In the Image of God

One of the creation stories in Genesis tells us that we were made in the image of God. Does that mean that God has arms and legs, etc.? Well, I don’t know. I couldn’t describe, as if I was telling a police sketch-artist, what I think God looks like. And I highly doubt that the writers of Genesis meant us to take them literally.

Perhaps, to clear up the confusion God sent Jesus into the world. That’s right! Jesus looks like God, or God looks like Jesus, take your pick.

Jesus acts like God and is concerned about the things that God is concerned about. The followers of Jesus saw in his words and actions throughout his life, all the way to the cross, the things that concerned God most. And they came to recognize the Risen Lord because of the things he said and did, which were familiar to them because it matched what he did before the crucifixion.

God will sit down and eat with five thousand strangers – prostitutes and Pharisees, Greeks and Jews, peasants and priests, and not care about the purity of the kitchen where the bread was baked or how clean the hands were that prepared the fish. God was willing to be reviled, persecuted, tortured, and executed, while only speaking words of forgiveness to his tormentors. God taught us that the realm of God would be brought about quietly and not with the political and military muscle of kings and generals. God revealed God’s glory by touching the unclean, feeding the hungry, healing those bound by disease, inviting the outcast, and bringing about the reconciliation of enemies.

If we are created in the image of God and if we are Christian (Christ-like), then perhaps we are to act like Jesus and be concerned about the things God is concerned about.