Sometimes we think we know what we see and then  again, it might not be. Or perhaps we do see, but then there is something else besides. 

Sometimes seeing takes more than light waves hitting the retina and being transmitted by the optic nerve to the brain.  We use the idiom, “I see” not always to mean “I see something with my eye,” but rather “I understand.” 

Or, how about when someone says, “Picture in your mind’s eye.”  How do you do that?  You’re not using your eyeball at all when you do that.  So what are you using?

Imagination.

Imagination is one of the great gifts we have been given.  “Just imagine,” we say.  Just imagine what it would be like if we weren’t so defensive with one another.  Just imagine what it would be like if we could not only produce enough food to alleviate chronic hunger—we can—but we could distribute it to the chronically hungry and by doing so mitigate the affects of drought and flood.  Just imagine Suppose they gave a war and no one came?, as from a line in a 1936 poem by Carl Sandberg .

And where do we get our imagination?  In Genesis 1 it says that humanity is created in the image of God—male and female.  Being created in the image of God isn’t so much an anatomical thing.  It is the power to imagine which comes from the word image. 

It has been my experience that children are wonderful observes, but not always good at interpreting what they see.  Their imaginations can run wild.  Unfortunately, we as adults are often like children convoluting the image in which we are created with our imaginations turning toward fear and hating rather than toward openness and love.  Our imaginations become like the images in the mirrors at the fun house in the arcade at the fair.  Our true identity is corrupted.  We then try to fix it ourselves or think that is the way we are suppose to look.

 But God sent a new image to us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus calls us to use our imaginations to view the world and our role in different ways.  We draw up on scripture to help enliven our imaginations.  We share with one another so as not to have our imaginations, when left on our own individual devices, become corrupted.  The community working together becomes an important corrective even as parents are for children.

We, as the ones baptized into Christ, are, as the body of Christ , carry on the image of God in Christ into the world.  Imagine that. 

God be with you,

Pastor Ron Kempe