Grace:
The outstretched arm of
God is a powerful image in Christianity, too. Witness Michelangelo’s beautiful
“Creation of Adam” painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel! Unlike our Jewish and Muslim cousins,
Christians are comfortable imaging/imagining God, yet without worshiping the
image itself or losing sight of the reality that God cannot ever be imaged/imagined in all God’s fullness and
glory. We believe that God has
created every human being in God’s image, and that, in the person of Jesus
Christ, we can see that divine image fully revealed. For this reason, we seek
to conform our lives to the life of Christ—not just to the prophetic teaching
of Jesus, but to the very being of
Christ—by loving wholly, unconditionally and limitlessly. The term “Son of God” is not understood by
Christians as a reference to Joseph’s or Mary’s son; like other monotheists we
believe that God is One and undivided. “Son of God” is simply a way for our
finite brains to conceive an eternal relationship through which God gave and
gives to us God’s very self to be with us in our joys and in our suffering, and
to offer us the redemptive Grace of an ever-deepening awareness and experience
of God. That is why the historical Jesus, a Jewish man situated in time and place, can be understood as the eternal Christ—of one being with God—who can
be seen and embodied in every person. Depictions of Jesus Christ, the Icon of
God, can thus be windows for us through which God’s presence, and God’s
forever outstretched arm, may be revealed.
This is a response to Tziporah's post of March 20th. Please share your thoughts about using anthropomorphic terms to talk about God in the comments section.
