Grace and Prison – God’s Image
Grace and Prison – God’s Image.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness… So God made man; in the image of God He made him; male and female He made them.” (Gen. 1:26-27).
Every human person carries God’s holy fingerprint. Therefore all of human life is sacred, and we all participate in preserving the sanctity of human life in each other. Every person we see is extraordinary, set apart to represent and reflect a holy God. That person we love to ignore or underestimate is not a “mere mortal,” as C. S. Lewis once said. Every human being has a sacred center, sometimes well-hidden, but nonetheless a sacredness that forms our main identity. A prisoner inmate, a nursing home resident, a child in an orphanage, a down-and-out person in a shelter, a shut-in elderly, a long-standing patient in a hospital, members of a group home for the disabled, a soldier on the front line, residents of a mental facility… These are all people that are enmeshed in situations which make it difficult to recognize God’s image in them, but the profound truth of the matter is that they are all invaluable image-bearers.
Since we are all image-bearers, let us treat each other accordingly. Let’s not limit our perspective of someone to that person’s predicament or mistakenly chosen identity. Instead, each of us can certainly choose to honor the central identity in each person, the fact that each person is created to resemble Almighty God. Let us treat each human humanely, as an image-bearer worthy of respect, empathy and compassion. God is saying to each of us… Every person is sacred to me, you are not to despise, disrespect or mistreat my handiwork!
Every person we can’t seem to get along with, or who is doing something we really don’t like; every person we don’t understand, or we don’t want to take the trouble to understand; every person we look down on as unworthy, or who for some reason seems beneath us… All of them have something in common: Every one of those persons is made in the image of God, a hand-crafted original, breathing with the very breath of the Creator, possessing a dignity above the rest of creation. Each of those persons is individually loved by a personal God who in fact died for that person. God in the flesh would have sacrificed himself for that person if s/he was the only living person on earth.
The wonderful miracle is that God continues to identify with each person in His image, everyone. If we mistreat a fellow image-bearer, God takes it personally. When we disrespect someone else, God objects and is affronted. “Whoever mocks poor people insults their Creator.” (Proverbs 17:5). Likewise, when we show compassion, we affirm our Maker. Loving His handiwork is a primary way we show our love for Him. When we love other people, we are in effect affirming God and saying, “Well done, Lord! You’re a genius! You really broke the mold with that one!”
When we dishonor someone, we are forgetting that that person is an image-bearer, we essentially are removing their central identity, taking away the key component of that person’s humanity. Instead, let us humanize every person before we ignore, demean or judge them. Let us embrace the sublime humanity of each person we meet. To honor the image of God in a person doesn’t mean we endorse what they are doing or not doing. Every person is accountable to God and to the moral laws of nature, because each of us is a dear possession of the Lord and intended to represent Him and His character. Being made in God’s image, each person doesn’t have to deserve being treated with respect. Each of us doesn’t have to earn the honor of being treated with dignity. The word for that is grace. Each and every person is sacred: gay or straight; law-breaking or law-abiding; rich or poor; all races, all religions, all ethnic groups; each gender; every age, old or young; disabled or able-bodied; undereducated or well-schooled; rural or urban; mentally impaired or intellectually gifted; homeless or not; emotionally troubled or at peace; progressive or traditional; promiscuous or chaste; dreamer or realist; weak or strong. Everyone you see is sacred and deserves our honor and respect, even if it seems they don’t deserve it. Let us learn to identify each other with our common identity, made in the image of God, with Jesus Christ as the prototype, and thus of priceless value.