Some of you are reading this only because you've got something on your face. Without those glasses, this would just be a blur. But whether or not you need corrective lenses to read, one thing I can safely say is that we all have needed some spiritual vision correction. And in our text from Colossians 1, we see Jesus giving that to us. So we have reason to put on this Christ lens, because Jesus changes the way things look - the way we look to God and the way he looks to us.

The text starts describing how we did look to God. Verse 13: "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness." We were "in the dark," clueless, helpless, hopeless. But he rescued us. He "brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves." Now we're in the light; God sees us much differently now. Verse 14 says how: "In him (Jesus) we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

That combination of words is pretty spectacular - redemption - the buying back, the price paid; and forgiveness, real literally, "the pushing away, leading away" of sin. That combination of words would've jumped out at anyone familiar with worship in Old Testament times. Those two words summed up the biggest day in the church year - our Christmas and Easter rolled into one. Those two words are what they saw visibly on that Great Day of Atonement, what they called Yom Kippur. That was the day those two goats were chosen. One was sacrificed and his blood sprinkled on the people and then also in the most Holy Place of the temple, the place where God dwelled - the place no one could enter - ever, except the high priest, and only on this one day, and only with that payment of blood. You see blood was the proof of the wage for sin paid - death. Blood pointed them forward to the blood of the lamb - Jesus, our king, whose blood would be shed to pay our redemption price once and for all.

And there was that other goat - the forgiveness picture. That goat too was brought in front of all the people. The priest placed his hands on its head and confessed the sins of the entire congregation on it. And then they watched, as that scapegoat was led out into the desert, far away, never to be seen again - carrying the sins of the people with him - gone, removed. These are the concepts that crystallize God's viewing of us. He has put on the Christ lens and so he sees us... he sees you as his children, as perfect because all he sees is the perfection of the Son he's looking through in place of those sins that were there. But now those sins have been led out into the wilderness when the King of Creation - our Savior, was led outside of the city to that skull-shaped hill and made to pay willingly the price, the wage for each sin of darkness.

So now, through the rose colored (stained red by the blood of the lamb) glasses, God doesn't see the blurry lines of sins and situations we didn't know how to handle. He doesn't see the double vision of when we say one thing and think or do another, because he has put on the Christ lens, and we look perfect to him.

Of course that Christ lens affects the way we see God too. Look at our text and see how this Christ lens shows us the invisible God. For us here though, we'll have to save that for another time. Just don't forget to make sure you see everything and everyone through Christ. Thank God he does.