Imago Dei
I found a couple of words…
Imago Dei – latin for the image of God. Genesis says from the very beginning; every person was created in God’s image. The beggar. The refugee. The displaced. The sex workers. The poor. The addict. The tax collector. The religious. The disabled. I have had the privilege to see God’s image in the kinds of places I never knew existed all over the world. To see him in the face of a woman in abject poverty, whose eyes glow with joy, as she says she has everything she needs is a humbling experience. To hear refugees who have lost everything, including family members, to violence, say how blessed they are to have a tarp roof over their heads is sobering.
Such hope in the midst of devastation is the face of God, shining out in the darkest of circumstances. My heart is humbled to find him so clearly visible in the hard places and so invisible in the places I reside. These encounters with others who bear his image so plainly, break through my pride. My arrogance takes a knee. I am undone when I see him face to face in this way. In people and places so foreign to me. The orphans. The widows. They don’t have a lot of stuff, but they have His heart. They are meek, which is a word we don’t use much these days. The Image Dei, is harder to see in others when there is no need to depend on God. It is the broken ones who reflect Him because their dependence on Him is all they have. It is stunning to see. Beautiful in ways which words cannot express.
What is even more striking is the that I do not have to go around the world to see the Image Dei. I believe the Image Dei resides within every created human. It is what makes every human valuable. Even the ones who don’t believe it to be true. Even those who harden their hearts, cannot escape this part of their being. It is buried deep within our DNA. A part of our core. To see it, is to see God himself. To look deep enough to see it in others requires tenacity. It is much easier to see the outer layers of dirt and grime. To listen to angry words rather than the pain beneath them.
To throw up my hands and say, “Not this one. There is no Image Dei here.”
Yet, humility says, “Keep looking. Do not give up.”
Because of the Image Dei, we are all worthy of life, despite the fact that the ugliness in my heart is invisible to me. I cannot even see my own faults due to the blindness of my pride. Only God himself can show me the truth. He does so regularly and gently. I get on my face…every time. And every time, he shows me the error of my thinking. The harshness of my words. The superior haughty manner in which I live. I am forever reminded His ways are not my ways. I am reminded to seek Him first…again.
Reading about the Image Dei leads me to the one who lived it out. Jesus broke away from the status quo when He cared for the Samaritan woman. He showed kindness to the disabled. Healed the lame and the blind. He forgave adulterers and prostitutes. He rescued the demon possessed. Those He loved did not look like Him, believe like Him, or behave like Him…yet, when His life intersected with theirs, they were changed. They walked away different than He found them. His compassion moved Him to action and them to change. He was the Image Dei in the flesh. He told us, “I can only do what I see my Father doing.”
I find it interesting that Dei means God, in Latin. Currently, DEI is being rooted out of our world. We are a post-Christian nation, so to cut out all of those Jesus would have served is expected, I guess. Still, I am grateful that God Himself did not cut me off from His grace, despite my failings, but included me in His love. I am grateful that at the foot of the cross, all are equal. I am grateful for His assorted palate of colors and that He loves all the diversity that He created…because of the Imago Dei…His image deposited into every soul.
One day, when His Bride comes forth, we will all be blended together. We will see as He sees. Bonded by His love for us all. “Without spot or wrinkle,” it says. We are a long, long way from the wedding supper of the Lamb. He waits patiently to purify His bride who cannot currently hear His voice. He desires a church who is no longer sold to the highest bidder. No longer divided up into pieces. No longer unfaithful to Him, wooed away by other suitors. He desires a bride devoted to Him and His ways alone. He will invite all whom He loves to the supper, and those who refuse to come to his enormous table, will be replaced by those from the highways and byways – the broken, the stranger, the foreigner – those who fall at His feet and worship Him alone. All because of…the Imago Dei.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.) Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” At this I fell at his feet to worship him. Rev. 19:7-9