From the Chaplains
As we move towards the end of term, in our chapel services we continue to unpack with the students what it means to be made in God’s image.
Scholars and theologians for many centuries have pondered what it means to be ‘made in God’s image’. You could spend a lifetime exploring it and still never fully understand the mystery and wonder of what it means to be a creature made to be a reflection of the Creator.
I have spoken to the students in chapel about some of the things this means:
They are made with care; they are precious.
They are made with purpose.
They are made with their own free will – we are not obedient robots.
(This is why we often mess things up, this is also why we can have a genuine, intimate and loving relationship with our Creator – we can choose to love God.)
They are made to be creative, like the Creator.
But what are we made for?
In one of the creation stories from the Scriptures, we are told:
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in our likeness.”
Why does God speak of Godself in the plural? This, too, has fascinated theologians and scholars for thousands of years.
For Christians, this is one of the verses that points to the triune nature of God – to the identity of God as three in One, and One in three. The Scriptures speak of God in three persons; God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
Andrei Rublev painted this beautiful icon in 1410. It is his imagining of the three Divine persons gathered together in communion, around a table set with a symbolic meal.
God the Father is represented in translucent gold, the Christ in royal blue and the Spirit in the green of renewal.
The point of this painting, as I said to the students, is that the three persons are in relationship with one another.
Their heads are inclined towards one another, they are looking towards one another, the curves of their bodies as well as the mountain, tree and house in the background form a continuous circle.
Rublev does not allow our eye to rest on any one of the three persons for long – our eye travels around and around the image, as we are drawn into a contemplation of this relationship of mutual love and communion.
The three persons exist purely in relation to the other two. Their essence is in their relationship with the others.
They are in an eternal relationship of self-giving love; an eternal movement of giving, making space for, receiving, giving, making space for, receiving …
The painting expresses that the core of who God is, is relationship.
So, if we’re made in God’s image, as a reflection of God,what are we made for?
We are made for relationship.
There is a little detail of the painting which holds profound meaning – there, at the front of the table at which the three persons of the Trinity sit, is a little rectangular shape.
Originally, there was a small mirror fixed to this place.
So that, as the viewer gazed at the icon, and was hopefully moved to prayer and meditation on the profound mystery of the Trinity, they would see themselves reflected back.
They would see that they are made in God’s image.
All of us, of all faiths or none, are made for self-giving love. Making space for other people, receiving love or attention or energy or kindness from other people, and giving love or attention or energy or kindness to other people.
May the God of peace fill your cup this week, and may you know that you are made in the Divine image.
Amen.
Uniting Youth Camp – Time to Shine
Edwina O’Brien
Assistant College Chaplain