From Disenchantment to Sacred Wonder: Re-Encountering Christ in Colossians 1:15–20
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In a fractured age marked by cultural, relational, psychological, and spiritual exhaustion, recovering a genuine sense of wonder has never been more essential. Philosopher Max Weber famously described this condition as the "disenchantment of the world," a striking loss of mystery and sacred meaning ("Science as Vocation," From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, 155). Weber explains disenchantment as "the eclipse of magical and animistic beliefs about nature," replaced by rationality, calculation, and control, which he identifies as "the defining feature of modernity in the West" (See this chapter from Anthony J. Cascardi). Rather than experiencing creation as infused with divine purpose, we now approach it as something to master and manipulate. Philosopher Charles Taylor deepens this insight, describing modern individuals as "buffered selves," isolated from spiritual depths and closed off from mystery (A Secular Age, 39). Given this reality, how can we reconnect to a deeper truth, regain wonder, and rediscover meaning?
The ancient hymn found in Colossians 1:15–20 provides a timely and powerful response. Through vivid imagery and rich poetic language, Paul redirects our attention to Christ, not simply as a theological concept, but as the living presence who reconnects our fragmented lives. Engaging this sacred text anew, we find a clear path from disenchantment toward renewed wonder, worship, and restoration.
Because we are whole persons, worship is inseparable from the healing of our hearts and minds. Worship is more than a spiritual obligation; it is a meaningful encounter with God that engages every dimension of who we are. Genuine worship anchors us securely in God’s healing love, reconnecting fragmented identities, healing emotional wounds, restoring relationships, and bringing clarity and purpose to our minds.
St. Paul clearly understood the formative power of worship, especially as expressed through liturgical poetry and hymnody. Paul's letters often include early Christian hymns, vibrant invitations designed to awaken our spiritual imagination and reorient our lives toward Christ’s presence. This is one of the richest examples:
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross through Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven." (Colossians 1:15–20)
This hymn offers us a vivid pathway toward spiritual renewal. By slowing down and thoughtfully reflecting on our own experiences, we can approach these sacred words in a fresh way. This summons the saints to move reverently from feelings of emptiness and disconnection toward a renewed sense of wonder, purpose, and closeness with Christ. Phenomenology encourages us to notice carefully how experiences appear, emphasizing intentionality, meaningful disclosure, clear distinction, and the interplay between presence and absence (Robert Sokolowski, Introduction to Phenomenology, 3-4).
Intentionality means our awareness is always directed toward something; every experience is shaped by how we perceive and engage it. Meaningful disclosure highlights that the world genuinely reveals itself to us in understandable ways. Reality isn't hidden if we're attentive. Clear distinction invites us to see things as they truly appear, not as we assume or judge them to be. Presence and absence shape our perceptions deeply, with absence often sharpening our awareness of what truly matters. Thus, phenomenology equips us to live thoughtfully, becoming attuned to life's deeper spiritual realities.
By engaging these verses communally, we encounter Christ as more than an idea. He becomes the Living Presence in our midst who restores wholeness to our scattered lives. In a culture weary of spiritual emptiness, this hymn draws us back into genuine worship, inviting us to look again toward Christ, who holds all things together. As we let these words shape us, our hearts awaken with fresh imagination, moving naturally into praise and adoration. Worship then becomes far more than diagnosis or critique; it reconnects us directly and deeply to Christ himself. In this way, our hearts and our world begin to heal.
Verse 15 begins simply yet powerfully: "He is the image of the invisible God." Here we face one of life's deepest tensions, the invisibility of God. God's hiddenness can leave us feeling quite alone, absent from a reality that feels incomplete. Yet in Christ, this absence becomes presence. Christ intentionally discloses God, making visible what we long to see (Sokolowski, 3-4). Far from abstract theology, this truth is deeply personal. When we genuinely encounter Christ, our lived experience of emptiness transforms into a vibrant experience of God's presence.
Though God is invisible (ἀόρατος), He consistently chooses to appear through a mediating presence. Often identified as the "Angel of Yahweh," this figure makes visible the invisible God, providing glimpses of Christ meeting people in their ordinary lives long before his incarnation:
To Hagar in the wilderness (Genesis 16:7).
To Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:2).
To Gideon beneath the oak in Ophrah (Judges 6:11–12).
To Manoah’s wife, promising a child (Judges 13:3).
These narratives invite us to see how deeply God desires to be known, personally and visibly. In each encounter, the invisible God graciously reveals himself through the Angel of Yahweh, understood by Christian tradition as Christ before his incarnation.
In verse 16, the hymn expands our gaze outward, affirming, "In him all things were created, visible and invisible." Our modern culture often leaves us overwhelmed by fragments, partial truths, and isolated experiences, increasing our anxiety and sense of disconnection. Yet here Christ reveals deep interconnectedness. The visible and invisible realms aren't random; they're intentionally unified in Christ (Sokolowski, 3-4, 8-9). When we recognize this intentional unity, our fragmented experience heals. Life regains coherence, and we find ourselves re-enchanted by the sacred meaning holding all things together.
The hymn depicts Christ's role as the source and sustaining center of creation. Robertson highlights the deliberate wording Paul uses, "in him," "through him," and "unto him", as clear indicators that creation finds its origin, sustenance, and ultimate purpose entirely in Christ (A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, commentary on Col 1:16). Despite ancient and recent claims from skeptics and critics, the universe is neither impersonal nor random. Robertson's insight that the universe "remains created" in Christ underscores that our world’s stability doesn't rest merely on natural laws like gravity, but on Christ himself. The universe isn't just symbolically centered on Christ; it genuinely holds together in his person. When we grasp this truth, the fragmented parts of our lives reconnect meaningfully.
Rowan Williams offers helpful clarity here, pointing us to St. Maximus the Confessor, who emphasizes that our ultimate purpose as human beings finds fulfillment only through deep union with Christ. According to Williams, Jesus uniquely embodies the divine life in a fully human way, activating the image of God within humanity. Through communion with Christ, we discover how to live in genuine love and generosity, reflecting the kind of relationships eternally shared within God himself. Given that Christ unites divine and human natures perfectly, he empowers us to overcome divisions and live harmoniously with one another. For Williams, Christ’s life isn’t simply an example for us; it is the living foundation enabling our transformation and unity. As we embrace this truth, we move beyond isolation and disconnection, discovering coherence, meaning, and sacred purpose restored in Christ, the true center of all things (Rowan Williams, Christ the Heart of Creation, 108).
Verse 17 then expresses that, "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." At moments when life seems to unravel, our participation in worship, even under strain, highlights the powerful interplay between presence and absence in shaping meaning. Alistair Wilson suggests that "before all things" can imply Christ’s priority in both time and importance. He existed before creation and stands above everything created (Alistair I. Wilson, “Colossians,” in Ephesians–Philemon, ed. Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Jay Sklar, vol. XI, ESV Expository Commentary, 221). Wilson also notes Paul's careful wording: Christ not only existed before everything, but everything holds together in him. This echoes the imagery found in Hebrews 1:3, where Christ actively sustains the universe by the power of his word (Wilson, 221).
Worship brings these truths into lived experience. When we minister to the Triune God, especially amid anxiety or emptiness, we consciously shift our awareness toward Christ’s sustaining presence. Worship isn't just a comforting ritual; it becomes a real, transformative moment of disclosure. We encounter Christ not as an abstract concept but as the One genuinely holding all things together, including the fragile threads of our lives.
The hymn intentionally bridges creation and the church as the "new creation," emphasizing the deep connection between Christ's cosmic role and his personal relationship with us (Wilson, 221). In worship, this connection becomes tangible. We sense that we're not alone, not left to manage chaos ourselves. Christ already sustains us, holding us firmly within his care, even when we feel fragmented or uncertain. Through worship, absence gives way to presence, emptiness finds fulfillment, and anxiety is replaced by trust, all because Christ is genuinely before and beneath all we experience.
Then in verse 18, the hymn shifts from cosmic grandeur to relational intimacy: "He is the head of the body, the church...the firstborn from the dead." Here, intentionality moves inward to our relational lives. Amid pervasive individualism, Christ discloses our true identity, not one we construct alone, but one received through relationship and community. Edmund Husserl provides an important insight here, noting that intentional content involves "the way in which the subject thinks about or presents to herself the intentional object." For Husserl, we never perceive something in isolation or neutrality but always from a certain perspective: "one does not just perceive the moon, one perceives it 'as bright,' 'as half full' or 'as particularly close to the horizon'" (Edmund Husserl: Intentionality and Intentional Content).
Similarly, when we encounter Christ as "head of the body," we experience him intentionally, not simply as a historical figure, but specifically in relation to ourselves and our community. This intentional content isn't limited to words or descriptions but is rooted in something deeper and more basic: a way we perceive and understand the world even before we put it into language. This "pre-linguistic" experience means we first feel and sense meaning directly, apart from naming or describing it (Husserl). In worship, Christ's resurrection isn't just an idea we discuss. Before we speak of it, we already sense and feel its reality deeply. Resurrection moves us from life's deepest absence: from death to real hope, shaping our experience viscerally. Christ's relational identity shapes our own, carrying us from isolation into meaningful connection and belonging.
Finally, verse 20 proclaims reconciliation through Christ's cross: "Through him God reconciles all things...making peace by the blood of his cross." The cross reveals stark absence, abandonment, death, brokenness, yet paradoxically becomes the deepest disclosure of divine presence and love (Sokolowski, 9-10). Reconciliation emerges vividly, transforming painful alienation into restored relationship.
Phenomenologically, the Cross is the place where deepest loss meets greatest love, repairing fragmentation and restoring profound unity. This ancient hymn indeed moves us phenomenologically from invisibility to visibility, from fragmentation to coherence, from cosmic isolation to intimate relationship, from spiritual incompleteness to fullness, and ultimately from alienation to reconciliation (Sokolowski, 4).
Re-enchantment is not nostalgia for simpler times or magical thinking. Instead, it involves intentionally nurturing wonder, curiosity, and openness to the sacred presence of Christ in everyday life. We pause in a hurried world to recognize the sacredness of ordinary things, nature, art, friendships, and the human condition itself (Taylor, 312, 551, 793, 867). Through authentic worship, we prophetically witness against disenchantment. Worship reclaims reality as radically meaningful, infused with Christ's active presence, healing our fragmented sense of life (Taylor, 39, 73, 95).
In this way, the healing we long for begins right where we live, in our own lived experience, our own hearts. It then ripples outward, reconnecting us meaningfully to others and the world around us. As faithful witnesses to and of Christ, we journey intentionally in a sacred enchantment, contra disenchantment, rooted in Christ, whose presence infuses all reality with renewed wonder, coherence, and purpose.
Mark Chironna is the Presiding Bishop of Engage, a network of bishops and pastors, and the founding pastor and Overseer of Church On The Living Edge in Longwood, Florida. He serves on Firebrand’s Editorial Board.