Recognizing the Image of God

Our Lord Jesus heals a blind man outside of Jericho (Luke 18:35-43). Many people of that society looked upon those with such a disability as of significantly less worth than those who could see. But Jesus looks upon him and sees the whole man he created. He sees his own image in this man who cannot see. Because, in this man's true created human nature, he can see. He is glorified by God. He is created for glory and union with God. And Jesus simply puts this to rights. And the man who was blind can see.

Before this, while he was yet blind, there was one thing this man could probably see better than most: his own worth – his own right to exist, to live, and to flourish. He knew his own worth well enough to call out to Jesus for healing. He knew it well enough that when he was rebuked by the multitude and told to be silent, he cried out all the more (Luke 18:39).

Every life has worth, whether or not that worth is recognized. Do we permit the unpopularity of our true belief in the value of every human life to silence us? Or, do we cry out all the more?

It seems that every human society devalues some, even dehumanizes some. It was common in Roman society of that time to expose infants – that is to leave them out in the elements to die or be taken up by whoever comes along. And such a choice would have been made all the more readily by a father beholding his son born blind. “Ah, this one is deficient,” he may have exclaimed, “Get rid of it.”

We don't know the backstory of the blind man begging outside of Jericho for healing or what kind of rejection he may have faced, though we do know that he was reduced to roadside begging. Though he knew his own worth, it's clear enough that his society did not.

And we do know from the gospel of another man who was born blind. His parents were afraid to confess Jesus lest they be expelled from the synagogue (John 9:22), but they were brave enough to keep and rear their son despite his blindness, and for that they deserve some credit. They did not expose him as their Roman neighbors may have. The Pharisees disregarded him as one born in sin evidenced by his blindness (John 9:34). They diminished him, did not see his worth, did not see in him the image of God that Jesus sees.

In both cases, Jesus restores sight to the blind. In both cases, he sees the image of God, his own image, in men disregarded by the societies in which they live. Many in our own society similarly disregard the value of some. I hope our regard for and respect of the blind has improved since the first century, but we still as a society fail to see the image of God in certain people.

And our prejudices are often just ableist as the prejudices of the first-century.  Ableism is a new word for an old problem. Ableism is in many ways at the heart of our disregard for unborn human life. You see, blind men cannot see and so, what good are they? Likewise, the unborn cannot see – at least at first. They cannot walk. They cannot feed themselves. They cannot speak for themselves. They are utterly dependent upon others. So, what good are they?

They are all good. For the same reason that the blind beggar cast out by his society is good, they are also good. Just as a blind baby exposed by his Roman father is, in fact, an image of God, so too is an unborn child an image of God. And the Lord sees this. He sees all things. Nothing is done in secret from the Lord. And he sees in each of them, just as he sees in the blind man outside of Jericho, a person of infinite worth, a person worthy of healing, and caring for. And he will heal them. All who have died, he will raise up. For the victims of abortion and infanticide, we hope and pray and trust in the mercy of God.

The unborn are not the only people dehumanized by our society, but in this country we remember them in a special way at this time every year. Every year, we march for life.

We hope to outlaw abortion, and this is a good end, but as Christians it is first and foremost through works of charity – through love rather than only through legislation – that we should seek to prevent abortion and the dehumanization of the unborn.

We must love everyone in the painful circumstances that tempt women to seek an abortion. Everyone in these situations is in need of mercy and healing. The unborn child, the mother, the father, the family, the doctors, and even the abortionists.

We must love and provide for unborn children. Every bit as importantly, we must love and provide for them after they are born. An unborn child is a person, and loving a person requires a lifelong commitment. More of us should be open to adopting children whose mothers have found themselves unable to provide. We should support efforts from all quarters to provide for the needs of single mothers and their children.

We must love and help provide for the mothers who find themselves in desperate circumstances that would lead them to consider abortion. There are good efforts throughout the country by members of the pro-life movement to provide ultrasounds, counseling, and other pregnancy services to women in need. They have even created mobile pregnancy care centers that can go wherever there is a need. This is good and important work that can help women to recognize the humanity and even the image of God they are carrying in their wombs. Having recognized this, many mothers have decided against having an abortion. It is so important that we do not abandon them in this moment. They must see and it must be true that we will still be there to help after the baby is born.

We must love the women who have had abortions and those who led them to it. We must offer them the mercy and healing of God. We can be certain they are suffering and in need of healing. Jesus is a healer, as he demonstrates outside of Jericho.

Suffering is a mystery. Sometimes we suffer for our sins. Or from others' sins. Sometimes it seems we suffer for no reason at all. Or we suffer that we might be united to Christ all the more in his suffering. The man born blind suffered so “that the works of God might be made manifest in him” (John 9:3).

In any case, when we suffer, the Church should be with us in our suffering, just as Jesus is on the cross. And the Church should offer healing, just as Jesus, the physician of our souls and bodies, offers healing. The holy mystery of repentance, confession, and forgiveness of sins is deeply healing for those who have had abortions. The life of the Church, the sacraments, prayer, spiritual care, and counseling is and must be open to women who have had abortions and to all affected by it. We must receive them with open arms. 

And we must also love abortionists and those who support their evil work whether directly or politically. For many of us, this is the hardest part – loving our enemies, loving those who do wrong. In them too we must see the image of God – not in what they do, but in who they truly are. Neither should we dehumanize them. Rather, we should hope and pray for their salvation, just as we do for their unbaptized victims. There have been notable abortionists who have repented, giving evidence that there is always reason to hope.

Among the sins, murder of the innocent seems most grievous – and who is more innocent and less deserving of death than a baby – an unborn child? Only one – Jesus Christ. And he was also murdered.

Remember Longinus. He was a Roman soldier, a member of the culture that exposed infants, and one of those who participated in the murder of Jesus Christ. It was Longinus who thrust the spear into Christ's side to ensure that he was dead. And, witnessing the blood and water pouring from his side, Longinus repented, confessed the Son of God, and became a saint. If we can venerate as a saint one who participated in the murder of our Lord Jesus Christ, then we can love and hope and pray for abortionists. God’s mercy knows no bounds.

Jesus Christ came that we may have life and have it abundantly. Let us love and respect all life.

Lifted Up in the Tree

Tree of Zacchaeus
Jericho

Jesus was certainly able to draw crowds, as the story of Zacchaeus illustrates (Luke 19:1-10). 

There are people today with that same sort of popular draw. For example, whenever Pope Francis is announced as the celebrant of a Liturgy, the place is packed. The crowds often spill into the street. And anyone short of stature, like Zacchaeus, likely has difficulty even getting a glimpse of the pontiff – unless they put up those big screens all over the place, as they usually do.

But, you know, at every Divine Liturgy, there’s someone who’s even better than the pope. The great high priest is not the pope but is our Lord Jesus Christ, who is personally present among us and in the Eucharist. This should draw more crowds than it does. If we only realized in whose presence we are standing in the midst of the Church.

If we really believe the Lord is present in the Church, we will demonstrate that faith by how we live and behave. Maybe there are usually no great crowds in our parishes because it doesn’t seem to the world that we ourselves even believe he is present there.

Yet in the world as it is, it is movie stars and singers, presidents and kings who are able to attract large numbers, anyway.

After World War II, King George personally visited the damaged cities to oversee the reconstruction efforts. When he would come into town, as you can imagine, the crowds would gather. The shops would close, the schools would close, and the people would line the streets hoping for a glimpse of their king as he went by. Well, in one of these cities, a young schoolboy, excited to be freed from school and excited to see the king, stood in the crowd and excitedly waved his flag as energetically as he could. But after the fanfare had died down, his teacher found him crying inconsolably. She asked him “what’s the matter, didn’t you get to see the king?” He replied, “Oh yes, I saw the king, but he didn’t see me.”[i]

This is how it goes, ordinarily, when a great and powerful person passes briefly in our midst. At first, it is exciting just to be near someone so famous. Years later, we may tell of the time we saw the president or the singer or the movie star, but really the experience will probably be a letdown if we enter into it hoping for any kind of real human connection with the person we so admire, as did the English schoolboy in his innocence.

And yet, Zacchaeus found that this is not what it is like with the Lord Jesus. I have no idea what was going through Zacchaeus’ mind when he decided to climb up that tree – whether he, like the schoolboy, was hoping to make himself conspicuous to the King, or whether he was merely curious. The gospel only tells us that he desired to see who Jesus was. It doesn’t say whether he also desired to be seen.

In any case, seen he was. And known. And called to. And loved. Jesus didn’t pass by Zacchaeus, leaving him unfulfilled, but rather called him down and fulfilled him ultimately, bringing salvation to his house.

He calls out, “Zacchaeus, you hurry down here for I need to stay at your house today.” Now, our etiquette might insist that one shouldn’t invite himself over, but remember that this is not a conversation between peers. Even an ordinary king may speak thus to his subjects, but here is the peerless One and Lord of all calling out to a simple sinner like us.

And listen to his insistence: Jesus says “I need” (δεῖ με – it behooves me) “to stay at your house today.” Now, in his humanity, of course Jesus needs food and shelter like all humans do, and Zacchaeus, being a rich man, had plenty of this to provide. But let’s not forget that this is God become man telling a sinner that he needs him. What love! What kenosis! God empties himself. Becomes nothing. Takes the form a slave. Makes himself dependent on a sinner like Zacchaeus. Like us. So if Jesus seems a little forward here, a little insistent, let him! It is all grace. He is knocking at our doors, inviting himself into our houses, and it is all for us and for our salvation, because when Jesus the Savior enters our house, it is salvation coming to our house. “For where Christ enters,” as St. Cyril writes, “there necessarily is also salvation” (Commentary on Luke, 507). The name Jesus means “God saves.” 

This isn’t the first time that God has called out to one of us. God always initiates the conversation that leads to our salvation. He always is the one to invite us to accept him into our homes and hearts.

He called down Zacchaeus, who, thanks be to God, joyfully accepted him into his house.

He called out to some fishermen, “Come, follow me.” And they left behind their nets and followed him.

He called out to Adam in the garden “Where are you?”

God has been looking for us and inviting us to reunite with him from the moment we departed from him in our sins. And his invitation demands a response on our part. We must repent as Zacchaeus did. We must follow Christ, as the fishermen did. We must put our faith in Christ and make room for him to come and stay in our houses – in the house of our heart – in our inmost being.  St. Cyril also writes, “Christ… is in us when we believe; for he dwells in our hearts by faith, and we are His abode” (507).

This divine condescension to dwell in and with our fallen humanity is consummated in Jesus, our Savior, in his incarnation, in his ministry to Zacchaeus and to all of us, and in his cross.

Here is a strikingly inverted image for us to contemplate:

Jesus, our Savior, is standing at the foot of a tree looking up. In the tree is Zacchaeus – a sinful man – and the Savior calls him down and saves him.

Later, Jesus, the sinless One, will hang on a tree. And we, a sinful people, will stand at the foot of that tree, looking up at him and mocking him, telling him to come down and save himself.

Zacchaeus, being short, was lifted up from the earth by a tree, the better to see Jesus – and quite rightly, for Jesus, too, will be lifted up from the earth by the tree of the cross. Like Zacchaeus, we cannot see Christ unless we climb the tree – that is, unless we embrace the cross. Because of our sins, we all come up short, like Zacchaeus, and only the cross can lift us up to see Christ.

Ultimately, Jesus saves us from suffering and death, from ignominy and punishment, from every evil that our sins have brought into the world, and from all that the tree of the cross represents – by going up onto the tree himself. Seeing Zacchaeus in the tree, Jesus freely identifies with him. He trades places with Zacchaeus. He calls down Zacchaeus, and all of us together with him, and goes up himself in our place. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,” as Peter writes, “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

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[i] Fr. Anthony Coniaris connected this story with the story of Zacchaeus. Anthony Coniaris, Gems from the Sunday Gospels in the Orthodox Church(Minneapolis: Light and Life Publishing Co., 1975), 1:24.

A Prophetic Crescendo

In the West, and even among some Byzantines living in the West, we have a tendency to treat the time from Christmas until Theophany rather like a diminuendo – which, in music, is a gradual softening and decrease in intensity, which is a wonderful way to end a lullaby intended to put us to sleep, but maybe not the best way to regard the great feast of Theophany. What I mean is, we treat Christmas as the climax of the season and Theophany or Epiphany as an addendum, when, in fact, this is backward. In history and in liturgy this time is actually more of a crescendo – a gradual increase in excitement and intensity until it reaches Theophany – which is its climax – in which worship of the Trinity is revealed.

Look how softly we begin – with the birth of a baby in humble circumstance. His mother lays him not in a bed, but in a manger, not in some royal palace but in a cave. He is attended not by courtiers but by shepherds and later by wise men from the East. These were some of the few who knew who he was at all – and they were able to see it only with the eyes of faith overlooking the humility of his circumstance.

So, yes, the Lord is revealed at his nativity, but his revelation begins in obscurity. He is revealed quietly and to few. For many years, the mystery is contemplated in silence in the hearts of those who know before any part of it is revealed to the world. The prophets prophesied his coming long before his birth, but the true meaning of their prophecy was known to but few.

Eight days after his birth, as we remembered on January 1st, he humbly undergoes the circumcision that all Jewish boys undergo. To all appearances, he is in this like any other Jewish baby boy.

The feasts of the Nativity and the Circumcision emphasize, I think, his humanity – but the feast of Theophany reveals Christ to all to be the Son of the Father and reveals the Holy Spirit, who descends upon him like a dove.

Some knew from the beginning, of course, that Jesus is Lord – Mary knew and Joseph knew – having been told by an angel of the Lord. Christ’s divinity is present at every moment of his human existence, but sometimes it seems obscured to those without ears to hear – like a subtle musical theme underneath larger movements, which builds and builds throughout the piece until it is played loudly and clearly at times such as his baptism and his transfiguration and his resurrection.

One who reveals from the beginning that Jesus is Lord is John, whose Synaxis we celebrate today. Though John admits that he himself did not know Jesus as the Son of God until he saw the Spirit descend upon him like a dove (John 1:32), he also reveals to his mother Elizabeth that Jesus is Lord even while both he and Jesus are in the wombs of their mothers (Luke 1:41-43).  You see, prophecy is God speaking to us through his prophets, but not always with the prophets’ own understanding.

Again witness how quietly the theophany of the Lord begins when Jesus and John are babies – and yet it grows and grows – builds and builds like a musical motif in a complex composition, until it is revealed and known to more and more – to John himself, and, through John, to his disciples, and now to the whole Church and to all of us.

John, the Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, is a prophet. Indeed, among those born of women, there is no greater prophet than John the Baptist (Luke 7:28 KJV). He is, indeed, a prophet of prophets – a prophet whose prophecy was prophesied. He is the one "who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight"'" (Matt 3:3).

John was a prophet even before he was born. Jesus first approached John while they were both unborn in their mothers' wombs and John, being a prophet of God most high, leapt in his mother Elizabeth's womb, thus proclaiming to her that the unborn Jesus Christ is Lord (Luke 1:41-43).

And when Jesus comes to him again when they are both men, he prophecies again, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Now, this proclamation is heard by all. Whereas before, only his mother Elizabeth could feel and understand John’s hidden prophetic leap. Now, God is manifest to all. It is theophany! It is like the climax or culmination of a musical composition. What was building up quietly is now fully and loudly expressed to all.

John is the prophet through whom this revelation takes place. It is John who sees the Spirit descend upon Jesus like a dove (John 1:32). And John thereby recognizes Jesus as the Son of God (John 1:34), for he hears the voice from heaven saying “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17). It is a prophet who can hear the word of God. A prophet recognizes the melody of the Lord in the midst of the cacophony of the world.
  

Many reduce prophecy in their understanding to the foretelling of future events, but this is not even half of what prophecy is.

There's a popular expression with a long history and many variations that one hears from time to time, which is better: "The prophet comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable." This certainly holds true if we examine the effect that prophecy has on people. John's baptism was a comfort to those who repented of that which had been afflicting them. And his preaching afflicted, for example, the all-too-comfortable Herod who was unwilling to repent of his incestuous relationship (Mark 6:17-18). John was not afraid to point out that the fact of Herod's transgression, even though it ultimately cost him his life to do so. A prophet always speaks the truth, which does often afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, because a prophet is one who speaks for God – who speaks God's words to each time and place as God intends them to be heard and understood.

Prophecy is speaking the word of God. For example, the Lord touches Jeremiah’s mouth and says, “I have put my words in your mouth” (Jer 1:9). And to Ezekiel he says, “You shall speak my words to them” (Ezek. 2:7). We are lost without prophecy, for our faith comes by hearing the word of God (Rom 10:17), which we can only hear through prophecy.

So, let us hear the word of God. We have now already heard the climax of the composition – we have celebrated Theophany and witnessed the revelation of the Trinity – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The great feast of the Theophany is yesterday. Today, we honor John through whom this revelation comes to us. Now, it really is time to ask, “What now? What next? What can follow this greatest of revelations?” Well, let us continue to listen to the word of God – to the preaching of Jesus, who Theophany teaches us is himself the Son and Word of God:

Today, “Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” These are the first words of Christ’s preaching and with them, he pays homage to John, his baptizer, the greatest of the prophets, his forerunner, who made straight his way. The words that Jesus preaches directly quote the preaching of John, who went before him to prepare his way. Jerome points out that, by quoting John in this way, Jesus shows that he is the Son of the same God whose prophet John was. There is one God and one word of God, known to us by prophecy, who now preaches to us one word: repent. This one word will comfort us if we are afflicted and afflict us if we are comfortable.