Kat and I started dating in our first year of college. About two years later we were not together for a season, which was my fault, but we were both on the same trip to Europe with the college choir in which we both sang. On the trip, I noticed a friend of mine paying attention to Kat that looked like a romantic interest to me. I had no right to be at the time, but I was jealous.

As a part of this trip, we visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site where thousands died at the hands of the Nazi’s during World War 2. We walked through the museum, the barracks, saw the bunks, and the crematorium. I could tell that most everyone I was with was emotionally overwhelmed by the visit. That was the right response. But I missed it because I was  blinded by my jealousy and could not see what was right in front of my eyes. No one looks forward to seeing Dachau and contemplating all the happened there, but it was tragic to be there and to miss it.

Colossians 1:15-20 presents a crystal clear vision of Jesus as God, as the creator of everything that exists, and as the one who holds all things together. It’s a hugely significant picture with massive ramifications for the world as a whole, and our lives specifically. However, it is very possible to read the Bible, attend worship, listen to sermons, and participate in Bible studies but essentially miss Jesus in the process and why who he is matters. I know this is possible because it’s happened to me more times than I care to admit. Just as the appropriate response to Dachau is a sense of grief and heaviness at what happened there, the right response to the vision of Jesus recorded in this passage is heartfelt worship of the sort that stirs the affections of our hearts and moves us to delight in obeying the one who is “before all things and in whom all things hold together.”

I’m praying that as we study the text Sunday, God will cure our blindness and that we will see the glory of God in the person of Jesus and worship.