"Who Is Jesus Christ for Us Today?"

Today's Reading

Read Colossians 1:15-20: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent."

Then read John 14:8-11: "Philip said to him, 'Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.' Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.'"

Reflection

In April 1944, from his cell in Tegel military prison, Bonhoeffer wrote to his friend Eberhard Bethge: "What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today." This is not the question of someone losing their faith. It is the question of someone whose faith is being refined by fire — stripped of every cultural accretion, every institutional prop, every comfortable assumption, until only the essential question remains: Who is Jesus?

Bonhoeffer had spent years answering this question theologically. His Christology lectures from 1933 were brilliant. But now, in prison, facing execution, the question demanded a different kind of answer — not "Who does the church say Jesus is?" but "Who is He for me, here, now, in this cell?"

Colossians 1 provides the deepest answer Scripture offers. Christ is "the image of the invisible God" — the perfect revelation of who God is. He is the agent of creation — all things were created "through him and for him." He is the sustainer of the universe — "in him all things hold together." And He is the head of the church, the firstborn from the dead, preeminent in everything.

This is not a Christ confined to religious observance or Sunday worship. This is a Christ who fills all things, sustains all things, and holds all things together. He is as present in a prison cell as in a cathedral. He is Lord over the guards as much as over the saints. No circumstance can place you outside the sphere of His sovereignty.

Bonhoeffer's answer, sketched in fragments in his prison letters, centers on one conviction: "Jesus is there only for others." The Christ of Scripture is not a private spiritual possession. He is the one who existed entirely for the sake of others — healing, teaching, suffering, dying — and the church is the church only when it does the same.

Going Deeper

Philip said to Jesus, "Show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus's answer is gently devastating: "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?" We are all Philip. We look past Jesus for something more dramatic, more obvious, more overwhelming. And Jesus says: I am right here. I have always been right here. To see me is to see the Father.

Bonhoeffer's question from prison is your question today: Who is Jesus Christ for you — not in general, but right now, in whatever cell or circumstance you inhabit?