Genesis 1:26-31

            {Prayer}

             “The Night Watch” is a famous painting done by Rembrandt in 1642. The painting is roughly 12 feet by 14 ½ feet and is famed for transforming a group portrait of a civic guard company into a compelling drama energized by light and shadow.

            Over the years, this famous painting has moved around and has had to undergo some restoration. Some restoration just because of time, but others because it was intentionally damaged. On September 14, 1975, this painting was attacked with a bread knife by an unemployed school teacher, resulting in several large zig-zagged slashes about a foot long. The attacker suffered from a mental illness and claimed that he “did it for the Lord” and that he “was ordered to do it.” After four years of intensive work, the painting was finally restored, however, there is still some evidence of the damage if you look at it up close.

            The “La Pietàs” (Pee – eta) is a marble sculpture of Jesus and Mary at Mount Golgotha done by Michelangelo in 1489-1499. The sculpture captures the moment when Jesus was taken down from the cross and is given to his mother Mary. Again, like the painting, the sculpture has needed some restoration. During one move, four of Mary’s fingers on her left hand broke off and had to be restored.

            But then on May 21, 1972, Pentecost Sunday, a mentally disturbed geologist walked into the chapel and attacked the sculpture with a geologist’s hammer while shouting, “I am Jesus Christ; I have risen from the dead.” With 15 swings of the hammer, he busted off one of Mary’s arm at the elbow, knocked off a chunk of her nose, and chipped one of her eyelids. After some painstaking and creative work, the statute was restored and returned to St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. You can still go and see it, but only through a bulletproof acrylic glass panel.

            Both the painting and the sculpture were created and considered to be masterpieces. And while they are still considered masterpieces, they do not resemble what they were originally created to be.

            At the end of Genesis 1 and throughout Genesis 2, we have the creation of man and woman. The final creation, the pinnacle of God’s creation. Created in the very image of God, Adam and Eve were God’s masterpieces as they were perfect in every way possible.

            In addition to being created in the very image of God, Adam and Eve are unique in another way compared to the rest of creation. When God created light, separated the waters, made dry land appear, made it produce vegetation, put stars in the sky and filled the water, the sky, and the land with fish, birds, and animals … God did it all through speaking, through the use of His powerful, spoken word.

            Adam and Eve are different. In Genesis 2 it says, “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (2:7). Like a potter taking a piece of clay and forming it to be a pot, a vase, a cup … God reached His hands down into the dust of the earth and He formed, He made man, in His very own image. And then God gave Adam what He didn’t give to the rest of the animals, God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (2:7). God gave Adam a soul.

            Then God created a helper for Adam. “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man” (2:21-22). By His powerful word, God spoke all things into being, except man and woman. Man and woman are God’s masterpieces. “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day” (1:31).

            Humanity … God’s prized creation, created in the very image of God … we aren’t so perfect any more. Like Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” and like Michelangelo’s sculpture of Jesus and Mary … we are in need of restoration. And why?

            Well, while Adam and Eve were living in the very good creation, the perfect creation where they would walk and talk with God, where they had a solid relationship with their Creator … they had a change of heart when they started talking to the serpent, when they started talking with Satan. You see, Satan got Adam and Eve to doubt. Satan got them to wonder. Satan convinced them that they weren’t all they could be; that God was holding out on them. So wanting to be like God, they ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. At this, their eyes were opened and their perfect image of God was marred, it was tainted. Just as these masterpieces were marred by human hands, so too has humanity’s image of God been distorted by the destructive power of original sin.

            This corruption of the perfect image of God is tragically passed down through generations as original sin. We confessed this earlier: “We have failed to love as God’s children.” This inherited sin distorts our relationships with God, each other, and creation. It manifests in selfishness, envy, and destructive behaviors. Just as these masterpieces were marred by human hands, so too has humanity’s image of God been defaced by the corrosive effects of sin. Satan, the master deceiver, exploits these vulnerabilities, tempting us to inflict harm on ourselves and others.

            And even if we try to resist his temptations, Satan is still taking that bread knife and making zig-zagged slashes at us, or he’s taking the geologist’s hammer and starts pounding away on us, knocking chunks of us off. There is no doubt about it … we all are in desperate need of restoration.

            But we’re pretty helpless. There is nothing we can do to ourselves to restore us to perfection. No matter how detailed oriented we are, no matter how hard we try to line everything up just right, no matter how hard we try to put ourselves back together again … we will always bear the marks of our sinful imperfections. There is no amount of material things, no amount of plastic surgery, no amount of self-help books that will bring us back to fully be in the image of God.

            We are a lot like Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” or Michelangelo’s sculpture of Jesus and Mary. The restoration work, since it can’t be done by us … it needs to be done too us, it needs to come from outside of ourselves.

            Michelangelo’s sculpture, while imperfect in itself, shows us how our restoration process takes place. Paul says that “God made {Jesus} who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21a). Jesus, the living Word, who was with God in the beginning, Jesus, the One who took on our flesh and lived a perfect life … He is the One who not only lives in our world like you and me, but He willingly steps into our place of wrath before God. Silently, Jesus stands there and takes the punishment we deserve. Jesus takes the cracks of the whip against His back, the mocking, the spitting, the cursing, the crown of thorns, the nails, the cross, the spear, the forsakenness by His Father … Jesus does all this … quietly … willingly … for you!

            Paul tells us that Jesus did this for you, not because you by any means deserve it but because “God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ.” (Eph. 2:4b-5a). Rich in mercy, wanting you to be with Him forever, the Father sent His one and only begotten Son, Jesus. It is through His life, death, and resurrection that God restores you. “By grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s masterpiece” (2:8-10a).

            You are God’s masterpiece. Washed of your sins by the blood of Christ, God forgives you and gives you the strength to meet the days ahead. As cleansed and forgiven children of God, we are to live our lives differently than those who aren’t part of God’s family.

            Like Rembrandt’s, “The Night Watch”, we have undergone a restoration process. What is made to look good … upon close examination is still flawed. We are still not perfect. But we have a promise, we have a guarantee that we will be. We will be restored to utter perfection when Christ comes again, when He comes and raises our bodies, these bodies from our graves and we will live in the physical presence of God again in the new heavens and new earth.

            In this in between time, in this now but not yet time, in this time of waiting for Christ to return … we are to reflect the image of God to those around us in our thoughts, words, and actions. Paul again says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is a gift of God—not by works so that no one may boast. For we are God’s masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:8-10).

            Created in Christ to do good works which God prepared in advance. In other words, we have work to do. We have work to do in sharing God’s love and message of salvation. It starts here in God’s house. We are called to love, to call upon and visit those who are ill or who we haven’t seen in a while. Look around you and think about who’s missing. Reach out to them and let them know they are missed. But you know, this loving of your neighbor goes with us out into the world. Out there, be an image bearer, use your gifts and talents in service to God, your neighbor, your family, our youth, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and to the nonbeliever. When you do the good works which God prepared in advance for you to do, always do them to bring the glory and honor to God alone. You are God’s masterpiece … and through Christ, so can everyone else. Amen.

            The peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord, now and forever. Amen.