From God to you to others

Despite our best efforts, we don’t know exactly what Jesus looked like. We have a lot of paintings, icons, and artwork throughout history personifying the Son of God in various ways. I remember growing up with a painting of blond hair and a blue-eyed painting of Jesus hanging in our family living room. History will tell us that Jesus, a Jew raised in Nazareth, would look quite different than our American hippy portrayals. He would have dark skin, brown eyes, and coarse hair. And while I’ve never seen Jesus, the man, face to face, I’ve seen God in the faces of many people who have carried, anchored, mentored, forgiven, and loved me throughout my life.

I’m drawn to this idea that we bear the image of God when we love one another. Even more, we are the embodiment of God’s love. Essentially, we are God’s love in human form. That is what Jesus came to show us how to do; through his ministry, life, death, and resurrection, he shows us how to embody the fullness of God’s perfect love. Do you ever think about the fact that you are capable of literally being the face of God to people? That’s a huge honor; all it requires us to do is love one another like Jesus loved us. This is how the love of God is revealed.

I say this, yet I know that loving anyone is not always easy. My dear friend and fellow student ministry director, Todd Davidson, recently shared a quote by Kurt Vonnegut.

 “Be warned: If you allow yourself to see dignity in someone, you have doomed yourself to wanting to understand and help whoever that is.” 

Why does he say doomed? Because it is hard. It is messy. It is scary to love others. We might get hurt. In fact, we will get hurt. But in the hurt, we grow. In the hurt, we have to depend on others. And depending on others opens us up to the capacity to love others with forgiveness, dignity, curiosity, and compassion. It’s easy to judge one another; it’s far harder to be curious as to why they may be hurting and how we can be the image of God through love.

I don’t believe Jesus ever wanted us to worship him through statues of what we think he looked like. And I mean no offense towards images of Jesus in stained glass windows or hippy paintings on my childhood wall. They have their purposes. But the image of God we are meant to display in the world is through us and how we show love to each person we encounter daily. That person who cut me off on the highway? Yep! The assistant behind the long line at the pharmacy/restaurant/drop-off line? Absolutely. The friend/boss/classmate who used you as a punch line to a joke or was gossiping about you or treated you unfairly? That’s a hard, messy, scary one. But yes, we love them too. Because we have been them, we’ve done the things, said the words, inflicted the hurt. And just like we needed someone to be Jesus to us, we can be Jesus to others. No one has seen God, but they’ve seen you and me. May they continue to see God in us so that in our love, God is revealed.