The Incarnation Gives a New Picture of God

Devotional Classics, Athanasius, Excerpts from On the Incarnation

For of what use is existence to the creature if cannot know its Maker? . . .  And why should God have made them at all, if He has not intended them to know Him?

You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains.  The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material.  Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God.  He, the image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself.

You cannot put straight in others what is warped in yourself.  (pp.339-342)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. (Colossians 1:15-16)

God-made-flesh in Christ is unique.  No other human teacher claims this for himself other than Jesus.  Whether he says, “I and the Father are one,” or forgives sins not committed against himself, or says of God’s law, “You have heard it was said, . . .  but I tell you,” Jesus claims the same prerogative as God.  How can this be?  Is this even desirable?

Athanasius needed to explain how this could be and how it could not be any other way.  First, he explains God’s motive.  He then follows with the necessity of God’s action.

God wants to be known.  Somehow this is part of what it means when I say, “God is love.”  There is a grand way in which he wants to be known, since it is fitting for me to worship him.  But through Jesus, I see there is a humble, almost self-deprecating way in which my God wants to be known.  In coming through Jesus, the Incarnation becomes nothing more than a plea for me to come and see and know him.

After the boy has been far away from The Giving Tree in Shel Silverstein’s book, she can barely whisper with joy, “Come, boy, climb my trunk, play in my branches, lie in my shade.”  That is the Incarnation.  God longs for me to be with him and Jesus makes the way for a boy like me.

He makes a way by always trying again.  Jesus is his last, best effort to bring me near.  All other efforts have pointed to him.  No other effort makes sense apart from him.  No other effort can bring me near.  His eternal Word stands in Jesus and calls out, “Come to me!”

The stained painting of Athanasius is the image of God that I see in myself and others.  The image is so distorted that I find God frightening and full of pride and judgment.  This is the image that people portrait.  Goodness is there, but it is mixed with evil and unintelligible.  So God paints Jesus.  In faith, I put aside the old image and focus my attention, my very life, on this new image of God that truly displays his likeness as well. 

I have found that what keeps me from loving certain people, what keeps me from appreciating certain God-inspired movements, what keeps me from coming to God in prayer, is having the wrong image in my mind.  I see certain people through the lens of a particular moment of pain from one person.  I see certain movements and traditions through the anger I harbor against someone who I envy or disagree with.  I see God as someone like myself, who gets tired of forgiving and hearing about people’s problems.  The image is marred.  I seek to replace those images and find Christ in everything.

Setting an image firmly in my mind is relatively simple.  I gaze at the image.  I study the image.  I delight in the image.  So I must learn to put aside the images of anger and lust that so easily intrude in my mind by placing the image of Jesus before me.  Actual pictures of Jesus may help, but there are pictures that God gives me that I want to learn to cling to.  A Father who holds my hand and never tires of it.  A teacher who delights in my questions and ponderings.  A Friend who enjoys our moments of play and conversation enough to lay everything aside.  A Mother who holds my head in her lap when everything has gone wrong.

Perhaps at the heart of it is one particular image that speaks to me through many pictures.  It answers my deepest longing and calms my darkest fear.  God never gets tired of me.

Lord, repaint your image in my mind, so I can fully embrace you in my heart.  Let that picture be Jesus, the one who never gets tired of me.  Amen.

I get tired of myself.  I do not provide an adequate picture of God.  This is where I am most “warped.”  In reality, God simply can’t get enough of me.  He has made me for himself.  I need to study that picture and its many faces, especially when I feel far from him.