First Sunday after Christmas: Epistle, Colossians 3:12-17            

Colossians 3:12-17

What is Advent about? And Christmas? Well the first-grade Sunday School answer certainly applies. In other words, “Jesus” is the correct answer. But can we go one step further? The first Sunday after Christmas, which this year happens to be THE DAY after, is a day to recover and breathe deeply, no doubt.

But something strikes me in this marvelous short reading. Paul gives simple instructions. Or seemingly simple. Fronted with our being God’s elect and dearly loved, which in itself is amazing, Paul writes, “put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, longsuffering …” (3:12). Then comes the “forgiving one another''. And it is no option. Read on through the next verse.

What struck me? Those directives: mercy, kindness, humility and longsuffering are not stand-alones in a list. They ARE the elements of giving forgiveness.  All of them. Just think of Jesus. Do we not see in His forgiveness all of them? We do. In fact, in Jesus they are “personified.” They are what He is. They are what we, by His grace, are to be as well.

Forgiveness is who we are. I pray it can be said of us all, the day after Christmas and all through the year.