What will our eyes behold on Christmas morn? What will we see as we approach the manger?
In this space two months ago, you read about the many metaphors used in the Bible and in our own contemplation to imagine God, you read how the Bible describes God as light, love, a rock, the way, and more. Metaphors and images for God show us something about who God is.
The problem with any image for God is that it conceals as much as it reveals. For example, if we imagine God as light, we miss out on how God is present in darkness. If we imagine God as a mighty fortress, we miss out on how God can be homeless and vulnerable. When we imagine God as male, we become blind to God’s feminine qualities (as well as making maleness into God and men into little gods.) It’s even a mistake to say that God is invisible, for such invisibility conceals how God is light!
Despite even our best efforts to use metaphors, images, and even non-images for God, we are blind. Our blindness isn’t only to God, we are also blind to Earth as God’s creation and to each other as God’s children, created in the image of God.
Seeing again, then, is an important theological project that would not only cure us of our blindness but would also heal us of our inhumanity to one another. Jesus restores our vision, for Jesus is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). Jesus is God unveiled. Through Christ’s full humanity we are able to see one another as human.
What will we see as we approach the manger? What will our eyes behold on Christmas morn?
