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Morning Meditation for Advent
December 5, 2025
Clement of Alexandria
Reading: Colossians 1:11-20
May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones
Clement, a native of Athens, converted to Christianity and later, founded the Catechetical School at Alexandria, which was then the intellectual capital of the Mediterranean world, and became head of the School about 180. For over 20 years he labored effectively as a defender of the faith and catechist of the faithful.
For Clement, God transcends the limitations occasioned by space. ”God is not in darkness or in place, but above both space and time and qualities of objects.” Therefore neither is he at any time in a particular place, either as holding it or is he held in it. Interestingly, even though heaven is regarded as his throne, God is not even contained there. When the presence of God is said to “come” to believers, it does not mean that God moves from one place other another. And so this adds some greater insight to the manner in which Paul now writes to the Colossians about God in this passage. Paul is passionately describing the exalted and victorious Christ, first in all things and over all creation.
Clement understood that when the presence of God is said to “come” to believers, it does not mean that God moves from one place to another. Neither does God give up his place or vacate his own seat, so that one place should be empty of his presence and another filled that he did not formerly fill. God’s presence is not dependent nor variant. God is everywhere present, knows everything that occurs. It is in this hope that Paul reassures the Colossian church that those members can be confident in the fact that Christ has already secured the victory over all the powers of evil. They will inherit the kingdom of God. No matter what things might happen in the present, no matter what they will have to endure, they can do so joyfully, because the cosmic battle against the darkness has already been won.
Paul makes this claim with a strong and urgent confidence that is rooted in who he believes Christ to be. His writing here expresses some of the most profound understanding of the person of Christ in the whole New Testament. Paul makes a passionate recitation of who Christ is and what Christ did for the Church, and it contains vocabulary and imagery that is not found elsewhere in the Pauline writings.
Paul offers these Colossians comfort in who Christ is but he also offers us a powerful insight into what the earliest Christians believed about who Jesus was. Clement is remembered today for his contribution in the early days of Christianity in similar understanding to Paul. Clement and Paul are remembered for what they accomplished in the early days of the Church. It also allows us to see that even in the earliest days of the Church, Christians were already developing core shared beliefs about Jesus that were sophisticated and strongly stated, held and believed.
Here are the powerful claims that Christ is unequivocally the Creator, as well as the firstborn of all creation. He is also the head of the church and the one who has reconciled all things to God. Through Christ, the all-powerful creator who is over all things and through whom all things hold together, we and the Colossians are reconciled to God and forgiven of their sins.
Prayer for Clement of Alexandria
O God of unsearchable wisdom, you gave your servant Clement grace to understand and teach the truth as it is in Jesus Christ, the source of all truth: Grant to your church the same grace to discern your Word wherever truth is found; through Jesus Christ our unfailing light, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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