Vestibule of the Winter Palace
The Epistle lesson for Sunday comes from Colossians 3 where Paul says our lives as Christians are hidden with Christ in God. A commentary from Theodore Laetsch has this delightful little picture of a vestibule of eternal life. Our mercy and mission and witness is a waiting room, a foyer into life everlasting. Here he is –
“With this Christ our life is hidden in God. Christians live in Christ. Though sitting at the right hand of God, He is not removed from His Christians, He is still united with them, dwells in their hearts. Their lives arepart of His life, His life their life, Gal. 2: 20. His life shall be in His believing followers a well of water, the sources and hidden springs of which are in Christ, in God, and which already here in this world bubbles forth into a living stream of good works and finally flows into everlasting life. This hidden life coming down from the throne of God brings a bit of heaven into this sinful earth. Christian homes, Christian communities, breathe indeed a spirit of Paradise, are vestibules of the mansions above. How much more like peaceful, happy Eden would this earth be if more homes, more communities, would give evidence of that life outlined by the apostle in his exhortation to manifest Christian heavenly-mindedness?”
