The Touchstone of God--January 8, 2021
"He [Christ] 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]
For a long time--most of human history, in fact--nobody knew for certain what the moon was made of.
Far, far back in our collective memory, when people looked for faces in it, surely some of our ancestors thought it was a living being of some kind--maybe a spirit, an angel, a demon, or a god.
At another time, after the invention of rudimentary telescopes, there were early astronomers who could have sworn the dark patches they saw were seas, or bodies of water, like the oceans on the earth. To this day, we refer to features on the lunar surface as "Mare," or "Sea," like the famed "Sea of Tranquility" (or "Mare Tranquilitatis," if you want to be fancy and Latin) where the Apollo astronauts landed.
There have even been occasional theories about green cheese.
All of these, however, have been proven incorrect. We know it now, because astronauts went to the moon, and in fact have brought back samples that could be analyzed, examined, and identified. (You can even touch one, fittingly called the Touchrock, at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum!) And the results are unquestionably in: the moon is made of rock. What you see in a moon rock that you can touch with your own fingers at a museum is what the whole moon is like. The touchable, visible, perceptible moon rock here on Earth reveals, truly and decisively, what the substance of the moon in the sky is like. No green cheese, no alien oceans, and not a supernatural being, but honest to goodness rock.
If I show you what appears to be an ordinary gray hunk of stone and say, "But wait--this isn't just any old rock: it's from the moon!" well, that does two things. First, it makes the rock special, but second, it makes a claim about the moon and what it's actually made of. Sure, at one level, it's cool if you're the visitor at the museum and you think to yourself, "Wow! This rock is very special--it has come all this way, and I get to touch it!" But going a step further, that also means you have learned a great deal about the moon that is still very much beyond your grasp: the rock tells you what it is really like, without any more guessing.
Ok, so why all the talk about lunar geology (or would that be lunology? Moonology?) on a day like today? Well, for just this reason: while one baseball-sized rock from the Apollo missions is not entirety of the moon, it does reveal, once and for all, what the moon is really made from... what its substance is actually composed of... what is really like. The big shiny cratered disc in the sky is, of course, much bigger, but the moon rock will tell you--will show you--what the whole thing is like, all the way down.
And the claim of the letter to the Colossians--and really the whole of the New Testament--is that Jesus does the same with God. He reveals to us what God is actually like, much as a moon rock at long last revealed to humanity what the moon is really made of. If I show you an ordinary human being--say, an average height Middle Eastern man from a small town in Palestine--and then tell you, "But wait--this isn't just anyone, this is the very image of God in a human life!" well, that does two things. Sure, it tells you that the human being is very special--maybe we might even use titles like "Messiah" or "Christ." But it also makes a claim about what God is really like.
And this is the thing we can't avoid, if we claim to be Christ-ians: Jesus reveals to us what God is really like, all the way down. Jesus is the Touch-Rock of God. Jesus reveals what and who God is, all the way to the innermost of God's heart. And what Jesus reveals is not merely power... but love. Jesus shows that God is not just strong... but self-giving. Jesus is the evidence that God is not merely "great"--God is good, as well. And in a very real sense, that's the controversial thing about the Christian message--it's not merely saying that Jesus is important; it says that Jesus shows us who God is, even when that makes God seem scandalous.
The claim of these verses from Colossians, then, is that the way Jesus loves enemies, is actually God's policy toward enemies. And Jesus' passion for justice that lifts up the lowly and humbles the proud and arrogant--yep, that's God's approach to justice, too. Jesus' refusal to kill his enemies, shove his opponents to the ground, or return evil for evil is in fact God's refusal to do those things. And ultimately, it means that no less than God chooses to save the world through a cross--lynched by an angry mob--rather than staying up in some heavenly office somewhere, watching the mess on earth on some celestial TV screen at a safe distance.
Go ahead, push it further and see just how radical the gospel becomes then: Jesus' choice to crash dinner parties with the notorious sinners and unacceptable people turns out to be God's choice for dinner companionship. Jesus' welcome of outsiders is shown to be God's acceptance of them, too. Jesus' sharp words of criticism to the Respectable Religious People who sold out their loyalty to the Empire in exchange for cushy jobs and first-class perks are--gasp--God's judgment on the Respectable Religious Crowd, too.
This is our faith, dear friends: that in Jesus we have been given an honest to goodness moon rock that reveals all the way down what God is really like. And if we believe that God is really like what Jesus shows us, then we don't get to pretend any more that God is our personal mascot, whom we can remake as we like. It means I don't get to claim that God supports violence and intimidation, or that God smiles on my greed. It means I don't get to say that God loves my country but not yours, or that God disapproves of the language you speak. It means I don't get to say that God underwrites my desire to be a jerk to other people, or that God wants me to be rich at the expense of my neighbor getting to eat. Racism, sexism, nationalism, reckless greed, and militarism--all of them are exposed as ungodly because they are un-Christ-like. They are imaginary oceans and green cheese, not the solid, touchable rock of the homeless rabbi from Nazareth. Quite simply, if it runs counter to what we have seen in Jesus, well, then, it ain't the heart of God, either. Jesus, the divine moon rock, the Touch Stone of God, shows us what and who God is like.
An awful lot of terrible things have been done in human history by folks who were convinced they were doing the will of their god or gods. And, as terrible as it is to face this, an awful lot of that awfulness has been done by people who claimed they were followers of the Christian God, even down to waving flags with crosses on them or banners that read, "Jesus Saves" while doing terrible things. But the New Testament itself calls us out on that--its voices say, "No, what doesn't line up with Jesus doesn't line up with God. Jesus reveals what God is really like, all the way down."
So today, the question for each of us is really pretty straightforward: how can we let our lives be more Christ-shaped, rather than trying to make God fit our expectations or agendas? How can we respond to the beautiful and terrible things in the world on this day in the way Jesus does... with the same love Jesus shows... speaking the honest-to-God truth like Jesus does... and with the all-the-way-down authenticity that Jesus embodies? There will be ways we mess up at it, and ways we fail, to be sure. But when we realize it--often, when someone else helps us to see past our blind-spots to recognize it--we are called to start over again, letting Jesus be our touchstone of what is in the heart of God... no matter how scandalous that heart turns out to be.
Lord Jesus, reveal to us the heart of God, and make us over in the likeness of your image, so that your divine love will reflect in us into the world you so love.
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