian, this year will probably be hard. It will be dark. But you do not need to fear. Because you have died and your life is hidden with Christ at the right hand of God. Look there when you feel discouraged or frightened by the destruction and chaos in our culture.
Look there and find hope.