Jesus said, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”. John 14:9
A Jewish rabbi startled a study group he was leading by inviting them to draw their “concept of God”. How did they picture God?
Most Jews interpret the first of the ten commandments - “You shall not make any graven image” - so strictly as to rule out any kind of representation at all, so the rabbi wasn’t surprised that the members of his group were rather taken aback. But, all but one, they allowed themselves to be persuaded. And they came up with a variety of drawings which represented different aspects of God.
An eye... God sees all things. A tree... God is the creator of nature. A hand... God is active in the world he has made. A stone tablet... God is the supreme law-giver. A mobile phone... God is always there for us to talk to.
(Somebody, apparently, drew a supermarket checkout worker, on the grounds that God “waits patiently as we wend our path through the aisles in the supermarket of life, choosing some options and rejecting others, but ultimately having to reach the end point, when what we have is assessed and needs to be paid for”. (Wow!))
Well, there’s a fair bit in those suggestions that I think Christians can go along with. Personally, I’m rather with the Jews in not really liking visual representations of God. Those great paintings, for example, of “the Madonna and Child”, or statues of Jesus being laid in the tomb - not to mention films depicting Christ - leave me pretty cold and vaguely uncomfortable.
What the Bible offers us, of course, are words which describe human beings that we can compare God with. He is the King. He is “the Lord of hosts” - that is, a God of armies. He is “my shepherd”. He is “our Father in heaven”. He is our friend. He is our Judge. He is the “still, small voice” that we might hear calming our fears (or pricking our consciences?).
None of these words remotely do justice to the reality of God, that goes without saying - God isn’t just a perfect human being, even if multiplied by a million. But at least they give us something to work with.
I imagine that throughout history people have asked the question “What is God like?” And what could be more natural? Even in materialistic, non-religious days such as we live in, people have this curiosity about “the unseen world”: surveys show that superstitions, occultism, spiritualism, and a whole mass of “religious” views - quite apart from established religions - are still held by many.
So... what is God like?
This very question was asked of Jesus. In John 14:8 we read that Philip, one of his disciples, asked him outright, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us”. And how did Jesus respond? With these remarkable words: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”.
Could that be clearer? Jesus is making a claim that, coming from anybody else, would suggest serious mental illness. “You want to know what God is like?” he says. “Well, look no further - he is right here, right now, standing right in front of you.”
Jesus claimed to be God in the form of a man.
And what sort of man? A man like any other man, fully human - yet perfectly holy. A weak man, like all the rest of us. A man who wept and hungered and grew weary. A man who could be angry and disappointed. A man who experienced loneliness and extreme pain of body and mind. A man who died out of compassion and tenderness for his fellow-men and women. A man of purest, unlimited love.
This isn’t a complete pen-picture of God, for there is also supernatural power, infinite knowledge and... well, a whole host of things we can barely imagine. But this, and nothing less, is wrapped up in the staggering claim, “Look at me, and you are looking at God”.
So I don’t think we have any need of drawings on a piece of paper, however useful they might be to stimulate discussion. Or of the paintings and sculptures I mentioned earlier. We have a living, walking, breathing - and dying - picture in Jesus.
Of course, he didn’t come only to show us what God is like, but also to carry out a rescue plan for each one of us, a plan which the Bible calls “salvation”. Paul puts it crisply in 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”; and Peter tells us how he did it: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).
So if I really did have to draw a picture summing up my understanding of God, I think I would end up quite simply drawing... a cross. That may seem pretty traditional and conventional, and, no, it doesn’t say everything.
But does anything sum up better our infinitely loving and infinitely suffering God?
Heavenly Father, thank you that you are a God not only to be believed in and wondered about, but a God to be experienced. Please help me to know you as my king, my lord, my judge, my father, my friend - and as my saviour, Jesus. Amen.
A Jewish rabbi startled a study group he was leading by inviting them to draw their “concept of God”. How did they picture God?
Most Jews interpret the first of the ten commandments - “You shall not make any graven image” - so strictly as to rule out any kind of representation at all, so the rabbi wasn’t surprised that the members of his group were rather taken aback. But, all but one, they allowed themselves to be persuaded. And they came up with a variety of drawings which represented different aspects of God.
An eye... God sees all things. A tree... God is the creator of nature. A hand... God is active in the world he has made. A stone tablet... God is the supreme law-giver. A mobile phone... God is always there for us to talk to.
(Somebody, apparently, drew a supermarket checkout worker, on the grounds that God “waits patiently as we wend our path through the aisles in the supermarket of life, choosing some options and rejecting others, but ultimately having to reach the end point, when what we have is assessed and needs to be paid for”. (Wow!))
Well, there’s a fair bit in those suggestions that I think Christians can go along with. Personally, I’m rather with the Jews in not really liking visual representations of God. Those great paintings, for example, of “the Madonna and Child”, or statues of Jesus being laid in the tomb - not to mention films depicting Christ - leave me pretty cold and vaguely uncomfortable.
What the Bible offers us, of course, are words which describe human beings that we can compare God with. He is the King. He is “the Lord of hosts” - that is, a God of armies. He is “my shepherd”. He is “our Father in heaven”. He is our friend. He is our Judge. He is the “still, small voice” that we might hear calming our fears (or pricking our consciences?).
None of these words remotely do justice to the reality of God, that goes without saying - God isn’t just a perfect human being, even if multiplied by a million. But at least they give us something to work with.
I imagine that throughout history people have asked the question “What is God like?” And what could be more natural? Even in materialistic, non-religious days such as we live in, people have this curiosity about “the unseen world”: surveys show that superstitions, occultism, spiritualism, and a whole mass of “religious” views - quite apart from established religions - are still held by many.
So... what is God like?
This very question was asked of Jesus. In John 14:8 we read that Philip, one of his disciples, asked him outright, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us”. And how did Jesus respond? With these remarkable words: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”.
Could that be clearer? Jesus is making a claim that, coming from anybody else, would suggest serious mental illness. “You want to know what God is like?” he says. “Well, look no further - he is right here, right now, standing right in front of you.”
Jesus claimed to be God in the form of a man.
And what sort of man? A man like any other man, fully human - yet perfectly holy. A weak man, like all the rest of us. A man who wept and hungered and grew weary. A man who could be angry and disappointed. A man who experienced loneliness and extreme pain of body and mind. A man who died out of compassion and tenderness for his fellow-men and women. A man of purest, unlimited love.
This isn’t a complete pen-picture of God, for there is also supernatural power, infinite knowledge and... well, a whole host of things we can barely imagine. But this, and nothing less, is wrapped up in the staggering claim, “Look at me, and you are looking at God”.
So I don’t think we have any need of drawings on a piece of paper, however useful they might be to stimulate discussion. Or of the paintings and sculptures I mentioned earlier. We have a living, walking, breathing - and dying - picture in Jesus.
Of course, he didn’t come only to show us what God is like, but also to carry out a rescue plan for each one of us, a plan which the Bible calls “salvation”. Paul puts it crisply in 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”; and Peter tells us how he did it: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).
So if I really did have to draw a picture summing up my understanding of God, I think I would end up quite simply drawing... a cross. That may seem pretty traditional and conventional, and, no, it doesn’t say everything.
But does anything sum up better our infinitely loving and infinitely suffering God?
Heavenly Father, thank you that you are a God not only to be believed in and wondered about, but a God to be experienced. Please help me to know you as my king, my lord, my judge, my father, my friend - and as my saviour, Jesus. Amen.
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