Dock Resource Kit

Sunday sermon, 14 December 2025

Summary

The week Phil explores the purpose of the Incarnation, drawing on Colossians 1:15–20, one of Paul’s great Christological hymns. He reflects on how Jesus reveals God personally and powerfully, not as a distant or abstract idea but as the one through whom all things were made, held together, and reconciled. At the heart of the talk is the good news that Christ comes not only to show us what God is like, but to bring peace where there is fracture, reconciliation where there is division, and the beginning of new creation. As Advent moves us towards Christmas, the sermon invites us to receive the peace of Christ and to carry it into our lives, our relationships, and our city.

Key Points & Takeways

• Colossians 1:15–20 reveals Jesus as the image of the invisible God and one of Paul’s great Christological hymns.

• In Jesus, God is revealed personally. To know what God is like, we look at Jesus.

• The Incarnation reveals God powerfully. Jesus is the creator of all things and the one who holds all things together.

• The purpose of the Incarnation is reconciliation. Jesus comes to restore what has been fractured.

• God’s work of reconciliation is both cosmic and personal, reaching all things seen and unseen.

• The fruit of reconciliation is new creation. Jesus brings life where there was death.

• The church is called to be a sign of this new creation, shaped by peace rather than fear.

• Advent invites us to be reconciled, restored, and renewed, and to carry the peace of Christ into our lives and our city.

Dock Discussion Questions

1. As we move through Advent, where does peace feel fragile in your life right now?

2. When you think about God, what most shapes your picture of him, and how does looking at Jesus challenge or restore that picture?

3. Phil spoke about Jesus holding all things together. Where do you most need Christ to hold you steady at the moment?

4. The sermon invited us to be reconciled, restored, and renewed. Which of those feels most relevant for you this week, and why?

Long-form, edited transcript

Incarnation:
Purpose

Colossians 1:15–20

A Fragile Peace

It’s wonderful to be walking through Advent with you. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been exploring the incarnation, this truth that God steps into our world in Jesus. We’ve looked at the promise of his coming and the presence of God made flesh, and today we turn to the purpose. Why does he come? What’s it all about?

Now I don’t know about you but this week was one of those weeks when Christmas begins to pick up speed. The Williams household had parties, various events, things to plan, people to see, presents to sort out. My calendar was definitely filling up faster than my energy levels.

In the middle of it all I saw someone that I needed to catch up with. Nothing heavy, just one of those moments to bring a bit of clarity before things get too busy. But something was off. They seemed distracted. I struggled to say what I’d intended. We did the normal December smile, the everything is fine smile, but underneath it there was a strain neither of us named.

When we finished I walked away feeling a bit weird. Not conflict, just the sense that we’d missed each other and it sat with me longer than it should have.

And it reminded me how fragile this season can be. Christmas is full of light and joy, but it also seems to draw whatever is already going on inside us straight to the surface. When life is good Christmas brings people close. When things feel unsettled Christmas has a way of making that unsettled feeling louder.

And I guess most of us have one or two things this December that sit a little uncomfortably in the background. A conversation we keep putting off. A bit of tension somewhere. A family pattern that never quite changes. The pressure of trying to hold everything together even though inside we feel super-stretched.

Moments like these show us something important. We long for peace but we can’t always make it happen. We can’t fix everything on our own.

This is where Advent speaks. Not as a journey to a polished version of Christmas but to an honest one, in the real world. Our world that feels beautiful and broken at the same time. Our world where we wait for God to act because we can’t mend what is cracked.

And this is the world that God incarnate steps into. A world of misunderstanding and family stress and heavy hearts. A world that longs for reconciliation, for peace. And it’s into this world that the apostle Paul writes and perhaps sings.

We’re going to read what many scholars call one of Paul’s great Christological hymns, full of rich theology. And in this hymn Paul doesn’t offer us a technique for a calmer Christmas. He offers us a person. The God we see in Jesus steps into our broken world to reconcile all things and make us new.

Colossians 1:15-20

The Son is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation.
For in him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers
or rulers or authorities;
all things have been created
through him and for him.
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
and the firstborn from among the dead,
so that in everything
he might have the supremacy.
For God was pleased
to have all his fullness dwell in him,
and through him
to reconcile to himself all things,
whether things on earth
or things in heaven,
by making peace through his blood,
shed on the cross.

Our Elusive Peace

Before we dive into the text, let’s be clear. The fragility of our peace isn’t just my December or your December. It is the human experience. We all live in the gap between how life is and how we wish it were. We carry hope and disappointment at the same time. And we wrestle with a world that’s full of kindness and full of injustice.

And the longing we feel for peace and fairness and healing isn’t weakness or fantasy. It’s the echo of what we were created for. We were made for relationship with God and with one another. That desire is the imprint of God on the human heart, this is what it is, what it should be to be human.

God designed us, men and women together, to be like him and with him and with one another. To love and be loved. Made for wholeness and peace.

But humanity thought we knew better. We turned our backs on God and selfishness entered the world. With it came separation. Barriers went up, relationships broke down, and instead of love and togetherness we now live divided. It’s what we see all around us and in our news feeds every day.

Rather than being one in the world, we have become a world of ones.

The whole of human history tells this story. We build and we break. We reach for peace and then it slips through our fingers. We try to fix problems and create new ones. In a sense we’ve all lost what it is to be human, really originally human, to be at peace.

And this is where the Jesus story gives us hope. Not with us trying to climb our way to God and some heavenly peace, but with God moving towards us. Our God who chooses not stay far off while we try to hold everything and everyone together. He steps into humanity to heal and to save.

The Incarnation
Shows Us God Personally

Paul opens this great hymn with an amazing line: He — that is Jesus — He is the image of the invisible God. In other words, the God we can’t see, the God who can feel distant or hard to picture, has moved into the world in a way we can recognise. Not in theory. But personally. In a person. In Jesus.

And that really matters, because many of us, without meaning to, carry a rubbish picture of God. Our experiences shape it. Our disappointments shape it. The churches we’ve been part of shape it. Our guilt shapes it. It’s so easy for our image of God to become distorted.

Paul is saying, you don’t need to carry around a blurry picture of God. Look at Jesus. Look at how he speaks and who he notices. Look at how he brings compassion and truth together. Look at his courage. Look at his gentleness. Jesus doesn’t give us a rough sketch of God. He shows us God as he really is.

A few weeks ago I travelled to New York, very exciting, not least because I got to use my new digital passport at the airport. It’s got chips in and everything, and a beautiful sharp image of my face. I tapped it on the machine and looked into the cameras and it recognised me straight away and the gates opened. Amazing. I honestly went from the train, through security to the planes gate in 10 mins. Incredible, instant access. And I could do it because the image of me was clear. Undeniable.

Paul is saying Jesus is like that. Not a fuzzy likeness or a guess at what God might be like, not an out dated image from when you were a child. He is the clear, sharp image. When you look at Jesus, you’re not guessing. Genuine access to God opens because you’re seeing God revealed in a way your heart can understand.

And this is important because our picture of God shapes everything. It shapes how we pray, whether we trust him, whether we bring him our weariness or hide it. It shapes whether we believe he’s for us or against us.

So Paul begins here. Before he talks about reconciliation or renewal, he starts with our picture of God. Look at Jesus. Let him bring the image into focus. Let his kindness correct your fear. Let his compassion correct your shame. Let his steadiness speak into your uncertainty.

Because the purpose of the incarnation is to reveal God. God Who isn’t hiding, isn’t distant or unclear.

In Jesus, the incarnation shows us God personally.

The Incarnation
Shows Us God Power-fully

But that’s not it, the incarnation also shows us God powerfully.

Verse 16…

For in him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers
or authorities;
all things have been created through him
and for him.

This is huge. Paul’s saying Jesus isn’t only the image of God. He is the one through whom everything came into being. Every part of creation. Every force and every system. Every story and every corner of the world. Jesus stands above it all.

And then Paul adds:

…and in him all things hold together.

Jesus isn’t only the beginning of creation.
He is the one who keeps it from falling apart.

This is the God who steps into the world at Christmas. Not just a fragile baby, but the eternal Son who holds all things together even while lying in a manger. The incarnation isn’t God becoming weak because he ran out of strength. It’s God choosing to use his strength in a new way. Strength that draws close. Strength that comes to us with mercy. Strength that holds steady when everything else is shaking.

And that’s what we all need, right?

Because all of us have parts of our lives that feel shaky. Anxiety that won’t quiet down.

Old wounds. Family conflict. Work pressure. Broken systems. Fear of the future. All the things that push against peace.

Paul is saying Jesus is Lord over all of that. Not in a neat or simple way, but in a real get-in-there, get-your-hands-dirty, kind of way. He is the one who created all things. He is the one who holds all things together.

In the midst of the storm Jesus holds us firm.

I love that we’re right here on Shadwell Basin, and while it might not be a working dock anymore, there are still loads of those huge iron immoveable mooring posts that once held ships steady as they docked, whatever the weather.

Paul is saying Jesus is like that. The one who holds firm when the tide rises. The one who keeps his ground when life feels unstable. The one who can hold us together when we can’t hold ourselves.

And this is the God who comes close in the incarnation. Not a powerless presence. Not a gentle but fragile comfort.

But the God who created all things.
The God who holds all things.

Our God, who stepped into our world, is power-full. The Lord of creation. Able to hold the world together, able to hold us together too.

The Incarnation
Show Us God Peace-fully

So in Jesus the incarnation shows God personally, and power-fully — and peace-fully.

This great hymn builds up to this amazing phrase:

For God was pleased to have
all his fullness dwell in him,
and through him to reconcile to himself
all things,
whether things on earth
or things in heaven,
by making peace through his blood,
shed on the cross.

This is the crux of it all, the central purpose of the incarnation. Jesus doesn’t come into the world only to show us what God is like. He comes to restore what’s been lost. To mend what’s been fractured. To bring peace where there’s hostility and healing where there’s hurt.

Reconciliation sits right at the centre of why Christ comes. The heart of Christmas:

“Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!”

And this reconciliation stretches further than we imagine. It isn’t just about us. It isn’t limited to our inner spiritual life. Paul says God is reconciling all things —

Things on earth and things in heaven. The visible and the invisible. Private wounds and public wounds. Personal sin and the brokenness of creation. Relationships that have grown cold. Families under strain. Systems that have harmed. Communities and nations that feel divided.

Everything touched by sin and selfishness is now touched by the work of Jesus Christ.

Because Jesus, born of Mary, went on to walk on this earth to show us what real humanity, what real love, looks like again.

He hung on a cross with his arms stretched wide to deal with selfishness, to break through the barriers, and to heal our brokenness.

Then he rose to life again to make a way for us to follow him and live and love and be at peace, just like we were designed to be.

And Paul says, God was pleased to do this. Pleased to pour his fullness into Christ. Pleased to reconcile. Pleased to make peace. This isn’t God acting with reluctance. This is God acting with desire.

God wants his world back.
God wants his people back.
God wants peace on earth.

In the middle of this passage Paul also calls Jesus:

…the beginning and the firstborn
from among the dead

In other words, all this reconciliation leads somewhere. The peace Jesus brings becomes the doorway to new life. To a renewed creation.

Jesus doesn’t only heal what’s broken.
He brings back to life what was dead.
He births something new.
A renewed way of being human.

A new way of living with God and with one another. A new community shaped by peace instead of fear — his church — with Jesus as the head. We are a sign of the new creation God will one day bring to completion.

The purpose of Christ’s coming is peace. And the fruit of that peace is re-creation. Peace that doesn’t just calm the present, but changes the future.

Peace For You

So what does all of this mean for you this week, with just eleven more sleeps till Christmas.

If Jesus really reveals God, who holds all things together, and if he stepped into the world to reconcile all things and birth a new creation, how should this personal, power-full, peace-full reality that is on offer feel for you tomorrow morning?

Because it’s one thing to talk about reconciliation in a big cosmic sense. It’s another thing to ask where it needs to take root in us.

Advent is a great time to ask that question. Traditionally this is a season for introspection, of preparation, of waiting and hoping, and knowing that God has stepped into the world and will keep stepping towards each of us, offering to come right into the places where we feel most unsettled or strained or tired, or quietly hoping something might change.

I want to ask three simple questions. You might want to pray into one of them, or carry one home to reflect on, or maybe all three.

So first, where do you need to be reconciled.

Is there a relationship that’s grown cold, someone you’ve drifted from, a conversation you keep avoiding, or a tension that’s begun to shape how you think or speak. Jesus wants to meet you there and offer peace you can’t create on your own, maybe a peace you can’t even understand.

Second, where do you need your picture of God restored.

Many of us carry a quiet fear that God is disappointed with us or distant from us. But when you look at Jesus, that picture clears. The God you see in Jesus is kind and close and steady. He holds things together, holds you together, when you can’t.

And third, where do you need to be renewed.

Where do you feel stretched thin. Where does life feel heavy. Is there a habit you want to break, a pattern you want to step out of, don’t wait for January to make your resolutions, start now. If Jesus holds all things, he can hold you too, and he can begin something new in you today.

Where do you need to be reconciled?
Where do you need your picture of God restored?
Where do you need to be renewed?

All of this is invitation, not demand. Jesus doesn’t come to load you with more weight. He comes to take weight off, to bring peace where peace feels impossible.

Peace For Us

So as we finish, let’s lift our eyes from our own stories to our life together as a church.

Because the reconciliation Jesus brings is personal, but it’s never private. It always grows outward. It always creates a people. It always becomes something we live and practise together.

If Jesus comes to reveal God and hold all things together, then we’re a people who look at him and learn to reflect him together, to hold one another with patience and grace. And if Jesus comes to reconcile all things, then we’re a church called to be a sign of that reconciliation in the middle of East London.

That means turning up for one another, choosing patience even when we’re stretched — not pretending everything is tidy, and not ignoring the tensions we feel — but letting the peace of Christ shape the way we speak to one another, the way we handle conflict, the way we welcome those who walk through our doors, and the way we pray for our streets and our neighbours.

We do all of this together. None of us works for peace alone. We walk as a community shaped by the God who comes close to us. We walk with hope, not because life is simple, but because Jesus is alive and his peace is real.

So as Advent carries us towards Christmas, may the peace of Christ rest on you, rise in you, and run through you into the world he loves.

Amen.