Do not say, ‘I am hidden from the Lord, and who from on high has me in mind? Among so many people I am unknown, for what am I in a boundless creation? Lo, heaven and the highest heaven, the abyss and the earth, tremble at his visitation! The very mountains and the foundations of the earth quiver and quake when he looks upon them. But no human mind can grasp this, and who can comprehend his ways? Like a tempest that no one can see, so most of his works are concealed. Who is to announce his acts of justice? Or who can await them? For his decree is far off.’ Such are the thoughts of one devoid of understanding; a senseless and misguided person thinks foolishly.
Listen to me, my child, and acquire knowledge, and pay close attention to my words. I will impart discipline precisely and declare knowledge accurately.
When the Lord created his works from the beginning, and, in making them, determined their boundaries, he arranged his works in an eternal order, and their dominion for all generations. They neither hunger nor grow weary, and they do not abandon their tasks. They do not crowd one another, and they never disobey his word. Then the Lord looked upon the earth, and filled it with his good things. With all kinds of living beings he covered its surface, and into it they must return.
Commentary
God made man; he made him in his own image. We must understand what this image of God means and ask in whose likeness it is that man is made. For it is not said that ‘God made man in his image or likeness’, but that he made him in the image of God. So what is the other, this distinct image of God, in whose likeness man is made, except our Saviour who is the firstborn of all creatures, he of whom it is said that he is the splendour of the eternal light and the imprint of God’s substance, he who said of himself: I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and he who has seen me has seen the Father? For just as he who has seen someone’s picture has seen him also whose picture it is, so likewise through the incarnate Word of God, which is the picture, the image of God, one sees God himself. And so we can see the truth of what was said: He who has seen me has seen the Father.
In the likeness of this image, then, was man made and for that very reason our Saviour, who is himself the image of God, was moved by pity for man. For man had been made in his likeness; and yet he was seen to put off that likeness and put on instead the image of evil. And so, moved by pity, our Saviour came to him, assuming the likeness of man, as the Apostle testifies, saying: When he was still in the likeness of God he was not possessive or self-assertive about being equal to God, but emptied himself out, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of man; and man he was found to be, through and through, as he humbled himself even unto death.
We who come to him, then, and strive to be made sharers in his image as we can understand it, are by our endeavour and our progress renewed inwardly each day in the image of him who made us; so that we may be made like the body of his radiance, his glory, each of us according to his capacity. The Apostles remade themselves in his likeness; so much so, that he said of them: I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. For he had prayed to the Father for his disciples, that the original likeness might be restored to them, when he said: Father, grant that just as you and I are one, so they also may be one in us.
Let us therefore contemplate this likeness of God, that we may be remade on that pattern. For if man, having been made in God’s image, can be made, against his nature, to resemble the devil merely by looking on him, how much more, by looking on the likeness of God, in whose image he is made, will he receive through the incarnate Word both the virtue and the likeness, already given him by his nature. Let no one despair on seeing that he is more like the devil than God: for he is yet able to recover even so his likeness to God. Our Saviour came to call, not the just, but sinners to repentance. Matthew was a publican and indeed resembled the devil; but by coming as he did to the incarnate image of God, our Lord and Saviour, and following him, he has been transformed in the likeness of God.(Origen of Alexandria)
Musical Selection
Bare feet stepping on glass
We break along life’s paths
Our fear and loss, we bring it all to you
Soul-breather, making all things new
You’re making all things new
We come in pieces
We come in fragments
We come discolored
To the foot of the cross
Our Maker sees us
All that we have been
Bonds us together
The Image of God
Clay vessels molded for His own
Shall we question him who holds
And shapes us, for His perfect use
Soul-breather, making all things new
You’re making all things new
Soil breaking for the seed
Seed breaking for the life
His life broken for the soul
We are remade whole, remade whole
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU5ZJ4duM9M
Collect
God of the covenant,
your presence fills us with awe,
your word gives us unshakeable hope.
Fix in our hearts
the image of your Son in glory,
that, sustained on the path of discipleship,
we may pass over with him to newness of life.
Grant this through Christ, our deliverance and hope,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,