On Oneing

“Christ in you, the hope of glory”

— Colossians 1:27

I came across this verse in sermon preparation this week and have been meditating on it. It’s one of those verses that one can easily breeze by while reading the Bible, not stopping to sit in it, reflecting on its significance.

Just imagine — Jesus Christ, who Paul has just described in beautiful lengthy prose earlier in the chapter (Colossians 1:15-20) —the exact image of God, indwelt by all the fullness of God, Creator and Sustainer, supreme over all creation, first to rise from the dead, head of the body, reconciling all things, having first place in all things — this Jesus lives in me!

As a child growing up churchland, I became very familiar with the phrase "Jesus is in my heart," along with the corollary describing the mechanics of becoming a Christian: "you just ask Jesus into your heart." I'm sure that in the more concrete-thinking phase of my development, I was puzzled by this language. Was Jesus really "in there," and if so, was he really located in my blood pumping organ or did he reside in some mysterious way, distributed throughout my insides. Was there any risk of him emerging somehow (images of the movie Alien)?

Of course “Christ in you” is a metaphor and not literal, but what exactly does it mean? To complicate things, Jesus in John 14 seems to imply that he brings others as well along with him to reside "in there." Speaking of the Holy Spirit's imminent arrival, Jesus tells the disciples that: "… he [the Holy Spirit] abides with you and he will be in you." And then a little further on he states: "those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." So, it would seem, not only Jesus but the Holy Spirit and the Father reside with us and in us. I would guess that it's a little crowded in there!

We all know God is omnipresent — the psalmist in Psalm 139 tells us that there is nowhere we can go where he is not present — and so it would make sense that the Trinity resides all around us and within us. However, this language of "in’ness" seems to be getting at something much more wonderful. This proximity (Augustine puts it this way: "you were closer to me than I am to myself”) implies a tight, intimate, immanent relationship. God is very, very close — he sees us, he knows us, he loves us, he is with us and never leaves us.

This Christ-in-us reality Paul describes as a “mystery” and indeed it is. There are certain mysteries that, with diligent study, thinking, and the passage of time, lend themselves to be sorted out. This is not one of those kinds of mystery. This kind of mystery is one that is intended to leave us gobsmacked — in utter and profound awe, falling on our knees in wonder. We can study the concept and try to control and tame it, but this only takes us so far. At the end of the day we are invited to sit in it in all its wonder and glory. It's a bit like a beautiful sunrise which evokes in us, through its splendid array of colors, a state of awe. We can try to figure it out, studying the earth’s atmosphere and the composition of its particulate matter, the refraction of light, the angle of the earth relative to the sun, and through this process we may have a deeper understanding and appreciation for what is going on in the sunrise. However, the act of “trying to figure it out” removes us from the presence of the experience—of simply sitting with the sunrise, appreciating its mystery and glory.

The Bible uses various other metaphors for this deep intimacy of relationship between God and us. Again, these other metaphors are helpful in allowing us to grasp at a deeper level the mechanics of this in'ness. However, after we have zoomed in and studied, we need to zoom out and sit and experience. The Song of Songs is a book in the Bible is filled with the metaphor of a man and woman in love. The description of desire and consummation of desire is, for an ancient text, really quite embarrassingly explicit (for us churchgoers), but what this wonderful poetry tells us is that this man-woman union is like our relationship with God. Paul picks up on this theme in Ephesians 5 when he talks about "the two becoming one" in marriage and how "this is a great mystery" and a picture of the relationship between Christ and his people. It's so wonderful that the Greek word for “know” can also be used for sexual intimacy (“to know in the biblical sense”). Knowing God and being known by him is, according to the Bible, kind of like that level of intimacy.

Baptism is another wonderful picture of this close relationship. The Greek word for baptize (baptizo) was a word also used for dyeing cloth. The cloth and the dye are two separate entities pre-dipping but when the cloth is baptized into the dye and brought out again, they are one, indistinguishable from each other. They are forever united — it's impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends.

Jesus uses the metaphor of the branch and the vine in John 15. He encourages his followers to "abide in me" like a branch abides in the vine, in close proximity, drawing its life and sustenance from the vine. The branch and the vine are two separate entities, but they are also contiguous and inseparable, part of a unit, one.

Julian of Norwich, a wonderful 14 century saint/mystic wrote extensively about her visions from Christ experienced during a deathly illness. She crafted the helpful term "oneing" to describe the intimacy of our relationship with God. She says this: "This beloved soul was preciously knitted to God in its making, by a knot so subtle and so mighty that it is oned in God. In this oneing, it is made endlessly holy. Furthermore, God wants us to know that all the souls which will be saved in heaven without end and knit in this knot, oned in this oneing, and made holy in this holiness."

Now you know how to answer people who ask you what you're doing these days in your quiet time — "I'm oneing!"[1]

And so, “Christ in us, the hope of glory” is one way of describing this ineffable relationship between the creator of the universe and ourselves — a mystery and reality that should leave us absolutely gobsmacked, a mystery that transcends language, words are not enough. Other ways of describing this include the union in marriage, union of cloth and dye in baptism, union of the branch and vine, and this wonderful idea of "oneing."

The invitation here may be for us to sit in this reality for a bit. I wonder what it would be like to take 2-5 minutes per day for a while just sitting and taking in this beautiful oneing "sunrise"— not trying to figure it out but just letting it wash over us — sitting in the quiet, relaxing into the beauty and the mystery of the indwelling Christ, allowing all these images to flow in and through us.

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[1] as a side note, Jesus extends this idea of oneing in John 17:22-23 when he says in his prayer: "The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one…". This sounds like Russian dolls nesting into each other doesn't it? God the Father in Jesus, Jesus (now with the Father in him) in us, and we, one with (in) each other. In John 14:20 he says to his disciples "on that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you." It's a bit dizzying when one thinks of all the oneing and mutual in'ing that is going on! I think one could also respond, when asked what you're doing these days in your home group or church service: "We're oneing!" And, this word oneing really summarizes what we do when we keep the two greatest commandments — love God and love others — doesn't it?