Restoration job in progress
God created human beings in God’s image and likeness. When the early Christians began to explore the meaning of Christ’s coming into the world, very early, as early as the second century, they began to explore the theme of God’s image in human beings. What was the image? What happened to the image? Was it lost? Or was it just muddied, covered over? The variety of answers to these questions was huge. There never was a definitive answer accepted by all as to what was the image that God planted in the human being. Is it the soul? Is it our creativity? Is it our capacity to love?
No agreement as to what is the image of God in human beings. But clearly God planted something of himself in us. The Book of Genesis speaks of God breathing into the first human and making him a living being. But all Christian thinkers from the beginning agreed on one thing: The image of God was not lost. We cannot sin so much as to erase the image of God. But we drifted far from God and the image became soiled and covered up with layers of dust and human foibles. The image was spoiled, but not destroyed. You cannot restore something that is destroyed. The trajectory of human history as illustrated in the Hebrew Scriptures pointed toward an event, an act of God whose aim would be to restore humanity to connectedness with God. That event proved to be the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ came to search for God’s image in us and to restore the image to its full radiance. Four Sundays ago we heard him tell his disciples, “You are the light of the world.” But we can’t be light if the divine image is obscured or blocked. Jesus came to uncover and clear away the layers that prevent the image of God from shining in us and out from us.
But there is resistance. Jesus was resisted. Back in July we read the healing of the Gergesene demoniacs – and the townspeople who reacted by asking Jesus to get out of their town! And then two weeks later, on the last Sunday of July we heard the Pharisees accuse Jesus of driving out demons by the power of the devil. Wow! How is God to restore us to our full glory if there is so much resistance? Well, why shouldn’t there be resistance? It’s in our nature to resist. It was the story of ancient Israel. It’s been the story of much human history. It’s the story of a pandemic and the millions in this country that resist anyone telling them to wear face covering! It’s human nature. Some forms of resistance are good. Jesus himself would be resisting and speaking out against racism if he were living in the United States. But the resistance that Jesus encountered from the Pharisees and the Gergesenes is the problem that Jesus came to heal. It is our resistance to God that has covered up the image of God in us.
“You give them something to eat,” he told his disciples two Sundays ago. In other words, he was telling them not to focus on what they were lacking! God’s provision is huge, endless, inexhaustible. Open your eyes and see what is available. See what you’re capable of achieving.
August 6th was Transfiguration. In that brilliant radiance that engulfed Jesus on the mountain, the disciples could see their own potential to become like Christ – to walk with Christ on the waters and troubles of life, as we saw Peter attempt to do last Sunday.
Then yesterday, the Dormition of Mary. What the Transfiguration promised was fulfilled in Mary. And it is the promise held out to us.
And today, the epileptic boy. Illness disfigures a human being. The epileptic seizures of the boy are better described in the versions of this miracle in the Gospels of Mark and Luke. But all three versions attribute the illness to a demon or an unclean spirit. That was the language they had, they didn’t know modern medicine. But by attributing the epilepsy to spirit possession they recognized that illness also creates disruption in our connectedness with God.
Jesus came to show us the glory of the image of God – first in himself, and then in us. He came to restore the image of God in us. Even after the resurrection the disciples were asking if Jesus was going to restore the kingdom (Acts 1:6), and earthly kingdom! He didn’t answer. Instead he told them to return to Jerusalem and wait for power from on high. He had a much more important restoration in mind than the kingdom. And it is no longer the question Christians were asking in the second century, What exactly is the image of God in human beings? That was not the question any longer, because the image is Jesus Christ. And we are to become what we see in Jesus. That is our destiny. Each in our own, personal way, is to become like Jesus. Not clones of Jesus or of each other! But all the beauty and love and perfection that we see in Jesus is to be ours as well. That is the promise that I read in all our Gospel readings of the past month or so. Let me close with three quotes from St. Paul.
Romans 8:29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren.
1 Corinthians 15:49. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
Colossians 3:10. [You] have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
And let me draw one final conclusion from all our Gospel readings: The image of God will be restored in us when we see the image in each other. You see, this is where the Liturgy becomes our teacher. When the priest censes the holy altar and then the icons, he turns and censes all who are present – recognizing the image of Christ in each person and in response each person who is censed bows to the priest, not as a sign of the priest’s superiority but in recognition of the image of Christ in the priest. We are taught at every Liturgy to recognize the image of Christ in each other, so we can go out and work with Christ to restore the image that has been soiled but not destroyed. There is a restoration job going on, and we are invited to play our part. This way we show to each other and to the world that Christ’s coming was not in vain. You and I are meant to be the proof that the work is going on and it’s going well. Amen.