Whose Image
Because we bear God’s image, our lives already belong to Him, and through Jesus Christ, He is restoring us to what He created us to be.
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Whose Image? Transcript
Good Morning. When I was a kid, one of the big events every December was a big family trip to Kmart. Some of you may remember the wonderful place called Kmart. They're not around anymore, sadly, or there might be one that I haven't seen in a long time.
There are four of us kids, and so we would split up to shop for my parents. My mom would take me and my youngest sister, and we would go shop for my dad. And my dad would take my younger brother and my other younger sister, and they would go and shop for mom. And we each were kind of allocated a certain amount of money we could spend on the other parent.
And one year, I only remember like two gifts from the trip, but these two stand out. The one year I got him a back scratcher, because every time I came into a room where he was sitting watching TV, I was his default back scratcher. So I thought if I got him a back scratcher, maybe I'd get a little bit of time off. Of course, it didn't work. The only other one I remember vividly is Steve Martin comedy album with the song King Tut on it, which some of you may remember. I remember listening to that again and again and again myself. I hope he listened to it. I remember wanting to get him a Richard Simmons exercise tape, but my mom vetoed that idea.
The point being, my sister and I had no real money of our own, so what we gave to our parents was paid for by my parents. And honestly, in most of those cases, especially if I got him that exercise tape, cash would have probably been a much better gift. But there was real joy for them and for us in our having the opportunity to present to them what was really theirs to begin with.
I want you to get that picture in your head and hold it there, as that really gets us to the heart of what Jesus is trying to teach in the gospel lesson this morning. Not just giving to Caesar what is Caesar, but what it means to give to God what is God, which is everything, including us.
The Pharisees we see here plotting yet again, and this time, because they've been embarrassed, they send their disciples out to try to trick Jesus, and they send along a group called the Herodians, which are pretty much their political opposites. The Herodians were really loyal to Rome. The Pharisees were all the way on the other side. The kind of people who wanted to break away from Rome. They couldn't stand each other. So why are they grouping here? Because one thing they couldn't stand more than each other was the fact the people loved Jesus, and they kept gathering to hear him speak, and they felt they needed to get rid of Jesus. That's the one thing they agreed on.
So they start with flattery, and that was one of the schmooziest little greetings when they came before him. You know, teacher, we know that you were true, and you teach the way of God truthfully. Don't believe it. They didn't mean it. It sounds like a compliment. It's bait.
Then comes the question: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? It's a simple enough question. They're trying to get him to say yes or no. And if he says no, and by lawful, they're not talking about the Roman law. They're talking about the moral law. They're talking about does it honor God? That's a nice way to phrase it too. To pay taxes to Caesar or not? Does it honor God to pay taxes to Caesar or not?
And if Jesus says yes, it does honor God, they're thinking, okay, that's good, because many of his followers really don't like Rome, and they're going to want to pull away from him for saying something which sounds so pro-Roman. But if he says no, then the Herodians are right here, and they could probably have him arrested on the spot for rebellion against Rome. It's a catch 22. So you see, his ministry is destroyed, or he gets arrested. Either way, they're happy.
But Jesus, Matthew says he is aware of their malice. He says, "Why do you put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax." They go and they get one. They had one pretty much ready for it. And yes, whose likeness and image is this? Caesar's. The answer. Therefore, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.
Why was the coin Caesar's? Well, if you were to look at it, you can see a little picture of one that would have been typical for the time on your cover, your bulletin. It has a little piece of Roman propaganda, kind of like our coins we see today. Talk about our nation, right? Back then, though, it actually carried the emperor of the times' face. His name happened to be Tiberius, and not only did it have a nice picture of him, but it carried an inscription saying he was the son of a Roman god, because the Roman Senate had deified Augustus. You probably all heard of Augustus Caesar, and so this is a pretty big claim for the emperor. Now it's not the same as a Jew saying being a son of God, but being the son of a Roman god, that's still, you know, that's pretty high up there, right?
Jesus' point is simple: the image the coin bears tells you who it belongs to, and how do I know who the thing belongs to? Well, you look at the image. And then he uses the word render. And this particular word is usually used not as in I have to pay back, I have to surrender or hand over something, but I offer back what was given to me. Give back what was given to you.
But notice what Jesus leaves hanging, and this is where the application comes in. What belongs to God? Now he doesn't say, but if you use the same principle, he really doesn't have to. Jesus is asked whose image is on the coin, and then he asks us to render to God what belongs to God. So where do we find God's image? You can go back to page one of the Bible, where the creation in Genesis chapter one tells us God created man in His own image. In the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. Caesar stamps his face on a piece of metal to show it's his. God has stamped his image on each and every one of you, and that is his claim.
Isaiah has a different way of phrasing it in our Old Testament lesson in verse eight: we are the clay, and you are the potter. We are the work of your hands. Almost see a little bit of Genesis imagery there, how God formed Adam out of the clay.
So the question isn't really for us, how much do I give God of what I have? Because it's all God's. The question is, who am I? And who do I belong to?
And that's where it begins to get uncomfortable, because we don't like to think we belong to God. Or maybe we do like to think we belong to God. But then sometimes we like to give ourselves away to other things, rather than God. We like to give ourselves away to the pleasures of this world, to our appetites. That's what Paul is talking about in his epistle. He talks about those who have fallen away from the faith because their god is their belly, and their minds are set on earthly things. So they're stamped with God's image. They've instead of offering themselves to God, offer themselves to their belly, to the appetites of this world.
We're all made in God's image. His mark is on every person that has ever existed, and it's from the womb that His mark can bear His image. And even sin doesn't take that image away. But what it can do is mar the image, scratch it up a little bit. There are many people who want to say they don't really belong to God, they don't believe in God, but that doesn't mar or change the fact that they're stamped with God's image.
And you can kind of think of it. You all seen an old coin, and kind of the image is kind of a little bit worn away, maybe a lot worn away. You might not be able to immediately identify it, but it's still there. It bears the mark of what it was meant to be, of what it was originally stamped with.
And when Jesus finishes, Matthew says, they all marvel, and they leave him, and they go away. Now you would think that would be a great moment to repent, and that's the sad thing about chapter 22 of Matthew. It's like the best description I can think of is Wile E. Coyote. They just keep coming back and coming back, trying to trick and trap Jesus with the latest little trick. After this, the Sadducees come. After this, the Pharisees come right back. Both times, trying to pull a stunt to trick Jesus publicly in front of everybody to humiliate them, and every time they fail.
Finally, they give up embarrassing in the public, and they have to steal him a couple days later, two or three days later after this, at night, when the public can't see him, because when he was in the temple, everyone respected him. They take him to stand before Pilate, and this is where it really gets interesting. Do you know what Luke says their claim when they brought him before Pilate was? That he was leading an insurrection of the people, saying they shouldn't pay taxes to Caesar. Do we see that in our lesson today? No. But that's what they were trying to trap him into saying, of course.
When Pilate hesitates, they say something else that is very interesting. They say, "We have no king but Caesar." Now think about that. The ones who are asking, is it honoring to God? Is it lawful, in God's law, to pay taxes to Caesar? Now they hand everything over to Caesar, including their loyalty, including Jesus, rather than give to God what is due to God. But the one standing before Pilate, the one who told them to give to God the things that are God, still gives himself up for their sakes and for our sake.
Speaking of the image of God, there are some special things in the epistles which relate and focus that image. Colossians chapter one, it opens up in Paul's letter to them, describing Jesus as the image of the invisible God. So when we look to see what God is, God is beyond our ability to see. We see an image in Jesus. In Hebrews, He is called the radiance of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's nature. He is the pattern that we thankfully are being restored to.
So when we think of ourselves as a coin, and we may think of ourselves as a little bit marred and scratched up, He's restoring us to the pattern of Jesus. Caesar's image was stamped on a coin. Jesus, the perfect image of God, gives himself completely, even to death on the cross, for people who haven't given themselves to God, but so that our image can be completely restored, not just what it originally was, but into his imagery. And it's not always easy.
You can actually think back to Isaiah's imagery, and actually Jeremiah, who wrote after Isaiah, probably about 150 years after what Isaiah wrote here, writes about the potter and the clay example too, and they love this idea. If you have a lump of clay and you're forming it, and it's maybe not going exactly the way you want it to go, what do you do? Well, you have to work it again. You have to remold it. Can you imagine being a lump of clay being remolded? That kind of sounds painful, doesn't it? Lumped all the way up again and then have to start over, getting you the right way. Certainly better than being thrown away. So the remolding process, what we call sanctification, it can be painful because we may like some of those things that are actually faults, that are actually problems, but God is molding them and shaping them out of our life. The Christian's call is, of course, to give everything back to God, because He first gave everything for us.
That's the work of Christ. He's come not that we be cast away, but that we would be reconciled to God, and He promises to finish that work, the work that He has begun, that work that is completed in us by the Holy Spirit, changing the way we think and the way we act. And there are parts of us, yeah, we don't always want him to change, but that's part of God's work to reshape us. And Paul, in closing our epistle lesson, tells us with this encouragement that one day, not today yet, but one day, Christ will transform our lowly bodies to be just like His glorious body. That's our hope in Christ.
And it kind of brings me back to the Kmart trip as we close. Everything I put in my earthly father's hands was already paid for before I had a chance to give it to him, yet there was joy in offering it to him. Right? I can't picture that as a kid. The same is true for what we give to God the Father. When we take our offerings, there's nothing we can give Him that really isn't His to begin with. Our lives belong to Him, and we can't pay Him back for what He's given us, for our salvation, for our lives. But He doesn't ask us to. But we are to give ourselves with joy and thanksgiving into the life and the work that Christ has given us, because He has made us His own.
So give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's, and most importantly, that is you, because you belong to Him, you bear His image, and in Christ, He is restoring you to what you should be.
Let us pray. Lord, you have stamped us with your image, and in Christ you have claimed us as your own. Help us, Lord, where in this world we are being shaped and molded, and sometimes it can be painful. To rejoice that you love us enough to shape us into what you would have us to be, that in all things we may offer to you what is yours, and we may rejoice that we have that opportunity. Make us, remake us, mold us, to be the image of your Son. This we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. Let us stand for our reflective hymn number 622. We give thee but thine own.
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