The Image in Which We're Made

In the beginning, God is. Right on through the progression of all things since then, God is. In this very moment, God is. For ages without number into the future, God is. In the end, God is. We dwell in the space between the horizons of past and future throughout all eternity, and yet, somehow, like the sun beyond the rim of the earth, God exists beyond the limits of our being always and without end. For every moment, there is at least one more yet to come in which God dwells. For every instant, there is at least one more left behind in which God dwells. Forever and eternally, in every moment that streams through our being and awareness, God is. For this reason, He says of Himself, "I AM." The Alpha and Omega says, "Ego Eimi." The ever existent One for Whom, by Whom, and through Whom all things were made experiences time simultaneously as one beyond it (God the Father) and as one within it (God the Son).

The birth of Christ, as the central point of all things pertaining to humanity, exists as a great mountainous stone tossed into the middle of the Sea of Time and Humanity. It sends ripples in every direction, which eventually touch even the farthest shore. We think because we experience Time in linear fashion that God also experiences such limitations, but it isn't so. For Jesus, such an experiential perspective exists because He walked among us in like fashion to ourselves, but with the Father there is no such limitation. And this goes to the very nature of our experience of Time, speaking of our limitations since we are made in His Image.

The Image of God in which we are made is the Story of Christ. How can this be so? The reason that so many stories appear so similar to the Story of Jesus is because this is what was meant by God when He said that He would make Man in His Image. God's Image cannot be properly expressed in two- or three-dimensional space, but must be expressed across Time as well, since He is ever-existent. Because it incorporates Time and is the very Image of Christ, it incorporates His Story as well. So all stories are echoes and reflections of the Word and Light of God in this world. Like echoes and reflections, they are altered by the characteristics of the surface(s) across which they play. Thus echo from rock is sharp, while cloth dampens the clarity or mutes it altogether. Thus light from the moon is pale white and from Mars is red, although both are reflecting light from the same source. All of humanity's stories echo and reflect the Word and Light of God, even though corrupted by the Fall, so that we see many repetitions and variations upon a theme, that theme being Christ, wherever and whenever people are found.

Want to know why the stories and religions of humanity in antiquity apart from the righteous stories of the Bible also seem to echo Christ and the cross? Because we are all made in His Image. The blind see the linear fashion of Time and assume that the Jews and Christians borrowed from the false systems of the world that pre-dated them, but again this is wrong-thinking and ignorant of the Truth in the Image of God at the center of all humanity. Christ is at once the Root and Offspring of David, the Source and Result at once. He is the Bright and Morning Star, meaning not simply Venus, but both the Sun as the source of light and Venus as reflector of that light into this world.

Why did God give Adam and Eve a tree and forbid them its fruit? Because Christ would go to the cross on account of sin, and the tree is a foreshadowing of the cross. Both are connected with the death of the figure in the story. All were impacted by the actions of one/One. The first Eve was brought into this world through the wound in the first Adam's side. The second Eve was brought into this world by the second Adam, for which purpose the Lord's side was pierced. The root of Sin, that ancient serpent, met the protagonist of the Story at the tree. The offspring of Sin, the full penalty of death, fell upon the protagonist of the Story at the tree. For this reason, Moses' staff became a serpent and devoured the staves of Pharaoh's servants. For this reason, Moses raised the image of the serpent in the wilderness that all who looked upon it might live. For this reason, the echo and reflection appears in the flag of Mexico to this very day. For this reason, in at least one version of the story, Jason battled a dragon for the fleece which hung from an apple tree.  For this reason, Odin hung himself upon the world tree for nine days and nights to see what might be written in the runes. For this reason, also, the secret of the runes is not as Satan would have you believe, but they are an echo of these words: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (INRI). For this reason, in story upon story, the tree becomes the gateway to a special world of adventure. For this reason, Castor died in a tree, pierced by the echo image in his cousin Idas. For this reason, there really isn't a huge difference between the name Idas and the name Judas.

Such examples are but one aspect of the One True Story of Christ in which Image we are stamped. We could speak of many others, in addition to the staff that becomes a tree that becomes a cross: The runes that become a name, the Name, that become the Word that becomes the Scriptures; the dragon's den that becomes a tomb and cross that become a dungeon and tower that become a pit and tree again; on and on it goes to the end and beyond. We are made in His Image, and so make in the form in which we're made. As Tolkien said:

Disgraced he may be, yet is not dethroned,

and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,

his world-dominion by creative act:

not his to worship the great Artefact,

man, sub-creator, the refracted light

through whom is splintered from a single White

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

Though all the crannies of the world we filled

with elves and goblins, though we dared to build

gods and their houses out of dark and light,

and sow the seed of dragons, 'twas our right

(used or misused). The right has not decayed.

We make still by the law in which we're made.