Christ, the Image of the Invisible God

Today's readings from the daily mass of the Catholic Church begin with a beautiful passage from Paul's letter to the Colossions describing the "Cosmic Christ." And then the Gospel passage is one of my favorites as well, where Jesus speaks of the importance of putting new wine in new wineskins. I'll probably be reflecting a bit on these two readings and sharing how and why they resonate with me.


Brothers and sisters:
Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the Body, the Church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the Blood of his cross
through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.


I am so taken by the very first line, where the author of the letter has the audacity to claim how Jesus is the image, the portrait, the picture that best portrays who and what God is... Why audacious? Because in the context of first century Judaism, even the name of God could not be uttered without stirring a kind of religious dread. How then could anyone claim that a human being could reveal in a complete way the nature of the Divine? It is hard for those who are Christian to step out of our perspective as 21st century people who take for granted Jesus' divine and human nature. Or do we? Along the lines of the paradoxes I've been reflecting on, it is very hard to hold onto the simultaneous humanity and divinity of Christ-- we tend to emphasize one dimension or the other. Either Jesus is the all powerful, omnipotent and omniscient embodiment of God or he is simply an extraordinary human being-- an enlightened being along the lines of Buddha. This is an example of our tendency to think in either/or terms, rather than in the "both/and" that appreciates the paradox of Jesus-- fully divine and fully human.

Why is this so incredibly important? If we tend to emphasize Jesus' divinity over his humanity, we lose one of the central graces of the Incarnation... that God became human that we might become like God. I say that again... God became human in order that we might become divine... "daughters and sons of God." Isn't that something? We can unpack more about what that means later. And then if we tend to emphasize Jesus' humanity at the expense of his divinity, we lose the uniqueness of Christ and his capacity to exercise his divine agency in our lives... healing, reconciling, inspiring, liberating...

More later. Have a glorious day and a great weekend!