Stamped
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-10; Mark 10:13-16[1]
When it comes to parenting, the debate about
nature versus nurture is an old one. The question is whether children are
“stamped” with their personality from birth or whether their personality is
shaped by the nurture they receive from their families. I think it’s always
been a combination, myself. I think children have their own identities from the
start, and that parents can either enhance or short-circuit that identity. Of
course, at the end of the day, everyone makes their own choices, including our children,
and those choices also have a way of defining our life path as well as who we
are and who our family is.
One of the aspects of “nature” in this
discussion has to be family resemblances. It’s not hard to see the likeness
between my oldest son Derek and me. My daughter Carolyn likes to say that he’s
a “clone” of me. I like to say, not that he’s a “mini-me,” but rather he’s a
bigger and better “me.” He is 6’2”! You can see that family resemblance, not
just is appearance, but also in mannerisms, in my son, myself, my father, my grandfather,
even going back to my great-great-grandfather! About 15 years ago I stumbled
upon a genealogy site run by a guy in Omaha who had some ties to the Brehm
family. He had a picture of my great-great grandparents that I’d never seen.
But when I took a good look at my great-great grandfather’s eyes, I saw my own,
and my son’s as well.
We also take on the image of those who are
influential in our lives. Those who are our mentors, whether family or teachers
or supervisors, tend to influence how conduct ourselves. Sometimes those
mentors can be more influential than our families. One of my professors in
Seminary asked me to work with him as a graduate assistant, and I did that for
three years. I graded his papers, and I taught his classes when he was away. It
should come as no surprise to you that the way I taught my classes as a
professor looked a lot like the way he taught his classes.
Our Scripture reading from Hebrews for today
talks about a “resemblance” that’s even stronger than that. It talks about the
way in which Jesus shows us what God is like. The Scripture describes Jesus as
“the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”
(Heb 1:3, NLT). The language used in the Greek text calls to mind the
idea that Jesus is a ray of light from the very being of God. He’s the “radiance
of the glory of God.” It also suggests that, like a coin is stamped in the
image of the one who issues it, Jesus is “stamped” in the image of God. He’s
the “exact imprint of God’s nature.”
What the author of the letter to the Hebrews
is talking about is Jesus’ nature as the “Son” of God. And we cannot help but
think about the notion of the “incarnation” of Jesus when we hear this
language. In these days there are some who think themselves too sophisticated
to buy into antiquated concepts like God being incarnate in a human being. But the
doctrine of incarnation is not about the biology of where children come from.
It’s an affirmation that Jesus really and truly does show us what God is like.[2] We can look at Jesus, his life, his teaching, his mercy, his justice, and we
can be confident that we’re seeing a true likeness of God. Or as the author of
the letter to the Hebrews puts it, Jesus is “the exact imprint of God’s very
being.”
What kind of “image” of God do we see in
Jesus? In the Gospels we see him embracing the ones nobody else would embrace.
We see him confronting the religious people with the falseness of their
self-righteousness. We see him forgiving sinners and restoring people to themselves
and to their communities. We see him teaching people to follow the commandments
by loving God whole-heartedly and loving others sincerely. And in today’s
Gospel lesson we see Jesus welcoming little children.
Most of us are familiar with this story. We
cherish it, but I think we also sterilize it a bit. Think about the children in
your lives. They are energy personified. They have the capacity to laugh, cry,
dance, and shout—all without any inhibitions whatsoever! As much as we love our
children, however, we may have trouble fully seeing them as human beings. After
all, what do children do? When
they’re not sleeping or eating, they play. Many adults think that they’re too
busy to waste precious time playing with children.
That’s why I think we sterilize this story. The
typical “Sunday School” image is of calm, smiling, obedient children gathered
around Jesus, admiring his presence, listening attentively and soaking in all
that he has to say. But we know that most children aren’t like that. At least
my grandchildren certainly aren’t! They’re fidgety, they’re impulsive; they can
actually speak out of turn and interrupt what’s going on! I think if we’re going to do justice to this
Gospel lesson, we should imagine Jesus interacting with real group of
children—active, exuberant, noisy! What do you do with a group of children like
that? You don’t try to make them “be still” so you can teach them a lesson. You
jump right into the middle of the fray and play with them!
Does Jesus really show us what God is like by
playing with children? Is something so seemingly mundane really an aspect of
what it means that Jesus is “the exact imprint of God’s very being”? Surely it must be incidental, simply a part
of the narrative “coloring” that keeps us interested in the really “important”
stuff. But in our lesson for today Jesus says that children define the
character of what it means to be a part of God’s kingdom, God’s saving reign,
God’s new creation. I think he most definitely showed us who God is when he
played with those children!
The author of the letter to the Hebrews
insists over and over that Jesus shows us what God is like. He’s like a ray of
light from God’s very being. He’s “stamped” with God’s image like a coin is
stamped with the image of the one who made it. But because we’re also made in
the image of God, as our lesson from the Psalms for today reminds us, then
there’s a sense in which Jesus also shows us what we’re created to be. We’re
not only “stamped” with certain character traits, habits, and quirks that we
inherited from our families or learned from our mentors. We’re also “stamped”
with the image of God. And as we follow Jesus more and more faithfully, we are
more and more transformed into his image (2 Cor 3:18). As we learn to practice
the ways of God’s kingdom, the ways of faith, hope, and love, the ways of
peace, justice, and freedom, we become “stamped” with Jesus’ image ourselves.
And the more we become like him, the more we reflect the image of our loving
God to those around us.
[1] © 2024 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 10/6/2024 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Jürgen
Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom,
114-118, says that the incarnation is part of the “eternally self-communicating
love of God” that constitutes the “foundation of the new creation,” or the
“perfecting of creation.”
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