Spiritual Hiccups - God Looks Like This

"He is the image of the invisible God."  So begins today's reading from Colossians, speaking, of course, about Jesus.  I read somewhere - I'm not sure, but it might have been something by Brian McLaren - that rather than speaking of Jesus being like God in some way, we might come at it the other way round.  What if we made Jesus the standard and simply said, God is like Jesus?

Most Christians profess to be Trinitarian in some way.  I often end worship here with the blessings of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  But practically speaking, many people tend to think of God as Father, with Son and Holy Spirit as junior partners.  They're derivative in some way, offshoots.  You can detect this in the prayer language people use, speaking to "Father God."  They never pray to "Spirit God" or "Jesus God," only "Father God."

God looks like Jesus.  That's what "image of the invisible God" sounds like to me.  Not that Jesus is a stand in for God, or God's stunt double, but when we see Jesus, we see God.  We can look at Jesus and say, that's what God is like.  That's how God acts.  That's how God is.

Growing up in the Church, Jesus seemed to me important mostly for what he did.  His death on the cross got us something and that was why he mattered.  I picked up the Trinitarian language, but Jesus wasn't my image of God.  Jesus was intermediary or sacrifice.

I wonder how Christianity and the Church might look differently if we thought more in terms of Jesus being the face of God, the way of God, the essence of God?

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