Advent Devotional - Day 12

Thursday, December 10
Colossians 1:19-23

We are told early in the book of Genesis that every person is tselem demuth, a Hebrew phrase which suggests something pretty mysterious. According to these ancient words, every person ever created is carved in the image and likeness of the God who has made them. Again, every person. Even in our beginnings, God weaves all of us for harmony. Now, this isn’t a thin, false unity that erases differences. We need only open our eyes and look around in order to catch glimpses of the vast, God-created range of human diversity. God creates us in our differences for the harmony found in being at peace with God and one another. That is the intent and hope that God has for us.

Human beings can be ridiculously stubborn, however. This we know all too well. What God intends and hopes for us is often not what we choose to pursue. We need only open our eyes and look around in order to see the ways in which we make our differences dissonant, choosing alienation, accusation, and stepping apart instead of the harmony that God longs for us to sing. When people dehumanize, harm, or belittle one another, crushing one another in order to rise higher, we ignore the common peace for which we have been created. We’ve been created for holy harmony, but often choose something far lesser.

Thankfully, even our stubbornness is made in the image of God. We serve a God who’s determined to not allow our selfishness to alienate. As we’re reminded in the book of Colossians, it pleases God to make peace with us, even when we have insisted upon being enemies with God and one another. This peace is offered to us and all of the world in the person of Jesus, God among us, the Maker also made in God’s own image. This is the gospel and good news that God offers to us all: through Jesus, we are invited into the peace and harmony--song for which all of us have been made. Each of us, created intentionally in all of our differences, made by a God who through Jesus teaches and invites us all to sing.

Reflection by Adam Baker