"All things were made through him and for him…in him all things hold together…"
The trinitarian structure of the central circle moves from blue to a kaleidoscopic effect merging the colours but with three discernible colour groups. I decided when doing this central panel that this beautiful shade of blue, chosen to convey trinitarian and christological significance, would be woven throughout the centre circle. Nearly every stitch in this section has one strand of blue in every six…"in him all things hold together". This was one of those decisions made after reading the text, and recognising that though not every stitch shows its blue strand, it is there, woven throughout. If I may dare say so, an attempt in art to suggest something of the mystery and beauty of perichoresis. The purple red and green are conjoined by this strand into a theological unity of creative love, mutuality and redemptive purpose.
Holy Week rightly focuses on the passion of Jesus. But the Christian tradition of Trinitarian Christology sees in the specific, particular events of the Passion of Jesus, the eternal kenotic and passionate love of God. In other words, the Passion story of the death of Jesus, tells of events in history by which the broken heart of God reaches out in holy love and merciful judgement to redeem, reconcile and renew a recalcitrant, rebellious and ruined creation. Salvation is by the grace that gives itself in Christ; redemption is through the love that surrenders the Son; reconciliation is being called into the fellowship created by the Holy Spirit.
When we say "The Grace" in worship, therefore, it is not, manifestly not, a way of reminding us to be nice to each other. Grace, Love, and Communion are the defining theological realities of the Christian understanding of God. They are words of grateful wonder to the God who is an eternal communion of gracious and loving fellowship, reaching out in creation and redemption to fulfil the eternal purposes of Holy Love, by which all things exist, subsist and persist. Such I think is the theology that is woven through the Colossian hymn, with its climax that through Christ God is reconciling all things to Himself, making peace by the blood of His cross."
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