Sunday, July 10

To read this morning's office, click here.

Our Morning Office sets before us a marvelous Christian truth: that in Jesus we see the face of God. The connection is clear: God comes to the Temple; Jesus is the one who comes in the name of the Lord; in Jesus we see the coming of God.

I wonder what this might mean for us today.

The first thing it means is this: God is essentially personal. To know about God by learning creedal statements about God, as J.I. Packer once reminded us in his Knowing God, is not the same thing as knowing God. Knowing God is deeply personal; it is the way I know Kris.

The second thing it means is this: trusting God is about living in light of our relationship to God. I trust Kris because I know her; we are to trust God because we know God. And this personal knowledge of God comes to us by knowing Jesus.

Today, I will spend time with the Gospels reading about Jesus (and I think I'll choose Matthew 8--9) and I will read about Jesus knowing that in Jesus I am seeing God.

The third thing it means is this: this one is scary. If the face of God is Jesus, then the face of Jesus is the Church. And that means that others see God in and through us -- the Body of Christ.

What kind of God, I ask myself, will they see today as the Church gathers for fellowship, for worship, for sacrament, for Word? Will they see the face of Jesus in the face of the Church?