Last Will and Testament

Most of my first few years in the military are a blur. Nearly 25 years after I first raised my right hand, memories of basic training, technical school, and my first assignment are beginning fade like old weathered photographs. From time to time though, some of those distant memories suddenly seem to jump into sharp focus. As I read through Paul's last few letters to the churches he helped to found, one of images that shoots to the forefront of my mind is of preparations for Desert Storm.

In those weeks and months leading up to the assault on Saddam Hussein's war machine, the common soldier, sailor, airman, or marine had little idea of what to expect. Those were the days before CNN footage of brilliant fireworks erupting over Baghdad as frustrated anti-aircraft batteries tried vainly to shoot down invisible stealth aircraft. We knew that we would win... eventually. But we also new our enemy had a huge army and Soviet-made weapons we had never been tested against. We were hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst. Among the memories of processing lines, mass vaccinations, and weapons qualification, one that stands out is of a quiet room, in which two dozen or so young men and women prepared hand-written wills under the guidance of a sober-faced legal clerk. My will was short and to the point: "...all of my assets, I leave to my wife and unborn child." Maybe three or four sentences in all.

As I read Paul and Timothy's letter to the Colossians, it strikes me that his writing was a lot like that. He wrote like a man who knew he had not a lot of time left, and wanted to make every word, every sentence count. After a brief salutation, the letter gets right to the point: If you forget everything else, remember what you first believed about Jesus:

- That He is God in the flesh and the creator of all things
- That He holds the entire universe together
- That He is the head of the church
- That He rose from the dead to overcome death itself
- That He has paid the price for our sins that separated us from God
- That if we believe in Him, God sees us as perfect, without sin

Paul later goes on to address false doctrines that were seeping into the church and other things like standards of behavior, but it is evident that the first thing he wanted to make sure he did was remind us of all we should know about Christ. I wonder, as Paul sat in Rome, did he guess that he might be executed before the letter was finished? If he did, it makes sense that he would write the most important part of his message first. I think Paul was trying to tell us all something: we can fully understand nothing of the Bible, or of God's universe, without first understanding His Son and the work He did for us.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. (Colossians 2:6-8)