April 7, 2013
Let the words of my
mouth and the meditations of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, o Lord
my strength and my redeemer. Amen
Man was
created in the image of God. The implications
of this are incredible, deep, and wide.
It tells how we are made up, how we are to live our lives, and that we
are created to be eternal. I suspect
that the meditations on this can go on and on.
To be made
in the image of God means that we, too, are Trinitarian -- we have a body, we
have a soul, and we have a spirit. These
all work together, while,each is distinct.
When we forget we have a soul, and neglect it, it is tremendously
unhealthy. Similarly, it is unhealthy when
we neglect our body, or do not submit our spirit to God’s spirit. Each of these aspects of a human is
important, and helps us to better understand who we are. We are not merely a blob of cells, nor are we
simply spiritual beings.
Too, we are to live in community,
for the trinity is the model of the perfect community. We were created to seamlessly exist with our
brothers and sisters, for in the perfected state each member of the body of
Christ has a role, a position, a part.
We are to
be creative as well. This speaks not
only about procreation, which is often where some people stop with this
theological point, but it also speaks of the act of making beautiful things,
whether it be music, art, poetry, prose, or houses. We are made to make beautiful things. Just as
our God was a creative God, so are we to be creative beings.
Before the
fall of mankind we were to be eternal, uncorrupted by sin, to live in the
garden of perfection, the pinnacle of creation.
Instead, by the tempting of the devil, we chose to make ourselves like
God, instead of being content to live in His image. We wanted to be on par with Him. The acceptance of the Creation story as a
literal piece of history is irrelevant to the blatant fact that again and
again, man will attempt to make himself into God, to misalign the fact that we
are created in the image of God, and to be creators ourselves, but not demigods. History speaks loudly of this, and we see it
as we survey the history of the world, both within the context of scripture,
and outside of it.
So, it is
that in the scriptures it was a woman who first saw the temptation of the devil. She was the first to see evil in this world,
and saw what its destruction could do. It
is also woman who was first to see the empty tomb, and know of the resurrected
Christ, and the first to see that evil had been crushed, destroyed. The devil no longer has any power in this
world. Yet, his tempting is still
something that we wrestle with every day.
Though he no longer rules, he is not yet cast into hell where he’ll
spend eternity it at the end of days. Until
that day, he is a roaring lion, seeking the ruin of souls.
This is the
state that we live in. We are fallen,
torn from God by our own sinfulness. This
is a state that we share with all of humanity.
For humans, interfered with will seek their own good and their own
glory, always. This, of course, does not
mean that humans never do anything good or worthwhile. Instead, our souls are tainted with the
curse, continually driven to disregard God.
We may be able to love our neighbors as ourselves, but if we don’t love
God with everything that we have, then what is this?
So it is,
that in our shared fallen state, we are not capable of judging others. We must instead love. This, of course, can be taken to be something
wishy-washy. The love that comes from
God, is notwishy-washy. Rather, God’s love is firm, and it is solid. The love of God is the same love that
sacrifices His son on the cross, and it is the same love that raises him from
the dead. It is the same love that pours
out mercy upon us, and gives all men mercy to continue each day in life. It is the same love that pours out justice.
It was love
that told Detrick Bonheoffer that though it was wrong he had to kill Hitler. Even though he knew murder was wrong, he knew
that the only loving thing to do was to prevent Hitler from further evil, and
further sin. So love drives us to stand
up for justice, for the poor, and the unwanted.
Though we are not the independent arbiters of justice, we must call
right, right, and wrong, wrong.
So, this is
the Christian life- that we dwell in a world that has fallen from the side of
God, and that we are constantly tempted to not live in His mercy. Yet as the first lesson says. “the
souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch
them.” That is, we are able to hang
on to the side of God, made possible by the grace we find in Christ. It is by this we are able to bring glory to
God, and we are able to dwell peaceable with him.
In this
first lesson we see the truth of the world spelled out in a tremendously poetic
way. This great divide between God and
man -- this chasm, as one theologian once described it.
It is the
world that tells us -- this is it, eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we’ll
die! Without a divine purpose, this is it,
but this life is not it. Though, it may
seem when the faithful die the end is the end, if we cling to Christ the
visible end is not the end, but the strong promise of eternal life with him. When we dwell in Christ, His righteousness is
put upon us. That is two-fold. First, that we are seen as righteous by God,
and are therefore able to worship him, to come to him in all our brokenness. The second meaning of this is that we are
being made righteous. This is the
process of sanctification, that over time, by God’s mercy we are made more
perfect, that the sins and temptations grow less, and less attractive as our
hearts long more for the good things He promises.
To the
world this may seem foolish, and even more foolish seems the idea that this is
not the end, but life fully bound to God waits us in eternity. We stand firm in this promise, and we live in
it. We know that, though there may be
tests and temptations and trials, as the writer of the first lesson says, these
trials are as the trials of gold. They
are purifying, and as we pass through them, we are being sanctified. This is what happens to gold, when put in the
fire; the imperfections are burned out. It
is the same with us. As we live in this
world, and experience hard times and heartaches, our imperfections are being
burnt away, so that we may be found worthy to dwell with God.
It is both
in this world and in the world to come, we are called to be lights of Christ. In this world, the author speaks of being,
“sparks in the stubble.” If we are sparks in the stubble, we can set the nation
on fire. When we let Christ’s light
shine through us we bring glory to God. This
is our calling, no matter who we are, to be reflections of the true light of
God.
Without
fire, without light, gold is just a dark cold metal, unfeeling, unattractive,
it is not until you put gold in the light, that it shines and sparkles, and
grows warm. The same is the case with us. Though we have feelings, it is not until the
light of Christ dwells in us that we can become sparks in the stubble, that we
are filled with joy, and glory. It is
His glory that dwells in us. We are made
to be reflections of His light, and His glory.
In the end,
judgment day will come, and being brought into God’s glory, we will sit by his
side when the nations are judged. We
will understand then what true mercy and true justice look like, and it will
make our hearts glad. Today, we only
know these things as shadows, and we live in our conscience, following always
the word of God, praying and submitting to him.
In the days to come, these things will be clearer.
Though
today things are unclear, and things are foggy and hard, our hope is in Christ. We do not trust in men or princes, but in God
alone, for it is God alone that is the bearer of all good things. If we trust in this truth, when the time
comes, all things will be clear.
This all
becomes a little bit clearer when Christ, who was crucified, is raised on the
third day for us. It is His promise that
He will come again. Our world view is
transformed by the Resurrection. Our
understanding of who we are, and what we are to do, is dominated by this. In the season of Easter, we spend our time
meditating on what this all means.
For while
we, all of humanity has chosen to seek after our own glory, the author of
Glory, the one who is full of glory, comes to earth,
Amen
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