Jesus' Kind of Strength--July 16, 2025

Jesus' Kind of Strength--July 16, 2025

"May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light." (Colossians 1;11-12)

Strength doesn't always look like muscle-power, horsepower, or firepower.  And being strong doesn't always look like punching, kicking, towing, or shooting.  

In fact, quite often in the Bible, God's kind of strength is described in terms of God's endurance to take the punches, absorb the blows, and take the arrows that come raining in from enemies outside.  That's how we end up getting images like God is a "refuge" or a "fortress," or that God is like a crag in the rocks you can hide underneath when a storm comes and you are out in the dangerous wilderness.  God is the One who can take the hit, like a mother hen gathering her brood under her wings when the fox or the fire comes.  That's a very different picture of "strength" than a tank steamrolling over an enemy or a Roman legion marching to conquer a city, isn't it?

So before we get carried away or misunderstand what these words from Colossians that many of us heard this past Sunday are really saying, we need to ask a clarifying question: what kind of strength are we talking about here?  What kind of strength is the apostle praying that we would be given, and what does it mean for our actual lives?

I ask because Respectable Religious Folk often make the mistake of picturing the "firepower and punching" picture of strength, and assume that God is offering to let us tap divine power to dominate, to obliterate, or to intimidate others, all in the name of "getting things done" on the agendas we assume God has also already endorsed.  Or we assume that God is offering to grant us wishes like a genie. Or maybe we even think that God intends to bulk up our muscles literally--I remember hearing about a traveling "Christian" weight-lifting team that would put on shows with literal feats of muscle strength interspersed between testimonials and altar calls, all with the implicit messaging that if you were a good enough disciple, then you, too, would be able to tear a phone book in half or improve your bench press.  But all of those pictures have made the fundamental error of disconnecting the picture of our power with the kind of power that Jesus has.  

And that just doesn't work, because the only power the apostle here in Colossians has in mind is Jesus' power--the only strength offered to us is to receive Jesus' kind of strength.  And Jesus' way of being strong is much more the "enduring while keeping on taking the punches" sort of strength; it is never the "we have to make our enemies suffer" kind.  Jesus' strength is the capacity to outlast and exhaust evil when it attacks without being overcome by it--in fact, answering such evil with good.  But it is never just the firepower to answer evil with more evil, hatred with more hatred, or cruelty with more cruelty.

Of course, that's why, so often, the world mistakes Jesus' kind of strength for weakness.  The world insists on "You gotta hit them first before they hit you!" or "We have to be cruel to those we want to make an example of, so they will fear us and give in to us!" kind of thinking.  The world says you are only strong if you can bend others' will to your own or force them to give you something you want while you twist their arms.  The world cannot understand that the ability to bear suffering but not to inflict it is a deeper kind of strength than dominating and bullying.  So it looks at Jesus' disciples the same way it looked at Jesus: it calls us "weak," "losers," or "failures," because we endure the hostility of others without answering back in kind.  That's the kind of strength that the writer to the Colossians has in mind, the kind that "endures everything with patience" the same way Jesus answered hatred and violence without returning them.  Jesus' kind of power makes us like the walls of a fortress or the face of rocky crag--strong enough to absorb the blows of hail, lightning, flaming arrows, or whatever other ammunition is incoming.  Together, we create spaces of refuge for one another and for the most vulnerable, because Jesus has done the same for us, protecting us with his own life like a mother hen guarding her chicks or a Captain America on the silver screen jumping on a grenade to save the people around.  That is Jesus' kind of strength--that is what we have been given.

Once we are clear about that, we have direction for how we face the challenges of the day and the violence and evil of the world.  We are not sent to take over as show of strength, and we are not directed to enforce our way or our interests on other people. We are sent, rather, to protect those who are most vulnerable--even with our bodies and our lives if need be, and to bear the mistreatment, name-calling, and intimidation tactics of others without resorting to them ourselves.  That is very much a different kind of strength than most folks think of.

But I dare say it is exactly the kind of strength that the world needs.

Lord Jesus, give us your kind of strength to respond to the world in your kind of way.