Image of the Invisible God

Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God

                During my lectio divina the past couple of days, I have been drawn by the first phrase, in the Second Reading for this Sunday: Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

                I had to pause, realizing what St. Paul is trying to say to the Colossians.  How can we know who God is, if He is invisible and beyond what, or whom, we can ever imagine?  (After all, who He who is everything demonstrated in the Old Testament?)

                But then there is Jesus, the acclaimed Son of God, Who works all these miracles and takes notice of the meek and lowly.  He is our IMAGE AND EXAMPLE of this invisible God.  This God Who humbled Himself earlier in time, to be the flames in the bush that Moses came across.  Now this mysterious God comes in human form. 

                So Who is He?

                I have seen the Son of Man depicted as the Good Shepherd on holy cards, and holding the lamb that was lost.  I see Him hanging so vulnerably on a cross, dying for our sins.  And I see Him on a bookmarker in my daily mass subscription, in the divine mercy.  What a God we have!

                Coming back to St. Paul’s Reading today, we hear him praising this “image of the invisible God.”  “For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth….”  He loves us, and we are made for Him.  We are not gods, but we are called to follow the examples He gives.  Am I calling out to the lost, am I willing to give of myself to others, and am I merciful… like Jesus? 

                This is the image of, and truly is, the Word made flesh.  “How great is our God,” as it says in a song.