NOTE: Given at the CREC Canadian Provisional Presbytery Meeting, March 2026
The Text
Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
Colossians 2:20-23
Our (Not So) Unique Moment
We are living in unique times. It is unique, of course, because we are a different set of individuals from those who came before us. One year’s wheat crop is unique, but it also still just wheat. Likewise, our times are unique, but also not so unique. These people around us are unique, but people are people and they always do people things. Solomon once preached a whole sermon about that. You should read it sometime.
The unraveling we’re undergoing feels very strange and surreal. We might even be tempted to use that word politicians overuse: “unprecedented.” But, civilization has experienced unravelings akin to ours before. And it is most certain there will be unravelings yet to come that will bear resemblance to our own moment.
In such times, one of the things that people do is reflexively scour for that which will explain all the things. Events are scary, frightful, and unknown. If war breaks out between AI robots and aliens, and a herd of sentient apes created by a secret government lab in the 60s, people will invariably reach for something, anything which can explain everything. There sure are a lot of nails around here, it would be awful nice if I had a hammer that could smash them into place. There must be a reason behind it all. “Aha…” says the podcaster selling snake-oil, “Have I got just the conspiracy theory for you.”
Explanatory Power
The Psalmist said, “I once was young, but now am old.” In my case, “I once was young, but now I’m a little less young.” That being the case, I’ve now lived long enough to have seen a few proposals for that which will not only explain everything but also fix everything. I grew up amidst 90s evangelicalism. The response to the sexual revolution was to get a bunch of hormonal teenagers into a stadium and get them to sign pledges that they wouldn’t get frisky until they got married. The edges of our cultural hem were beginning fray back then. The frightening sexual degeneracy was really bad. It was thought that this fraying could be mended with pledge cards, purity rings, and a wooden commitment to courtship. Which as Pastor Wilson notes simply meant that instead of 2 idiots trying to navigate the pitfalls of romantic attraction between young people, now there were 6 idiots involved. In short, a good thing––a more Biblically faithful model for wooing and winning a bride––was offered as the fix-all.
But there are other options––ancient and modern––out there which have been put forward to varying degrees and with varying layers of overlap. Here is a non-exhaustive, but perhaps exhausting, list: reason alone should guide for morality, survival of the fittest, join Crossfit, become a crunchy mama, embrace Disney’s catechism “Follow Your Heart”, homestead, join the climate alarmists, #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, and––as any number of podcasters might propose––the Jews done did it. What “it” did they do? All the its. People want something to hold onto religiously, and often irrationally, thinking that will stop the sand from shifting beneath their feet. If you buy this product, if you follow this curriculum, if you listen to this podcaster, if you follow this theologian, if you acknowledge your privilege, if you would just start noticing…you could then see behind the curtain, you could then feel better, you could then overcome your trauma, you could then make sense of everything. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Remember Job
Paul’s words in Colossians describe a similar temptation that was alluring early Christians. They were being enticed through some stripe of false teaching. It set before them an offer of total explanatory power…so long as they followed this strict set of rules, spoke right lingo, and bound themselves in slavish devotion to such “will worship” in faux humility.
Our duty as ministers of the Gospel is to compel our people to reject all rival totalizing explanations. In Christ all things consist. Not in yoga, purity rings, BlackLivesMatter or WhiteBoySummer, pesticide free produce, scapegoating the Jews, comparing the IQs of different ethnicities, or the Singularity point of AI.
Perhaps more pertinent to this group is the temptation to deceive ourselves into thinking that if only everyone adopted our liturgy, with the 5 C’s of Covenant Renewal sitting there politely, we could fix everything. But tidy liturgies are a millstone if our hearts don’t draw near to Christ. It wouldn’t be the first time that God’s people thought they could trick God with performing religious ceremonies with skilled precision, while neglecting to wholeheartedly love the God they were serving. God’s response to such “will worship” is to say, “I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies (Amos 5:21).”
Many things, both good and evil, have been put forward as the hinge upon which everything can turn. But all such proposals are a false religion in utero. And false religions demand your blood, your slavish devotion. All the rigid stipulations of these rival explanations lead to disillusioned destruction and despair. They say, “Touch not, taste not, handle not.” Or perhaps in our day it might sound more like, “Reject the post-war consensus. Check your privilege. Make a land-acknowledgement.” But Christ says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.”
Think of Job. After everything around him unravelled, God rebuked the attempts of Job’s companions for trying to offer up their proposals for explaining why everything went wrong. God asks, “Where were you when I spread out the heavens, and made the leviathan? That’s right, you weren’t there, you didn’t have any say, you don’t understand My ways, for they are not your ways.” Job lays his hand on his mouth in true faith, seeing that the only thing which has true explanatory power is that God is God, and you are not.
So then, in these unique yet not so unique times, don’t be beguiled by rival offers of “that which can explain everything.” None of those things are big enough to be the center. Lash yourself to the mast of Christ. By the Word of His power all things hold together. Paul rebukes the adoption of these alternative explanatory theories with that simple line: “if ye be dead with Christ”. You died with Christ, so do not adopt any other explanation for the mysteries of providence in history.
From our perspective history is a raging sea; but from His viewpoint the sea is crystal. Your duty, as ministers of the enthroned King of Heaven and Earth, the one who once died but now lives forevermore, is to orbit that great center, and compel your people to orient all their heart, soul, mind, and strength in loving orbit around the Sun of righteousness, which arises with healing in His wings. The only thing that makes sense of everything is that God’s Son has the scars of nails in His hand as it grips the scepter of the universe. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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