Tag Archives: image of God

Image of the Invisible God

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There’s always a temptation to make God distant and abstract. After all, God dwells “in light inaccessible,” the scriptures say. God is beyond the eyes of our mind and body.

But God reveals himself in Jesus Christ, the “image of the invisible God.” The first followers of Jesus saw him with their own eyes and proclaimed that “the grace and kindness of our God has appeared” in him.

We’re reading from the 1st Letter of John, which was written as that first generation of  eyewitnesses to the gospel was passing on. The letter’s message to a new generation (and certainly to us too) is simple: believe in Jesus Christ. As eyewitnesses pass on and years go by, we’re tempted to forget or minimize his place in our world and in our lives.

John’s letter warns about the dangers of docetism and gnosticism, two heresies supporting that temptation. A note in the New American Bible describes what these strange sounding heresies are all about:

“The specific heresy described in this letter cannot be identified exactly, but it is a form of docetism or gnosticism; the former doctrine denied the humanity of Christ to insure that his divinity was untainted, and the latter viewed the appearance of Christ as a mere stepping-stone to higher knowledge of God.”

He came “through water and Blood,” John writes. He urges us not to forget the humanity of Jesus Christ, the humble way he became flesh and shared our experience as human beings. God comes to us that way too. He was baptized in the waters of the Jordan uniting all nations in journeying to God’s Kingdom. He died and shed his blood for us. Don’t forget the mystery of his death and resurrection.

“God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”

Love for one another is an essential part of loving God:

Beloved, we love God because
he first loved us. 
If anyone says, “I love God,”
but hates his brother, he is a liar;
for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen 
cannot love God whom he has not seen. 
This is the commandment we have from him:
Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Authentic Personhood

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Widow’s Mite: 6th century image

9th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday

Mark 12:38-44

In the course of his teaching Jesus said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets. They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow also came and put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, “Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

The scribes who liked to parade their status lived on the outside, in the smokescreen of public image. In contrast, the widow commended by Jesus acted in accordance with the image of God imprinted on her heart.

And what is the image of God? “All mine are thine, and thine are mine” (John 17:10). Selfless love and dispossession are at the heart of the Trinity. The extravagant generosity of the widow forgetting herself and giving away her entire livelihood mirrored the divine poverty.

The truth of the heart cannot be detected by eyes and ears. Jesus, with the eyes of the spirit, “saw” the mountain of gold deposited by the widow in contrast with the mites tossed in by the rich. 

The widow beloved by Jesus is a mirror of authentic personhood, for self-divestiture is Trinitarian. Emptiness and fullness are two sides of the same coin stamped with the divine image. Emptied of self, the false boundaries of the ego yield to the mutual indwelling of persons and the fullness of divine love. If the Trinity is truly “all in all” (I Corinthians 15:28), we lose nothing and gain everything in giving ourselves away. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34).

-GMC