Christ Our Center

“God is the reality whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” -Blaise Pascal

Early Christians described the church as a wheel with spokes centered on a single hub. Out on the rim of wheel, the spokes are the furthest away from both the hub and each other. As each spoke moves closer to the center, they grow closer together. They are a single meeting in the one hub.

The image says something important about the abundant life Jesus offers us. The closer we are to him, our Center, the closer we are both to God and to each other. Jesus overcomes our isolation – from our truest selves, from God, from people around us – by giving us a shared experience in his risen Life.

I have been thinking about Christ as a “hub” a lot over these last few months. I’ve been studying the book of Ephesians in my devotional time, and discovered that Paul uses the phrase “in Christ” 27 times throughout the book to describe the vital, binding relationship Jesus forms between God and humankind.

He paints a picture of the Christian life where growth isn’t so much a process of acquiring new information or becoming something altogether different, but rather recognizing what (and who) we already are.

I take great comfort in Paul’s vision because, perhaps like some of you, I often worry about not doing enough in my relationship with God. I enjoy being a Christian much more when I remember it’s more about surrendering than is about acquiring. We’re spokes already in the wheel, all that’s left to do is move to the center.

Love in Christ,

Pastor Dan