「神との和解を与える十字架の道」 3.11を覚える礼拝 宣教 2025年3月9日
コロサイの信徒への手紙 Colossians 1章19〜23節 牧師 河野信一郎
Good morning. I am thankful that God has invited us to be together this morning for praise and worship. Yesterday was a day of cold rain and a bitterly cold in the pastor’s office. Last night I was worried about snow, but this morning the weather held up and we are so glad to see everyone. We welcome those of you who are worshiping through our live streaming.
This Tuesday, March 11, marks the 14th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake. It may seem very short to us, but for those who are still living in the disaster areas, it has been a very long and painful 14 years. We remember the work of the churches that have continued to walk alongside these survivors with love and prayer. We pray that God will have mercy on those who are suffering in the disaster areas and use the churches to heal them. Okubo Church continues to remember and pray for the three churches in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima. Each church has various challenges, which I would like to share with you at the end of the service.
I still vividly remember the time at 2:46 p.m. on March 11, 2011, but where were you and what were you doing? My children were in the 5th, 3rd and 1st grades. I was on my way to Okubo Elementary School with a missionary couple and their friend to distribute flyers at the school gate for the kids’ English class that was to start in April. However, on the way there, as we were walking along Okubo Street, we experienced the biggest tremor I had ever experienced. Everything on the street and its sides was shaken violently, and I wondered how long this great earthquake would continue. After that, we decided to cancel distributing flyers and l returned to the church in a great hurry to make sure the church was safe.
Just a dozen or so minutes ago, the four of us were at church praying for a blessing to reach as many children as possible with information about the Kids English Class, but then something truly extraordinary happened. I made sure the church and my family were safe, and cycled around to the homes of elderly church members living in Shinjuku Ward to make sure they were safe.
Fourteen years have passed since then, but there are still people in the affected areas who still have a big hole in their hearts, remembering their family, friends, and community members who were suddenly separated from them that day. There are people who lost their parents, spouses, and children in the tsunami. There are those who are still unable to return to their familiar towns and communities due to the nuclear power plant disaster. There are churches that are still there for these people. The people in those churches are also survivors of the disaster.
A few weeks after the earthquake, I went to the Ojika Peninsula in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, three times to carry emergency supplies from the Baptist Convention and to serve meals. The purpose was to provide hot lunches and dinners to evacuees staying in elementary schools. At that time, we left Urawa Church at around 2 a.m. and took about 10 hours to reach our destination, with myself and one other person taking turns driving every few hours. We took a one-hour nap in the sun behind the gymnasium, helped serving dinner, left around 5:00 p.m., and returned to Urawa Church around 2:00 a.m.
On other days, Pastor Yamanaka and I drove around Urawa City to collect clothing and other items to be delivered to the affected areas. I made many trips to Narita Airport to pick up relief supplies brought by my family in the U.S., especially my sisters and their colleagues, United Airlines flight attendants, who flew in while on duty. I was still in my mid-40s and still confident in my physical strength. I was grateful that some people from our church also volunteered to go to the disaster area and help remove mud and other debris that had gotten into their homes.
Now, we are in the period of remembering the disaster-stricken areas and people who suffered tremendous damage from the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the Passion Season when we remember that Jesus Christ walked the road of the cross. Since last week, we have been on a journey to listen to the reasons why Jesus Christ walked the road of the cross from the Old and New Testaments.
Last week we heard from John 1:29 that Jesus Christ, as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of each of us, gave us liberty, freedom, and healing by paying the price for our sins on the cross. For more details, you can watch last week’s message on YouTube or read it on the church’s website, but we heard how Jesus took away all our sins.
In other words, we heard that the only way for Him to do this was to be slaughtered like the lamb of the atonement offering in the temple in Jerusalem, to shed His blood, and to offer His life on the cross. We heard that what we can do is to look at this Jesus with eyes of faith, receive His love with gratitude, repent of our sins and weaknesses, and turn back to God and Jesus.
This morning we hope to hear from the first chapter of Colossians about what purpose Jesus walked the way of the cross for. The answer is already stated in the title of this morning’s message, and the theme of this morning’s message is that the Lord Jesus walked the way of the cross to give “reconciliation” between God and us.
I really wish I could have spoken from chapter 1, verse 9, but in order to concentrate on the theme of “reconciliation between God and us,” I decided not to deal with verses 9 through 18. In particular, verses 15 through 18 describe what kind of person Jesus Christ is, so I hope you will make time to read those verses.
Now let us read verses 19 and 20. “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and
through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” At the time the letter to the Colossians was written by the Apostle Paul, there was a group in the Greek-speaking world called the Gnostics who denied the deity/divinity of Jesus.
Briefly, the idea of spirit-flesh dualism arose in Greek culture in the first and second centuries AD. The idea that “God is spirit and man is flesh, therefore God cannot become man, therefore Jesus is not God” was echoed throughout Greece and what is now Turkey, denying the deity of Jesus and that he is God. Since Colossae was located in Turkey, the church was strongly influenced by this. The apostle Paul wrote this letter to correct this error. Paul kicked off the Gnostic thought by declaring that “Jesus Christ is the one who fully possesses the essence and nature of God”.
Verse 21 says, “you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds.” We human beings have sinned against God and have created a great gulf that is beyond our control, and we have become distant from God. To be separated means to be outside of God’s grace and blessings.
But God, who is rich in mercy, has the power to bridge the gap, so God sent Jesus to earth to serve as a mediator to reconcile God and us, and Jesus, by offering his life as an atoning offering on the cross, reconciled God and us. Paul declares that peace has been restored in our relationship with God through Jesus’ offering of his life as an atoning sacrifice on the cross. He declares that only Jesus Christ could achieve this reconciliation and peace with God for us.
Paul continues in verse 22, “He has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.”
The key here is to believe and receive the love of Jesus, the Son of God, who sacrificed His life to give us reconciliation with God in order to save us. The gospel, the truth that Paul wanted to convey, is that Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross completely bridged the wide and deep gap that existed between God and us, making us sinless by His blood, holy, without blemish, and blameless before God. Herein lies the true love of God and Jesus.
The first half of verse 23 describes the response we must make as we believe in the truth that we are reconciled to God through Jesus and receive with joy and thanksgiving God’s love and the forgiveness of sins at the cross of Jesus. You are to “if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven.” When we look around us, we are filled with things that trouble us. When we look inside our own hearts, we find anxiety, fear, pain, sadness, frustration, and anger. When we focus our eyes and hearts on these things, it is difficult to hold on to hope. It will only confuse us.
Therefore, we need to meditate on the way of the cross of Jesus and pour our eyes on His cross. When we focus on God’s love and the life Jesus gave us, and not on the things of this world, we can be comforted, encouraged, healed, and share God’s love with people near us and throughout the world, proclaiming Jesus as our Savior. To live in this way is to respond wholeheartedly to the love of God and Jesus.