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09.14.08

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

SERMON SERIES: QUESTIONS FOR GOD

SERIES 1: THE NATURE OF GOD

PART 2: WHAT DOES GOD LOOK LIKE?

EXODUS 33:12-23; JOHN 14:1-14

• Portraits of God
• Childhood View
• Ask virtually any child in any Sunday School Class across America to draw a picture of God, and you’re likely to get pictures that are all very similar
• When most children are asked what God looks like, they conjure up in their minds the image of an old man with a long, white, pointed beard and long flowing white hair, dress in a white robe
• That old man may be standing in a stately position or seated on a magnificent throne, yet the platform that God will be standing or sitting on will always be a cloud
• Obviously, that long white hair and beard represent the age of God, and God is quite old since God existed before the beginning of time
• The white robes represent God’s purity since God alone is free from all sin
• God’s posture, whether standing or sitting, represents God’s power since God is Almighty
• And the clouds upon which God is sitting or standing represent heaven, the place where God lives
• The Grownup Perspective
• The results would not be much different if we asked adults to draw pictures of what God looks like
• It seems that the best we can do when we try to picture what God looks like is to come up with a grandfatherly-looking figure who is really more a cross between Moses and the “Father Time” figures we see so often as New Years’ Day approaches
• Even among renowned artists who have attempted to capture the image of God in their artwork differ significantly in their representation of God
• The 1426 painting, God Almighty, by Jan van Eyck, which is part of the Ghent Altarpiece, portrays God in a priestly robes wearing a jeweled crown, looking very much like the Pope in his priestly garb today
• In 1442, Andrea del Castagno painted God the Father and depicts God as a wise old sage seated on a throne
• The 1682 sculpture by Artus Quellin, also entitled God the Father, represents God as a mighty warrior/king seated on a throne, holding a scepter in his left hand, cradling the world in his left arm, with his right hand raised in a gesture of blessing while cherubim surround the throne
• Perhaps the most famous “portrait “ of God is the one painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
• That painting is called The Creation of Man, and in it Michelangelo portrays God as a gray-haired and bearded man surrounded by angels with God’s right arm stretched out across a chasm to touch the hand of Adam on earth
• The truth is, there’s an awful lot we don’t know about God
• As finite human beings, we have an extremely difficult time conceptualizing an infinite God
• As creatures whose identity is bound up in our physical form, it’s hard for us to fathom a spiritual being without any definite shape or form
• And this conundrum relates to Jesus as well
• While there’s historical evidence that Jesus was an actual human being, we have not a clue about what Jesus actually looked like
• Nowhere in the Scriptures or in ancient historical documents do we have a physical description of him, and archaeology has provided no assistance on this question
• The best we can do is say that he was a Palestinian Jew and surmise what he might have looked like based upon what we know of Palestinian Jews today
• Just as there are many and varied artists’ representations of God, so are there many and varied representations of Jesus
• The Sexuality of God
• A related question to “What does God look like?” is the question “Is God male or female?”
• While we are quite certain that Jesus was a male, we cannot say with the same certainty that God is either male or female
• Remember, God is Spirit, not flesh, and as Spirit, God does not possess or need any specific sexual characteristics
• At the beginning of time when God created the first humans, God created them in God’s image
• While the word “man” appears in most English translations, the Hebrew word, adam, does not denote sexuality; it simply means “from the earth”
• And the wording of Genesis 1:27 , which reads, “So God created adam in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them,” indicates that both men and women were equally created in God’s image
• Therefore, we can’t definitely say that God is either male or female
• All we can say about this Spiritual Being is that God possesses qualities of both maleness and femaleness
• Although the Bible, more often than not, refers to God in male terms, we must remember that the Scriptures were written in a society dominated by males where women had no standing or position—they were possessions, not people
• There really is no need for us to have a gender-specific God
• God is simply God
• While God acts in certain ways that we would attribute to male characteristics, God also acts in ways that we could attribute to female characteristics
• One such example is found in Psalm 91:4: “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.”
• The image here is of a mother bird nestling her young close to her to protect them from harm
• The Qualities of God
• Rather than focusing on the sexuality of God, we do well instead to focus on the qualities of God
• And the quality that’s at the heart of God’s being is love
• Both males and females are able to give and receive love, and some do it better than others
• The quality of love we receive from others directly influences the quality of relationship we have with God
• If you grew up in a home with an absentee father or experienced abuse from your father, it is likely you will have difficulty relating to God as a loving Father
• The person or people from whom we receive the highest quality of love will influence our view of God, whether they are male or female
• Yet, we must remember that sexuality is a characteristic of humans, not of God
• The primary quality of God is love and both sexes are equally capable of giving and receiving love
• Seeing God
• Moses’ Request
• Humanity hasn’t changed much over the centuries
• It would be so much easier to believe in God if we could see God
• We’d be much more assured of God’s presence with us if God were a physical being walking beside us along the road of life
• Both Moses and Jesus’ disciples expressed the same desire we do
• For Moses, the pillars of cloud and fire that guided the Israelites wasn’t enough
• He wanted more than that—he needed to be absolutely certain that God was journeying with them, so Moses asked to see God’s glory
• But the full glory of God is far too overwhelming for human eyes
• Yet, to assure Moses of God’s presence, God hid Moses in the cleft of a rock and shielded Moses with God’s hand while God’s full glory passed by
• When the fullness of God’s glory passed, God allowed Moses to catch a glimpse of God’s back, and for Moses that was enough
• For us, as well, the full glory of God is not for us to see right now
• We’ll see God in all God’s glory some day when we transition from this life into the life to come, but for now, the best we can hope for is to catch a glimpse of God from time to time
• Hopefully, that will be enough
• The Disciples’ Desire
• For the disciples, the reality of Jesus’ crucifixion was staring them in the face, a crucifixion that would be fueled by the denial of Peter, one of the disciples closest to him
• Jesus assures them that his departure was for their benefit, that he would go prepare a place for them and come back to take them to where he would bee
• But they didn’t really understand where he was going, so they couldn’t know the way
• So Jesus declared to them that he was the way, the truth and the life, and no one can come to God, no one can truly understand God and really know God unless they come to God through him
• But even that wasn’t the kind of answer they were looking for
• They were used to seeing Jesus and having Jesus present with them, and they were very reluctant to give that up
• So Philip presses the issue with his statement, “Show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
• But the essence of what Philip said is “Since we can no longer see you, let us see God,” to which Jesus replied, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
• The evidence to which Jesus points that the character of God dwells fully in himself is the work that he performed among them, the miracles that he performed
• That work and those miracles are the work of love, the demonstration of God’s very heart and being
• So once again, it all comes back to Jesus
• If we want to know who God is, we must get to know Jesus
• If we want to know what God looks like, we find it best represented in Jesus
• Jesus looks like God because Jesus acts like God, and Jesus acts like God because Jesus loves like God
• How We Can See God
• For the disciples that answer was sufficient because they could see Jesus and, therefore, see God through him
• But we can’t actually see Jesus because Jesus is no longer physically present
• So if we can’t see Jesus, how can we see God?
• The answer to that is that we can see God through the lives of Jesus’ followers
• We can know what God looks like by looking at those who live like Jesus lived and who love like God loves
• Jesus says that anyone who has faith in him will do greater things than he did because he was going to the Father
• Jesus’ return to God enabled the Spirit of God to be poured out more fully into the lives of all who believe
• The power of that Spirit enables us to do greater things than Jesus did, and the power of that Spirit is God’s love
• Jesus was united to God through God’s love for him and his love for God
• We are united with God through Jesus’ love for us
• So in a very real sense, we see God through the love we receive from others
• We were each made in the image of God, and the heart of God’s image is love
• Sin tarnished that image in us, but Jesus came to polish it up
• Sin separated us from God, so Jesus came to reconnect us to God
• Jesus restore the reflection of God in our lives
• So if we want to know what God looks like, all we need to do is look at the person whose love has shaped our life the most
• Whether male or female, young or old, makes no difference
• God can be seen in the life of anyone whose faith in Jesus enables them to love with the very love of God