During the 90s there was a skit on Saturday Night Live called “Hans and Frans.” Two actors would dress in absurdly large muscle suits and parade around claiming that they would “Pump you up!” At the time, I was coming into my teenage years and was really interested in putting some meat on these bones. So, I started working out consistently and really started to see some gains. That summer, I went with my church to camp and spent a week in a dorm with three other teenagers. Our youth group had the tradition, at the end of the week of camp, of giving “awards” to unsuspecting campers. I received the “Hans and Frans” award, because, without even realizing it, the other teens in my dorm room had picked up on my obsession over my new physique. Every morning, I would spend unreasonable amounts of time preening and flexing in the mirror before we went off to Bible study. So, in a bit of a roast, my roommates passed on the word, and I received an award for taking up valuable bathroom time to flex in the mirror.
Truth be told, we all have an image of ourselves, a way that we perceive ourselves and a way that we want others to perceive us. Our society puts a great deal of emphasis on our self-image. Disney movies tell little children they can be whatever they imagine themselves to be. Celebrities encourage us to find our sexual identity. Politicians play “identity politics”, cutting our society up along racial, social, and economic lines so they can better motivate one group against the other. We are encouraged to find our “true self.” “There is no one like you, so be who you are.”
Yet, we can’t just be who we are. Let one person start a new trend, and then give it a few years – everyone will be doing it. I am of the “hipster” generation. Hipsters started as an alternative movement in New York. Adherents were seeking to be rebellious by growing beards, wearing flannel clothing, and using vintage products like record players. It didn’t take long for this rebellious subculture to become mainstream. Now, you no longer have to go an urban record store to find your records, you can just go to Walmart.
See, we might think that we can define our own identity, but the truth is, humans were made to bear the image of another. In Genesis 1:26, at the height of his creative work, God declares “let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.” We were made to be defined by God. We were made to reflect his glory. We were made to take his likeness into all the world. Yet, in an act of rebellion against God’s creation purpose, our first parents, Adam and Eve, sought to define life by their own terms. In Genesis 3:5, Satan tempts Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit so that she might “be like God, knowing good and evil.” The temptation of the fruit was to be like God without God. It was the temptation to do things our way, to define life by our own terms, to find our own identity apart from the way that God has made us.
That “Fall” broke something in humanity. This is self-evidently true. In a society like ours, why is it that our suicide rate is sky-rocketing at the same time that our emphasis on individualism has? We encourage young people to pursue their sexual desires wherever they might lead, and if it leads to pregnancy, just get an abortion. But, women who get an abortion are 80% more likely to struggle with depression and anxiety. We encourage gender fluidity, saying that you can freely move between genders, or just deny gender altogether. Yet, transgendered people are 20 times more likely to commit suicide than their mainstream counterparts. We encourage people to shake off social norms like marriage. We endorse divorce for any reason. Yet, children who are raised in single-parent homes are 30% more likely to be lonely and dissatisfied with life.
It is manifestly apparent that we cannot define for ourselves what it is to be truly human, so how are we to know what it is to be truly human? Today, I have good news for you. God has defined for us what it means to live the way he intended. He has done this by breaking into our world and living among us as fully human. The apostle John begins his Gospel by telling us of this “Word” who was fully God, even to the point of participating in the creation of the world. By speaking of the “Word”, John has in mind the defining ideal, the word that defines the way things should be. Think of a mold that is used to create a product like a cup or a bowl. That cup is formed by the mold, but the mold is not the cup. In a similar way, this “Word” that is God defines all of creation, but he is not a part of creation.
Yet, in verse 14, John tells us that something unbelievable has happened. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This Word that defines all things, that has created all things, that gives light and life to all things – that Word became identified with that which he defines. In Jesus Christ, the God of the universe came to us to be like us in every way. And notice why in verse 18: “The only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” Jesus came to us so that he might rightly reflect who God is. Because of the sin of Adam, we are broken image bearers. Because of our own sin, the pursuit of our own way of living, we fail to reflect back the image of God. But Jesus, in his perfect life lived as a true human, perfectly reflecting back the glory of God. And, in doing this, Jesus reflected to us what it looks like to live as a true image bearer.
Jesus, as the true human, did what we could not do so that we might be redeemed from our brokenness. But, instead of receiving him and celebrating him, the world hated him. The people of Jesus’s day looked at the perfect image of God reflected in him, and they rejected it. They despised it. They plotted to destroy it. And, in one terrible act of rebellion, broken men and women who wanted to live life by their own terms, took the true Son of God and stripped him bear. They beat him beyond recognition. Then, after they had torn and ripped this image bearer to shreds, they hung him on a cross for all the world to see. While he hung there, suffocating to death, they spit and mocked him. They gambled for his clothing while he breathed his last breath, and then they placed a Roman guard in front of his tomb to guarantee that this true human could never threaten their self-centered living again.
But, on the third day after his death, Jesus rose again. The stone was rolled away from the tomb, and Jesus walked out, fully alive. In fact, he wasn’t just fully alive, but he was glorified. This resurrection wasn’t just a miracle for Jesus, but it is a promise for all who trust in him. Romans 6:5 promises, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” What Paul means is this: you have to die to yourself to live like Jesus. You have to give up (or repent of) your self-centered ways. You have to give up on pursuing your own identity, seeking to define your life by whatever the latest fad is, whatever you feel at the moment. And, you have to turn to Jesus in faith, trusting that his life is the true way, that he defines what it is to be truly human. You have to trust that life with Christ is greater than anything this world can offer. I invite you to surrender to Christ today and find your meaning in him.
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