Posts Tagged: Jesus' death and resurrection
“Seeing God’s Face and Fingerprints”
DTEB, “Seeing God’s Face and Fingerprints”
“Today, with God’s constant help, I am seeing God’s face and his fingerprints all over the place, even when I look in the mirror.” (A recent twelve-step affirmation for me.)
The Bible says that we humans are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), both male and female. This means, among other things, that whenever I look into the face of anyone, I am looking into the face of God. The image of God in them may be defaced, but it is not erased. The same is true for me.
Too often, however, when I look at someone’s face, especially my own face, all I see is a human face. That inability and unwillingness to see God’s face in myself others is the result of my own defacement. I am frequently not simply near-sighted. I’m downright blind. What makes my blindness really tragic is that I am willingly blind.
The affirmation that leads off this post invited me to look at myself, others, and all creation differently. How did I do? It was a mixed bag. However, there were times during the day when I succeeded. When I did, the joy and peace and the gratitude where very nearly unbearable. I can only handle so much time spent with strangers. Joy, peace, and gratitude are not close friends of mine. On the other hand, we are getting better acquainted, and I am beginning to desire a deepening of that relationship.
Too often, whether I’m looking in the mirror, all I see are the weaknesses, the wrong choices, the harms I’ve done to others and to myself. To see my face as a reflection of God’s face is not easy.
Nor is it easy to see face in others. All I see is their weaknesses, their wrong choices, their harmful attitudes and behaviors.
Nevertheless, I do have a choice as to how I look at myself and others. It takes courage and hope to change my way of seeing, and I don’t have a lot of either. But there is a God who offers to give me those gifts. God also promises to nourish courage and hope until they flourish. God is a good gardener. God is a God who gives sight to the blind.
I am always struck by the fact that Genesis chapter 2 follows Genesis chapter 1. Yes, I know that sounds strange, but hang with me.
In Genesis 1, we are told that God made humans in God’s image and told them to rule over creation. And then, in chapter 2, it speaks again of the forming of the humans. It turns out that their rulership is expressed in being gardeners! Doesn’t sound like fun? Think again. God designed and planted the garden. And when God created the man and put the man into the garden and made the woman to be his companion, the command was not simply commanding them not to eat the fruit of one of the trees. That one prohibition wasn’t the first command. Rather, they were commanded to eat the fruit of every tree, except for the one. Unfortunately for them—and for us—they decided that the fruit that was the one exception must be exceptional.
But God still wants us with God in God’s garden. God wanted this so much that God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Then, the Master Gardener went to a cross to take care of all the ways in which we had defaced God’s image. But there is more: the story tells us that the story doesn’t end there. The Gardener was buried in a tomb in a garden, but in a very short while, in three days, the Gardener burst out of the ground, bringing us image-bearers with him. Now, God gives us another wonderful miracle: God calls us into ourselves and out of ourselves to join God in the garden. The garden is all of us, but we are also co-gardeners with God. As we work the soil and pull out the weeds, the image of God in us all becomes clearer and clearer.
“Identifying Love”
“3 1-2 So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.
3-4 Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.” (Colossians 3:1-4, The Message)
Love always identifies with whatever or whoever is the beloved. Do you love stuff? Then you identify with stuff? Do you love validation from others? Then that love becomes a part of your identity.
This is especially evident with parents. We identify with our children. It may not be an altogether healthy identification, but there it is. And it is (at least in part) an example of love identifying with what or who is loved.
The Bible—both the Old and New Testaments—indicates many things that are hard to believe. I am not now talking about garden-variety miracles such as feeding multitudes with a few fish and loaves or raising the dead. No, I am talking about a really big miracle: God’s miraculous identification with us in our sinfulness.
There are many things in the Bible that I have a hard time swallowing. One that always chokes me and chokes me up is that God not only loves sinners but also identifies with them. Ancient Israel was a bunch of rebellious sinners, like the rest of the world. Neither Moses nor the prophets were impressed with Israel. God didn’t pretend that the Israelites were a box of chocolates either.
But even though God disciplined his rebellious children severely, God never quite gave up on them. Instead, God identified with them. Isaiah, who points out that Israel is in exile because of their rebellion against God, also speaks repeatedly about God’s identification with Israel. For example,
“In all their affliction he was afflicted,
and the angel of his presence saved them;
in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” (Isaiah 63:9, English Standard Version)
God’s identification with the sinners God loves is more than hinted at in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, God’s identification with this whole messed-up species that calls itself homo sapiens (“knowing man”) becomes a laser-like focus in Jesus Christ. He hung around with sinners all the time and was criticized for it. The religious sinners were his most merciless critics. Of course, we always are, aren’t we!
At the cross, Identifying Love showed itself as Redeeming Love. The One who had hung out with sinners was now hung out to dry—or rather, hung out to die.
And die he did. But there is a persistent rumor that he did not stay dead for long. Yes, I know that is hard to believe, isn’t it? But there are many of us who do believe it. On my better days, I do too. On my worse days, I don’t believe much of anything. Sorry, but that is true.
And, according to the Apostle Paul, when Jesus came out of the tomb we came out with Jesus. Identifying Love had so identified with us that we have already died, been buried, and been raised from the dead. It is not first and foremost about us identifying with Jesus. No, it is first and foremost about God’s identification with us in Christ.
So what do I do in the light of God’s identification with me and with the whole human race? There are many responses to such loving identification. One is simple gratitude. God, thank you, thank you, thank you, for identifying with me. Another response is to keep pursuing Christ. The verb in Colossians 3:1 that speaks of “seeking” or “pursuing” Christ is in the present tense. In the Greek language of New Testament times, the present tense suggests an ongoing, repetitive, life-style choice. We don’t “have” Christ in the way that we “have” objects that we can put in some drawer and dig out (if we can find him) when we need him. Christ is to be sought on an everyday and every-moment basis.
And there are the choices we make every day. Paul talks about those choices in the rest of the book of Colossians: such choices as telling the truth, being sexually pure, and forgiving others. A friend of mine pointed out that, on average, every person makes 35,000 choices every day.
The first choice of this and every day should be to dare to believe in the identifying love of God. That same daring choice should infuse the other 34,999 choices with meaning.
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
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- “The Process in Miracles and the Miracle of Process” March 11, 2024“2 Kings 5:1 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the LORD had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. 2 Now the Syrians on one of their raids […]
- “The Power of Encouragement—Even for Old People” March 10, 2024“But encourage each other every day while it is ‘today.’ Help each other so none of you will become hardened because sin has tricked you.” (Hebrews 3:13, New Century Version) Yesterday, I was walking at a nearby park. There was a large group of young people some of whom were running while other young people […]
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- “Character is the Real Lesson” January 19, 2024I am often confused about what lesson I’m really supposed to be learning. For example, this morning I was trying to knock out several Spanish lessons. My intentions were a lot better than my internet connection. I’ve done three lessons. Or rather, I’ve done two lessons. One of them I did twice because the internet […]
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- “Searching for the Noble One” December 26, 2023My wife and I were reading Luke, chapter 2 on Christmas Day. Luke 2 talks about the shepherds being told to look for this very special child—in fact, this King—in a stable. I prefer the word “barn”. I grew up on a farm. I know what a barn is. A stable is entirely too biblical […]
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