I’ll never forget the moment my oldest child drew a picture of me for the first time. His five-year-old eyes glowed as he handed me the paper, on which I was depicted as a tall mound with a crooked smile and two scrawny arms. Totally glorious. I cooed my praises and proudly taped the masterpiece to the wall. I then turned and gazed affectionately at my son’s freckled face.
The family likeness is indisputable. The largeness of his eyes, the gentle slope of his nose, the cleft chin… he is certainly my son. I remember when I first held him, and how incredulous I was that a human being had just come out of my body. He was so strange and yet utterly familiar. The fingers and toes, exactly where they should be; the eyes, nose, mouth, and hair. Good golly, did he have a lot of hair!
As he grew from infant to toddler to child, I realized that my son had been, from the moment of his conception, a complete person. There was something entirely different about him than any other nonhuman creature I had ever encountered. He bore something divine, a stamp of likeness to his Maker that took my breath away. A mother can’t help but get swept up in wonder.
What a remarkable thing it is to be human.
It may not always be stylish to say so, but humans are fantastically wonderful. Our pet-obsessed, tree-worshiping culture may downplay the significance of humanity from time to time, but make no mistake, you are incredible simply because you are human.
We are unlike anything else in this world. We make up stories, solve equations, write poetry, and cry. We taste-test recipes, break out in song, and invent machines that do magical things. It’s almost as if we bear a family likeness to the original Dreamer, Composer, and Artist. It’s true, we look a lot like Him, and that was the plan all along.
God has always wanted us to be like Him.
However, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that something is also very wrong with us. Not only are we magnificently creative, intuitive, and capable, but we are also mean. We’re insecure, cruel, and manipulative. We break, and we break things. We die, and we kill.
We are both deathly ill and deadly.
Shortly after being created, humans were foolishly sabotaged by sin, and we’ve been suffering for it ever since. Thankfully, our Creator is determined. He still wants humanity to be, in the ultimate sense, holy, healthy, and happy just like Him. So, God did something to solve our problem. And He didn’t just fix humans from afar… He actually became one.
The truest Human to ever exist walked the dusty streets of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago and is still ruling the cosmos today. Jesus, the risen God-Man, lived the perfect life humans were always meant to live, and now offers to heal and complete your own humanity forever and ever.
If you ever wonder what a human being is supposed to look like, look at Jesus. He is the perfect Image of God and the Ultimate Human. He is worthy of getting all your hopes up. He is the Transforming Power that stomps death to death and turns people back into people. With Him, all things are possible. Him in us, us in Him.
So, next time you look in the mirror, remember Whose Image you bear, remember the true Human, and rejoice!
You were created to look like God, and now, thanks to Jesus, you can.