Image of the Invisible
Scripture: Colossians 1:15-28
SERMON: Image of the Invisible
Deb Beutel, Certified Lay Leader
July 20,2025
“Singing together in Worship! So… this is a Methodist thing?”
Whether we’re gathered in a dog park, burrito joint, an ecumenical revival , or a tattoo parlor, that question is one of my favorite moments.
In it, we have one brief opportunity to share the beauty of following Jesus in the Wesleyan way. Rev Michael Adam Beck has written entire books about Methodist history and theology, but in a conversational interaction, he reminds us that we only have a minute or so. In that moment, it’s about presence, simplicity, and heart, not a historical essay.
Let me be clear: our goal isn’t just to make members of a denomination. It’s to collaborate with the Spirit in cultivating spaces where people encounter the living Christ. Still, I think it matters that people understand the distinct way Methodists go about this.
Every church, even those labeled “non-denominational,” operates from a particular stream of theology and practice. Methodism flows from a stream rooted in grace, shaped by love, and always moving outward in mission.
This morning, we are going to reflect on our Methodist singing heritage. Methodists believe God is love. That God initiates a loving relationship with us. And that our life is a lived response, a journey of growing in love with God and neighbor, carried on waves of grace.
We are people of the saddle: we go, we ride out, we don’t wait for others to come to us.
And we are people of song: for over 300 years, Methodists have sung people to Jesus.
Our theology lives in our hymnody. Our mission is carried on melody and movement.
Most of my early memories of singing happened in church. Although, I grew up Catholic, I distinctly remember practicing the song, “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love,” with the entire Communion Class when I was six years old. Every time I hear that song it brings me back to that moment.
Music does that, it can bring us back to a special place of Worship from long ago, feeling that God is near and with us. I have always loved the music in church, sadly, I must confess that I can’t read music and really can’t carry a tune. However, that doesn’t stop me from singing and clapping enthusiastically every time I attend a Praise and Worship Service or whenever I have Praise and Worship music on my car radio.
Music helps us reach a special place and it helps us to Worship our amazing God and to reassure us that he is right there with us, wherever we are. There are times when we can actually feel the presence of the Lord in song. It can be calming, reassuring, joyful or wistful.
I vividly remember when I was in Officer’s Candidate School training to become commissioned as a Second Lieutenant of Marines. We were in the back woods of Quantico Marine Corps Training Base and we had been hiking all day, with a VERY Heavy pack that was almost as big as I was, and when we finally stopped at the Bivouac site for the evening, we were yelled at by our Sergeant Instructors and they made us setup and tear down our shelter halves at least five or six times. I was exhausted, sweaty and hungry and I remember thinking to myself, “What in the heck did I get myself into?” What was I thinking?” I had a flashback to the movie “Private Benjamin! I want to go shopping, I want to go to lunch, I want to wear sandals!
And then, as soon as we had set-up our shelter halves for the sixth time and they were perfectly covered and aligned to our Sergeant Instructors’ satisfaction, all of us Candidates were informed that the Chaplain was going to offer a service in the field.
Well, I wasn’t feeling especially religious or very faithful at that particular moment, and all I really wanted to do was to get some sleep, but the idea of going to a service where I might get a momentary reprieve from being screamed and yelled at for a hour or so was somehow incredibly appealing to me.
And then the first song started, and with that very first note of “Amazing Grace,” suddenly I felt a calm and sense of peace rush over me. I knew all the words and I sang loudly and freely, (most assuredly off key), and suddenly my eyes filled with tears and I found myself sobbing uncontrollably as I recited the words to the song asking God to help me get through this training. Yes, music can be calming, reassuring, joyful or wistful, and on many occasions, it helps us to worship our amazing God, to feel his presence and to reassure us that he is right there with us, wherever we are. There are times when we can feel the presence of the Lord in song.
Although I was never a gifted vocalist, I have always loved the music in church and so church, for me, always included singing. Even if you didn’t have quite that level of enthusiasm for singing in church as those around you, I imagine it would be hard to recall a worship service that didn’t include singing.
As United Methodists, singing is literally in our DNA, think of the plethora of hymns written by John and Charles Wesley. As worship planners, we select hymns and songs every week that are meaningful to us and our congregation and tie into the theology and themes of that day’s scripture(s). And you have no idea how grateful I am to Milton for selecting and leading us in song today – because music empowers our worship! Sometimes though, we spend a lot more time focused on the content of our singing, but not necessarily on the act of singing itself. Singing together is what some call a “mega-mechanism for bonding.”
When we sing together, we align our breath and our focus toward the same goal, which, in the case of worship, is praising God and declaring what we believe to and with one another. In other words, it's not just what we sing, but that we sing in worship that forms us, bonds us and brings us closer together as a body of believers,
In this week’s text, Paul draws on the power of communal singing by quoting a hymn about Christ in the middle of his letter to the Colossians. Note that I said, “a hymn.” Scholars are fairly certain this song was sung in communal worship, not unlike “Amazing Grace” or “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.” When faced with plumbing the depths of the Incarnation, Paul turned to song. And through that song, Paul demonstrates what the image of the invisible means for us as the church, the body of Christ. In BOTH the extraordinary and the mundane, Christ came, and so, in the extraordinary and the mundane, we are called to embody Christ to the world with one another.
While not giving Charles Wesley a run for his title, Paul was something of a hymn writer—or a hymn quoter. Some scholars think these doxologies were already being used, and Paul just wove them into his writing, as I might quote a popular song or newspaper article. But whether he wrote these words or chose them to make his point, Paul is giving us a hymn of praise to Christ here in the early part of the letter to the Colossians. Jesus is the “He” referred to in verse fifteen, if that was not already obvious. Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Perhaps these words inspired John to open his Gospel with a similar tune and chorus. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him. That’s John’s version of this song of praise, this doxology. It sounds similar.
It goes on from this declaration at the beginning to describe the place, the status, the power of Christ and the beginnings of Trinitarian theology. “For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell.” All the fulness. True God of true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father....” It makes your head spin to try to comprehend it. Maybe that is part of the purpose: to make our heads spin. A little head spinning is good for us, not for confusion’s sake, but to open us to the wonder of Christ, to the power of God. What an incredible, certainly not ordinary, thing God chose to do—to put on flesh and walk among us, to enter into our reality, our brokenness, so that we would know God understands; so that we would know God feels our pain and knows our weakness.
We would know that God is not some distant force, but an intimate presence right here. “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Head spinning, indeed.
Wait. I mean, good for him and all. But what about the ordinary? The everyday? The moments that pass by almost unnoticed until we with a great act of will, force ourselves to wake up, to pay attention to each breath, each encounter? How do we open our eyes to those passing moments, so that they don’t pass unheeded? How do we stop and acknowledge those we love in front of us, the ones who make our hearts pound even if we forget to pay attention to the pounding from time to time? How do we grab the ones slipping out of our grasp before we even see it? How do we hang on to this moment long enough to let those around us know that we are who we are because they are in our lives, they came to bless us, they came to shape us, they came to love us even in our most unlovable?
We’ve missed too many moments. They disappear too quickly, and by the time we pay attention to them, they are gone, and the chance was missed. How do we wake up to the ordinary and see the presence of God in the ordinary?
We do it with magic. Ordinary magic. That’s the image of the invisible. Not sleight-of-hand magic, or flamboyant otherworldly magic. Ordinary magic—the invisible connection to God that is between us, around us, before us always. When I was a kid, there was a presence that still resides in my memory who told us to remember the magic.
Every morning, Captain Kangaroo would gently open our eyes to the world around us, and he concluded every program with the admonition to remember the magic words, “please and thank you.” Yeah, I’m old. But the Captain was followed by others – Ms. Nancy from Romper Room with her Magic Mirror, Mr. Rodgers, Steve from Blues Clues, Clunette on the Big Comfy Couch. So many. Who is it now? Paw Patrol? Bluey? Who is telling our kids, telling us, about ordinary magic? Who is reminding us today that ordinary magic is gratitude.
Gratitude reminds us of our connection, our reliance on an awesome God and those around us to make our lives meaningful. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for feeding me, for clothing me, for making me laugh, and for holding me while I cry. Thank you for being there for me. And, wonder of wonders, thank you for wanting to.
I’m amazed at Paul’s hymn here in Colossians. Amazed at the wonder of who Christ is, yes. But, really amazed at the end. After all, this is about God in Christ. It ends with the words that this whole thing, this whole wonderful, amazing, head-spinning thing, was so that you and I could find our way home to the arms of God. “Through him, God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things.” All things, you and me. To himself, to God, himself. We are brought back into relationship. And this is the best part: He was pleased to do it. He was pleased to bring me home.
God was pleased to bend down and lift me up. God was pleased to hold the door, to stand watch at the end of the lane so that he could run to greet me when I came to myself and stumbled home. This wasn’t a duty born out of the nature of God. This wasn’t just in the job description. No, we are made right, brought home, welcomed into the loving arms of our Father, nurtured by our Father in heaven because God was pleased to do so. Pleased by us. By you. By me. God was pleased.
The image of the invisible. Magic. Thank you. Thank you, God. Thank you who stand in for God from time to time, who carry the ordinary moments of our lives and make them rich and deep and full. It is the ordinary days that need cultivation and attention. Such days are what we harvest in our lifetimes.
Amen I say, amen. And that cultivation and attention is the ordinary magic of gratitude—first to God and from there into everywhere. Thank you for who you are. Amen!