Happy Elephants

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or power or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”                      

                                                      Colossians 1:15-16

Sometimes “happy elephants vacuuming in their purple raspberry aprons” helps.

Huh?  Today I thought I would touch on another memorizing technique.  I am doing that mostly because I can’t face dealing with the last part of verse 16 and don’t get me started on the scripture to follow.  I will talk about them.  I am just not ready to wade into such deep spiritual waters.  Still meditating on those truths.  I will get to them, I promise.  

I confess Colossians 1:15-16b isn’t exactly revelatory for me.  For some reason as hard as I try, I just can’t find anything in this verse that speaks NEW!  And I don’t mean that in an irreverent way, I just always saw Jesus in the light of what these verses reveal.  But I did find something interesting.  Love interesting.  I think I will share it then I’ll tell you about the happy elephant thing. 

First, let’s keep our passage in context.  If you recall, we just finished memorizing verses that talk about rescuing, inheritance, kingdom of God’s son, redemption and forgiveness.  All big stuff and all tacked onto the end of a rather lengthily prayer.  Now Paul is about to break out in song.  Colossians 1:15-20 is a hymn or a poem.  Commentators can’t seem to agree on which.  You can pick for yourself.

This poem/hymn is the heart of Colossians and it is considered among the most Christological passages in the New Testament.  Do you recall that one of the problems looming over the church at Colossae was a group of individuals were attempting to convince the believer’s that they needed something more than Jesus?  Jesus wasn’t enough.  They “sought to procure and promote an unspecified wisdom or deeper knowledge”.  Well, Paul is about to challenge this argument with a brilliance and eloquence that is just so, what can I say, Paul. 

In order to fully appreciate what Paul is saying in these verses, you need to know that the Jews highly valued wisdom and considered it supreme.  They even held strongly to the notion that wisdom was involved in creating the world.  You can see how they might have been attracted to this “new” wisdom with such a strong belief system attached to it.  The belief wasn’t so far fetched since Proverbs 8:22-31 strongly suggests this idea. 

“The LORD brought me (wisdom) forth as the first of his works” (v22) (parenthesis mine)

and

“Then I (wisdom) was the craftsman at his side.” (v30).  (parenthesis mine)

What these other Jews may have attributed to Wisdom (creation), Paul claimed for Christ.  Christ was indeed the wisdom that they sought for. He is the wisdom from Proverbs 8 in the flesh!  He was there “in the beginning”.  They didn’t need anything else.  Just Jesus.  “For by him all things were created”.  Jesus is supreme over creation and he was the very wisdom that they were looking for! Pretty cool huh?

Now, Back to “Happy elephants vacuuming in their purple raspberry apron’s”.  Glad you stuck with me.  Yeah, because this might just change you life.  Sarcasm intended. 

It is a way to memorize scripture.  Do you recall way back in a post I wrote about memorizing, I mentioned how easy it is to remember something if it is bizarre (you can read that here)?  That is what I am doing with this silly phrase.  I am creating an odd sentence using the first letters of each word in the four pairs of words in verse 16.

Happy - Heaven

Elephants – Earth

Vacuum – Visible

In – Invisible

Their – Thrones

Purple – Power

Raspberry – Rulers

Apron’s – Authorities

Happy elephants vacuum in their purple raspberry aprons.

“For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities.”

It is meant to help me get the order of the words right as well as the words.  For me elephants help but you can make up your own sentence.  I just like elephants and the color purple. 

In closing out today, I find myself wondering if you will ever remember the deep parallel between wisdom, creation and Jesus.  I hope so.  It is profound and uniquely useful.  If not, perhaps you will never look at elephants exactly the same again.  You know “happily vacuuming in their purple raspberry aprons”.  My work is done.  Smile.

Christ is the aperture through which the immensity and magnificence of God can be seen.

                                                               J.B. Phillips