Pictures

August 6, 2010

Last weekend Mary and I traveled to Kansas City for the wedding of a close friend. We included family pictures on our packing list so that we could appropriately and visually update individuals that we had lived side by side with for twelve years.

We did our best to select the best pictures of our kids and grandkids… and over the course of four days in KC they served their intended purpose.

I believe that the practice of displaying a family photo is something that God Himself established. The apostle Paul tells us that for those individuals that have embraced the gift of grace from Jesus, our photo takes on the profound likeness of Jesus. In fact, when God looks at us, He sees righteousness. Righteousness that lives up to His standard.

This photo; the image of righteousness, is granted to us as the ultimate makeover because Jesus took on our ugliness. He became hideous, revolting and detestable by swapping pictures with me. He became sin.

There was nothing cosmetic or superficial about this exchange, but rather only sacrificial obedience to the cosmic plan of God.

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." ~ 2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

The photo isn’t doctored or manipulated… it’s just that the subject has been transformed.

This is grace. He loved us, and gave Himself for us… so that God could look at us and see the beautiful creature He crafted in Genesis 1.

What a picture… what an exchange.

P.S. – Just for the record… Jesus no longer carries the image of our sin. He nailed that image to a cross and walked away from the tomb to declare victory over the sentence of death… look at how Paul describes him now: "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." ~ Philippians 2:9-11 (ESV)