Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 93 · April 3
Before All Things
“And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.”
By whom all things were made. Christians have been saying that sentence together in the creed for more than sixteen hundred years, and most of us say it as history.
Colossians says it in the present tense. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Consist is a holding word: the Greek is for things standing together, cohering, keeping their shape. He is what the world is doing its standing in at this moment, while you read the line.
Read the sentence in front of it and the scale gets specific. For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him. Thrones and dominions are the things people are most frightened of, listed among his furniture. John says it from the other end: All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. Then Colossians does something no creed alone would prepare you for. Four verses later the one holding it all together is described making peace through the blood of his cross. The hand under the structure of the universe is a hand somebody drove a nail through.
He is before all things. That was true before you were born, it was true through the worst week of your life, and it will be true tonight while you sleep and account for none of it. Nothing you are standing on stands on its own. The one it stands on has already been to the cross for you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 93 is Free Indeed (John 8:36).