Self-Image

This past Sunday we celebrated the miraculous birth and the prophetic ministry of St John the Forerunner (John the Baptist). Though many topics seem to come to mind when thinking of St. John, perhaps the most striking to me on this particular Sunday was the one most directly in front of my nose (though it took me a while to notice it). When Fr. Wayne started into his homily on "owning up to the self that we are and that we are becoming", I have to admit that I was a bit puzzled. "What does this have to do with John the Baptist?" I thought to myself. Though I am never one to knock a homily on the topic of self-reflection, I couldn't see the connection to the scripture reading.

Only then did I notice the text on the scroll that St. John is pictured as holding in the large icon at the front of our church. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" it reads. And at once it struck me that John's message on this earth (like the message of so many Old Testament prophets) was pretty much entirely bound up in the call to repentance.

I think that it is interesting that repentance almost always seems to be the response of people that come into contact with God. No matter who it is that you are reading about (even men described as righteous and/or blameless before the Lord), an encounter with God seems to bring about a rapid confession of worthlessness and a cry of repentance.

In their own encounters with God, John the Revelator cried out that he was a "man of unclean lips", and Job went as far as to say "I despise myself utterly, and repent in dust and ashes". Listening to Fr. Wayne's homily on conforming ourselves to the likeness of Christ, it was interesting for me to note that the process of becoming Christlike almost always starts with this kind of crises. I had thought often before about the fear of those that encountered the holiness of God, and a lot even about the terror of those that were allowed to experience a small bit of His awesome power. I never had trouble imagining the terror of such situations... but it never struck me quite so frankly that the flavor of this particular fear was an acute and overwhelming recognition of the true image of God - an image always confused, smudged, distorted, broken, twisted, and blurred in our own souls (though still present) when viewed through our own petty self-reflection, but perfect and glorious and convicting when witnessed in the perfect image of the Son of God. Before meeting Jesus we might be tempted to think, through the decay of His image in ourselves, that we are doing pretty well in our sanctification... or we may not even think about our sanctification at all, and instead wander around in frustration, wondering why our lives have become so miserable. But both of these feelings - both ignorance and apathy, pride and sloth - become impossible the moment we behold the face of God.

"Oh!" we say as our heart leaves us, and we turn pale and hit the floor as though dead (indeed, we feel dead in comparison with the energy of that life), "that is what it is supposed to look like..." and a rush of repentance floods quickly to our lips, because no matter what me might have made of ourselves on this earth, we have not made that... and we realize that we have failed in our stewardship. Whether we were given ten talents, five, or even one, we have not made a profit with it... indeed, we have not even managed to return the initial gift undiminished.

"So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, `We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.' " (Luke 17:10). These are sobering words from our Savior and Lord, and they lead me to dread more than a little my own immanent encounter with God. As far as the verse goes, I'm still working on the "do all the things which are commanded you" part... and it doesn't look as though that will be done any time soon.

May our Lord have mercy on us...