Pastor’s Column
We’re creating a pictorial directory for our church, a 300th Anniversary family album. If you have not signed up for your photo session, do so ASAP! Please view this as a responsibility of church membership. After all, we recognize one another by our faces.
Consider this: Jesus of Nazareth was the most recognizable person of his generation in Palestine. When he came to town everyone sought a moment with him. You could pick him out even in a large crowd. People knew what he looked like. They knew his face.
I love this verse from one of Paul’s letters:
It is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4:6).
No contemporary portrait of Jesus exists. Statues and coins preserve the likenesses of Julius and Augustus Caesar, but we can’t know what Jesus actually looked like. Of course, we all have a mental image. From the catacombs to modern film, representations of Jesus have abounded in every succeeding generation.
The human face plays a role in Christian theology. God reveals himself in Christ – “the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). So God knows and cares about each of us as individuals. Our photo directory is a way for us to celebrate and say to one another, You matter to me!
Gratefully,
Charles Hambrick-Stowe