Imago Dei
Have you ever stopped and considered how strange it is to be a human being?
We wake up each morning in bodies we did not create. We move through a world sitting in the vast darkness of space. We emit noises from our mouths that somehow carry meaning into the minds of others. We assign names to things. We create laws, traditions, stories, and nations. We build cities, compose symphonies, and write books. We fall in love. We grieve. We laugh. We dream.
And yet we walk through existence as though none of this is insane.
How strange it is that I can write these elaborate symbols upon a page and that another human being, maybe years from now, can look at them and understand precisely what I mean. How strange it is that we possess an inner world within us invisible to everyone around us. Thoughts. Memories. Desires. Fears. Hopes.
And strangest of all,
we know that one day we will die.
Elizabeth Gilbert once wrote:
As far as we know, we are the only species on the planet who have been given the gift—or curse, perhaps—of awareness about our own mortality. Everything here eventually dies; we’re just the lucky ones who get to think about this fact every day.
There is something haunting about that observation.
Every living thing dies.
The Ox dies.
The Lion dies.
The Eagle dies.
Yet none of them appear burdened by this knowledge.
Man alone seems capable of standing at the edge of our own existence and contemplating its end.
We know that our lives are finite.
We know that our loved ones will one day leave us.
We know that every conversation we have just may be our last.
Every sunset has a number.
Every season eventually passes.
And yet, despite this certainty, we spend our lives searching for permanence.
Photographs preserved.
Stories written.
Monuments erected.
Children left letters.
Hell, even prayer.
Why?
Because something within us can't accept the idea that death is the final word.
A creature concerned only with survival would not spend his nights pondering eternity.
A creature governed only by instinct would not ask questions about truth, beauty, purpose, and God.
Yet man does.
Constantly.
Even though,
The Ox grazes.
The Lion hunts.
The Eagle soars.
But man gazes into the heavens and asks:
Why am I here?
There is something different about us.
Modernity attempts to explain this mystery in a way I can’t accept. We are told that we are merely advanced animals, these highly developed biological systems navigating a meaningless universe. We are instructed to view ourselves as these accidents of chemistry and precise chance.
Yet something within us resists this conclusion.
For if we are merely animals, why do we long for eternity?
Why does mankind seek truth?
Why does mankind create beauty?
Why does mankind sacrifice itself for others?
Why does mankind feel compelled to worship?
The Christian answer begins not with man, but with God.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)
This is the most profound statement ever written.
At least to me it is.
Man is not God.
Yet man bears His image.
We possess reason because God is Reason.
We possess creativity because God is Creator.
We possess the ability to love because God is Love.
We possess free will because God created us with it.
We possess souls because God breathed life into us.
The prints of the Creator are visible within the creature.
This does not mean mankind has not fallen.
The history of humanity is littered with violence, pride, greed, envy, and rebellion.
We are capable of extraordinary evil.
Yet even in our brokenness, the image remains.
A broken mirror will still reflect the light that shines upon it.
Perhaps this is why every human life possesses an inherent quality that cannot be measured by wealth, status, intelligence, race, beauty, or achievement. The homeless man sleeping beneath the bridge and the king sitting upon his throne share the same origin.
Both are images of Him.
Both possess souls.
Both were created for something greater than themselves.
The tragedy of modern man is not that he thinks too highly of himself.
It is that he thinks too little.
He forgets what he is.
He forgets that he is not merely flesh and instinct.
He forgets that he was created not only to live within creation, but to wrestle with it. Not only to survive, but to seek truth. Not only to consume, but to create. Not only to exist, but to know and love Him who is the reason we are here.
For centuries mankind has crossed oceans, built cathedrals, painted, written poems, looked deep into the stars, and fallen to their knees in prayer. There is something within us that refuses to be satisfied with mere existence.
We are hungry for meaning.
We are hungry for beauty.
We are hungry for transcendence.
We are hungry for home.
And perhaps our hunger itself is evidence of our origin.
The Ox longs for grass because it was made for grazing.
The Lion longs for the kill because it was made for hunting.
The Eagle longs for flight because it was made for the sky.
Man longs for God because he was made for God.
The formation of man begins when he remembers this.
When he remembers that he is not an accident.
Not merely a machine.
Not merely an animal.
But an image.
A reflection.
A living persona of the Creator who formed him from dust and breathed into him the breath of life.
And perhaps that is why we are the way we are.
Why do we write books?
Why do we build cathedrals?
Why do we stare into the sky at night?
Why do we fall in love?
Why do we bury our dead?
Why do we pray?
Why do we spend our lives searching for something beyond ourselves?
Perhaps this longing was never a flaw of ours.
Perhaps it was always a clue.
A keepsake left within us by the One whose image we bear.
A keepsake that we were made for more than survival.
Made for truth.
Made for beauty.
Made for communion.
Made for God.
It is strange, isn’t it?
That we walk around in these bodies, carrying invisible souls inside.
That we communicate through sounds and symbols.
That we know we will die, yet spend our lives searching for eternity.
That we are formed from dust, yet somehow capable of contemplating heaven.
Quite strange indeed.
