Alas for Alexander--November 29, 2023
"For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross." [Colossians 1:19-20]
If you like to get your history from action/Christmas movies like Die Hard (and I definitely do), then you likely know the line spoken by villain Hans Gruber (the late Alan Rickman), declaring that when he saw the extent of his empire, Alexander the Great "wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer."
Now, whether the Greek commander actually cried because he had run out of peoples to dominate or not, it's at least plausible to imagine. Plenty of would-be emperors have viewed the world as theirs for the taking, like a game of Risk or Monopoly. And if you ever did get all the spaces on the board, well, then what?
I suppose it says something about our culture that we construct games like that--where the goal is to conquer or acquire everything for yourself in order to win. It says something about what we assume the goal of life is--just endless accumulation, domination, or conquest of your opponents. Maybe the fact that those seem so obvious as worthy goals in a game says something, too, about how completely and unquestioningly we have bought that line of thinking. Conquest and domination as far as the eye can see, right? Maybe we have all just accepted Alexander as a worthy role model without so much as a second thought--that of course, we, too, should aspire to have it all, take it all, and rule it all. Hans Gruber seemed to think so, at least.
Of course, it's easy, too, once we're pointed in that direction, to assume that this is God's overarching goal, too. We have a way, the late theologian Karl Barth used to say, of projecting our own ambitions onto God and just making them bigger. We assume God is as bent on being a cosmic tyrant over it all, from Baltic Avenue to Boardwalk, as we aspire to be, and that God's way of relating to the cosmos is as emperor. We have a way of picturing God as just an oversized Alexander the Great with a halo: even mightier than the ancient Greek, with angel armies in place of chariots or war-horses.
But when we actually listen to the writers of the New Testament describe God's real purpose, we're in for a surprise. To hear the writer of Colossians put it, the living God isn't looking to be a conqueror, but a reconciler. God's scope is universal and all-encompassing, sure, but not to dominate like Alexander... or Napoleon... or Attila (or any of a number of comic book supervillains, for that matter). In Christ, God "was pleased to reconcile all things." God doesn't destroy, vanquish, or subjugate creation under the divine boot, but "makes peace" with it all. And, as if to completely turn the way of empire upside-down, God's kind of peace doesn't come at the point of a sword, but bearing the points of nails in God's own life through Christ. In other words, God's reign is infinite and endless, but not built on conquering; it consists wholly of love.
On this point, the writer of Colossians could not be any clearer. He fully locates God in the person of Jesus and says that as Jesus took on death from his enemies rather than killing them, so has God chosen to bear death rather than inflict it. The crucifying empire looked to eradicate troublemakers like Jesus to make an example of them and keep the rest of their conquered subjects in line, but the crucified God absorbs all that evil into the cross, refusing to answer it back with more evil, in order to reconcile with all things "whether on earth or in heaven." That sounds like a pretty universally inclusive list.
All of this is to say that when we talk about how God's love "never ends," as we've been doing this month, it's not just to say that God's love stretches out in time, but also in all directions, to include all things. It's not just to say, "God loves me (and only me) forever," but also to say "God's love and reconciliation go out beyond the horizon." God's love never ends, not only in chronological terms (like with an expiration date on your milk) but also like the expanding universe itself, which scientists say is pushing out bigger and wider at an accelerating rate. And whatever costs there are to that kind of reconciling love, the writer of Colossians says that God has paid it in God's own life in the cross of Jesus. God doesn't just "hope" to make up with all of an estranged creation; God doesn't just "wish" it would all work out. Colossians says that in Jesus God has already accomplished that reconciliation with every proton, every quark, and every nanometer of real estate in the cosmos. Even with all of us in our "hostility" toward God (Colossians 2:21-22). That's also what it means to say that God's love "never ends."
If our understanding of the good news falls short of that infinite scope, it is just as deficient as imagining that God's love has a sell-by date before it spoils. The only difference is in the dimension in which we've limited God's love (time rather than reach). Today, then, just let it sink in that the love of God really is over all creation, and that is not merely an aspirational goal for God (as in God would like to be able to reconcile with everybody, if only they would get their act together) but an accomplished state of affairs from God's perspective.
So, no, (alas for Alexander), there are no more worlds left to conquer; but that was never God's purpose anyway. God was always interested in reconciling with all things, and in Christ, that is just what God has done.
The only question on this day, and every day, is whether we will dare to believe what God says is already true.
Lord God, stretch our understanding in all the infinite dimensions of your love.
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