Wednesday 10 January 2024

Psalm 53

Background

How often do we hear people exclaim on seeing a small child for the first time, "Oh she is the image of her father!" Or "Isn’t he the image of his mother!" We expect children to look like their parents and are often perplexed when they don’t!  

The writer to the Hebrews made exactly this point to the readers of this profound letter. Jesus Christ is indeed the image of his father. He is exactly what God is, and, using similar language to that used by John the Evangelist (John 1:1-5,14), all things are held by his word.  

The notion of ‘word’ is powerful. The book of Genesis records that creation came about by means of God's word: God spoke – and it was. The word of the Lord frequently came to prophets and leaders of the people. John opens his gospel with the magisterial affirmation, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

The word was the very being of the person offering it. We retain some of this sense in English with phrases such as  ‘I give you my word', and ‘a man of his word’. Jesus is the Word of God Incarnate, the very being of God in human form, who is living alongside us.  

How we start a letter to a friend, or to anyone, frequently indicates what the communication is about, its thrust and purpose. And here the writer to the Hebrews has done just that: God has spoken with God’s people ‘in many and various ways’ in the past, but now God chooses to communicate with us in the most personal way possible – through a human who is the "exact imprint of God's very being" (v. 3). This is a breathtakingly powerful statement. 

To Ponder:

• What exactly does it mean to you in terms of your faith, and how you live that faith, that God has spoken so definitively to us through Jesus?  
• Wonder and mystery are part of the Christian faith. How may we convey this meaningfully to enquirers?  

Prayer

Loving God, all I can do is thank you for speaking so clearly to me – open my ears to your word. Amen.