A New Year and the Imago Dei

This Sunday’s message (offered online-only until the end of January) had me, a not-particularly-liturgical Baptist, dabbling with Epiphany. The magi’s journey has some qualities that resonated with me as we step into the New Year, particularly their relationship to the earthly powers of the time and their importance as the only Gentiles who came seeking the newborn king of the Jews. You can check out that message in its various forms below.

Epiphanies for a New Year Sermon.pdf

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10ByK5pdZjs

As I meandered somewhat through the second point I came back to a subject that, at times, I feel like I ought to preach every single week of the year - the imago dei. This is the Biblical claim and foundational Christian belief that every human being is created in the image of God. Genesis 1:27 tells us God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;

But what is that? Is the image of God our rational minds, our capacity for relationship, or something else entirely? Preston Sprinkle gives a short breakdown of the concept of the image of God in his book Embodied which hit on an interesting point. He goes to the Hebrew word for “image”, which is tselem. And in the Old Testament tselem actually almost always means “idols.”

“What are idols? They’re visible representations of an invisible deity. The term basically means the physical ‘carved or hewn statue or copy’ of a nonphysical being. In Genesis 1, this ‘statue or copy’ is humanity, and the nonphysical being is Yahweh.”

Sprinkle quotes theologian Marc Cortez who puts it this way: “the image of God is a declaration that God intended to create human persons to be the physical means through which he would manifest his own divine presence in the world.”

Have you ever been told that you are God’s idol? That was an interesting thought. God decided to create you and me so that we could embody His presence in our world. What does that say about how God sees us? What does it say about your significance, and the significance of each person you come across? We are not simply created by God, but created by God in such a way that we physically represent Him in our world. People are sacred. You are sacred.

I’m not sure many people, even in the Church, really believe this to be true. Not all the way, at least. Being a sinner seems to make more sense to people. And we do need to appreciate our brokenness. But being broken doesn’t change what a thing is. A broken lamp is still lamp. A broken car is still a car. And a broken person, afflicted by sin, is still a person who bears the image of God, even if that image is not easy to see.

We need to be reminded of what we are, what we represent, and what we can be, and often. Image-bearers of God. We need to be reminded because we inevitably fall short, fail, struggle, and discover ourselves to have been fools. There is no such thing as good enough - someone can and will find fault in our every best effort. That’s soul-crushing if we forget that this is not the way that God sees us. Not that God is unaware of our shortcomings, but that God loves us for who we are, for who He created us to be as His image-bearers.

I see enormous power in recognizing, or accepting that this is true. Too many people struggle daily with their worth. Do they matter? Does their life have a point? I also see so many people with no larger sense of purpose. They work to pay the bills and buy whatever most captures their eye without a sense that they were made for a great deal more.

Living in this kind of insecurity or without a sense of having something to offer the world is a hard way to be. And it contributes to the growing problem I think we have in our increasingly-connected world with tearing people down. I’m not sure how useful the now overused term “cancel culture” is, but we do seem to live in a time of easy outrage. A spirit of criticism seems far more common than one of grace or charity.

But if we are “God’s idols” in this world to represent Him we certainly have better things to be doing than fueling the outrage machine. And if we also recognize the image of God within the other people around us - even difficult or messed up people - it should fundamentally change how we treat and interact with them.

We have a role in this world, as Christians, in being the people who do not rush to judgment and who uphold dignity and worth of every person. For all that our increasingly secular culture values human rights, it’s really our idea, built on the foundation of the imago dei. To go through life each day seeing everyother person as someone created in the image of God, just like you, is a powerful thing. And for the sake of the witness of the Church we cannot afford to forget or abandon it.

As we begin a new year some people take time to reflect and re-evaluate things about their life. This can be a good and healthy practice, and probably one we should do more often than once a year! To try to eliminate a bad habit, start a good one, or simply try to get your day-to-day routine to better support your true priorities is a worthy goal. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to be reminded that you cannot change your worth. You cannot change how much God values you, cares about you, and desires for you to know Him in return. You don’t have to prove or earn anything as His image-bearer. But you are invited to learn what God has gifted you to do to represent Him in this world. And you are asked to recognize all other people as fellow image-bearers, worthy of the same love and respect you are, always.

Ephesians 2:4-10 - But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Have a blessed New Year.

- Pastor Borden