To transfer something means to move that something
literally and effectually from one place to another. To transfer money from a checking account
into a savings account may seem like nothing more than an electronic
reclassification of numbers on a computer, but the money has really been moved and
is effectually not readily available for buying stuff. To transfer buses means you have to get off of
one bus and then get onto another completely different bus. You are going someplace completely different
than if you had stayed on the other bus.
In the world of the corporation, a person will get word that they are
being transferred to another corporate location and if the employee wants to
stay employed with that company and/or move up in the company and/or make more
money, they will take the transfer. The
transfer will entail a physical change in location, a change in work
responsibilities, new faces in a new office, and a new way of “this is the way
we do things around here.” In short, a job
transfer means you and your little dog too are not in Kansas anymore and things
are very different. To get transferred means to be moved literally and
effectually from one place to another.
Literally and effectually moved from one place to
another; bear that in mind as we think about what Paul means here in Colossians
when he says that God has “rescued us from the dominion of darkness and
transferred us into the Kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption,
the forgiveness of sins.” Paul is saying
that here in the present, here in the right now God has done a saving act that
has transferred us literally and effectually from one jurisdiction into another. We were under the jurisdiction of darkness where
we were willing slaves to dark powers that demeaned and destroyed us, but God
did a saving act and transferred us literally and effectually and right now
into the Kingdom of his beloved Son where we are literally and effectually his adopted
beloved children who share that Beloved Son’s inheritance. We got transferred. God has moved us to a different account. We are now on a different bus. We got transferred to work in a different
city.
You may ask “How did this transfer happen?” Paul had a very narrowly focused understanding
of what is going on in history. For him
it is that in, through, and as Jesus Christ the Beloved Son of God entered his
Creation and defeated the powers of darkness primarily Sin, Death, and
Evil. Jesus, the Beloved Son of God became
human as the Jewish Messiah, took Sin, Death, and Evil into his fully divine
and fully human self and destroyed them in death when he was wrongly crucified. Then, God the Father vindicated Jesus when by
the power of the Holy Spirit God raised him from death and set in motion a New
Creation that will ultimately be free of Sin, Death, and Evil. For now, God the Father and God the Son in
the power of God the Holy Spirit are dispelling the unseen spiritual powers of
darkness and the result is that the Kingdom of this Beloved Son, the Reign of the
Beloved Son is bursting forth all over the place as the Gospel of this Good
News of what God has done is being proclaimed all over the world and Christian
communities are forming as people find themselves believing this Good News and
are living according to the grace and love they have been shown.
Through the power, presence, and indwelling of the
Holy Spirit, God’s victory over the dark powers and his reign are being
manifest in people whom God has transferred literally and effectually from the
jurisdiction of darkness into the reign of the beloved Son. We are among those people whom God has
transferred, in whom this change in jurisdiction is literally and effectually taking
place right now in the present.
Transfers come with better benefits. Paul says that
one of the benefits of this transfer is that in Christ Jesus we have redemption. Redemption does not mean that we got a book
of coupons to trade in for discounts on stuff.
Redemption is a term from the slave trade and means to pay to buy
another human being out of slavery and give them their freedom and dignity. By the price of Jesus’ life God bought us out
of slavery to the dark powers in which we so often willingly served. In turn, God has set us free to live for the
purpose he created us for: to be that part of God’s creation that bears the
image of God in and as loving community.
God has given us our true human dignity back.
We also have the benefit of the forgiveness
sins. God is not holding a ledger
against us for when we have willingly participated in that slavery to the dark
power. Our sin was nailed to the cross
with Jesus and died with him. Yet, it
was not also raised to new life with him.
The old life truly is gone and a new one has begun in Christ. Now we must live a life worthy of Jesus that
brings honour to him.
This transfer took effect in us when we heard this Good
News. There came a time when we heard
this Good News of what God has done for us in, through, and as Jesus Christ and
by the touch of the Holy Spirit it got hold of us and gave us the assurance
that we are God’s beloved children. Karl
Barth, probably the greatest theologian of the 20th Century, was
once asked if he could sum up the Gospel in one sentence and he answered,
“Jesus loves me, this I know.” Notice that
he left out the part of the verse that says, “for the Bible tells me so.” For Barth the only way you can know and
understand God’s love is to experience it by encountering the Holy Spirit. From that moment on the love and grace of God
begins to grow in us and we find ourselves beginning to share in the work of
Christ due to abiding presence of the Holy Spirit with us so that we begin to
care about people in a way we never thought possible. And the next thing you know we have the very
real and certain hope that God is saving his creation and that nothing can
separate us from his love.
It begins with God’s confronting us with the truth of
our slavery to darkness. In Jesus we see
who we should be – beloved children of God bearing God’s image of loving communion
in this. Yet, Jesus death on the cross
reveals to us that we are hopelessly alienated from God in our sin diseased
state in which our deepest desire is to serve our own inordinate desires. But, by his death and resurrection God has recreated
humanity anew and by the gift of the Holy Spirit coming to dwell in us God
redirects our desires towards himself and makes this New Creation evident.
Teresa of Avila was a Cistercian nun back in the
1700’s. She wrote quite a bit on our
relationship to God. One of the things
she is most famous for saying is “I don’t love God. I don’t want to love God. I want to want to love God.” This desire to want to want to love God is
usually awakened in us as we encounter Jesus followers who walk according to
the Jesus Way of unconditional, sacrificial love and oddly we want to be like
them. Have you folks ever met somebody
at church and said to yourself, “That person is a genuine, godly, Jesus-like
person. I wish I could be more like her”? That’s
how you know you’ve been transferred. Go
and live accordingly. Amen.
