“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness … so God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
Genesis 1:26-27
I ask a friend, whose first child just turned one – deep into walking now, still working on the talking – what has surprised her most about the experience of being a mom. Her response is immediate.
“How fun she is,” she says, and a smile shines way, way back in her eyes.
The child is not a cuddler, so far, she says, ruefully, though she can hug tight enough when the “ow”s break and scary things suddenly appear in her world. And she’s already showing signs of a strong independent streak that will likely make for some lively exchanges once the teen years come along. She also lights up when Daddy walks in and delights to follow him wherever he goes.
Have they decided who she takes after?
Grandmother, she says, believes the girl has her mom’s looks and her dad’s personality, and my friend grudgingly agrees. “But, just watching her …” she says, and her voice drifts off a bit.
The night before, her little one worked diligently for the better part of half-an-hour, she says, trying to carry some small blocks on the thin plastic lid of their container – like a tiny waitress juggling drinks on a tray. A couple of shaky steps, and the blocks tumbled off. She’d squat down, reassemble them on the lid, rise, and repeat. Over and over, her young mind utterly fixed on the challenge.
“I must have watched her for 20 minutes,” my friend says, and the wonder glows on her face, replaying the scene in her mind.
“In Our image,” the Scripture says God chose to make us. “Image” is an interesting word. Does it refer – as with my friend’s little girl – to how we look, or to the spirit within us? Or both?
Theologians lean toward the “spirit” view: we are creative, like our Creator … possessed of a will and some self-determination … capable of thinking and feeling and spiritual responses.
On the other hand, we cherish Christ as God taking on human form: revealing Himself in our likeness, inviting us to identify so fully with Him that others may actually recognize the resemblance … children reminding observant onlookers of their Dad.
From the beginning, we know, He has watched us as His most unique creation amid countless universes of unique creations. Watched us, en masse and as individuals, across the broad epochs of history … watched us – and watches us still – as a mother gazes with wonder on the child of her own womb. Not because she’s never seen a child before, but because she has never seen this one. This one, made so uncannily in her own image and likeness.
What does God see, looking on His children? Our feeble efforts to stand and move in new directions? Our often-hapless efforts to communicate with Him – and each other? How deeply it must please Him, when we look up and light up and reach up, seeing Him in the midst of our fears and frustrations, our play and adventures.
Does it hurt, when He reaches out in profound affection, only to be shrugged off … watching as we toddle away toward something else? Does the pleasure He finds when we follow close after Him balance the fierce independence that wriggles and resists His direction?
Does He look on the strange things we busy ourselves with – the focus we fix on our odd, happy distractions – with curiosity? Polite patience? Wonder?
Do our childlike, childish ways bring any pure delight to the Creator who has stamped us with some small measure of Himself? Does He find us … fun?
Or does He simply marvel to see how much of Himself comes through, without our even realizing it?
Without our recognizing the Him in us at all.
Sat in a funeral the other day. Across the aisle and a few rows forward, another young friend perched on the edge of his seat, listening to the hymns and remembrances. In his lap lay his month-old son.
He never took his eyes off the child. The baby stirred, restless. Gurgling unintelligibly. His tiny fingers and toes, feeling the air. As the gurgles grew louder, the dad lifted his son to the towel on his shoulder, gently hugging him. The boy nestled in … clinging, quiet. Safe.
In years to come, that child who trusts him so implicitly will stubbornly refuse to clean his room. Will make with the sarcasm and the eye-rolling when he’s asked to mow the lawn.
Soon enough, the boy laying against his chest will be the one his dad is leaning on, shaking as he tries to rise out of a restaurant booth. He’ll be the one pushing his dad in a wheelchair, through the airport, looking down on the thin white hair. The hairs as thin, that coming day, as those on this baby’s still-red scalp.
After a while, the child made a small noise. The dad tenderly leaned the little one’s head back, looking lovingly down into the squinching, squirming face. In that moment, even among the funeral sounds, something silently echoed, down the long, long years … the voice of a parent, speaking words so many parents have whispered, with deepest gratitude, in the deepest recesses of their soul.
“This is My beloved Child, in Whom I am well pleased.”
Comments