“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us”
(Galatians 3:13)
The world calls it Lent. It is a 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving; based on two periods of spiritual testing in the bible. The first is the 40 years of wilderness wanderings by the Israelites after the exodus from Egypt. The second is the Temptation of Jesus after he spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness. For these next six weeks of Lent, I would like us to focus on preparing our hearts for the Resurrection. I want us to examine how detailed our God was in orchestrating every aspect of Passion Week. Everything that happened in Christ’s life that week, as well as in his surroundings had reason, purpose, and value. I pray these next 6 weeks lead each of us to better understand God’s sovereign plan for Christ.….and for us.
Let’s begin with the word image. Image is something we are all concerned about. How do I look? Are these jeans too tight? Is my hair a mess? Is my butt too big? Is there anything in my teeth? Let’s be honest, at times we can become obsessed with our image. One of the last things we do before we leave the house is look in the mirror. Why is that? It is because our image is important to us.
Did you know that God too is obsessed with image? Human beings are created in His image. (Genesis 1:27). Furthermore, everyone who commits their life to Jesus Christ is now being transformed into God’s image. (II Corinthians 3:18). Image is very important to God.
That is why God chose very carefully and wisely which day of creation he would fashion man into his image. He did not choose the first day of his creation. Nor did he choose the second, third, fourth, or fifth day. He intentionally chose to create man in his image on the sixth day. Think of what a great day of celebration occurred when man was made in God’s perfection and glory. So, the question we have is why the sixth day? God chose the sixth day of creation to form man because that day was of great importance to Him. You see, God knew something about the mystery of Fridays. He knew that one day Friday would become the most significant day of the week for mankind.
As we prepare to celebrate Passion Week, we remember that it was on the sixth day that Jesus Christ was arrested, beaten, scourged, abused, mocked, humiliated, degraded, stripped naked, and nailed to a cross. It all happened on a Friday – the sixth day of the week. So, on the sixth day of creation God made man in His image. Likewise, on the sixth day…..man made God in his image. On the sixth day of Holy Week, we are reminded that man caused God to bear the image of man, fallen man, guilty man. It was man’s attempt to bring God down to his own fallen image. It was on that day of Holy Week that Adam made God in the image of Adam. When we look at Jesus Christ on the cross, we are beholding God in the image of man.
Now for that to happen, God had to allow himself to bear the image of man. He did it to make the way for fallen man to again bear the image of God. God allowed himself to become fallen man, so that man could become His risen work. That is why it is so important that we allow God to form us into his image. For God bore our image in his death, so we could bear the image on God in our life. Yes, I would say that God is obsessed with image!
Darlene