[Notes of a sermon preached at Holy Trinity Norwich, June, 2019]

Chemical composition

Evolutionary development

The only animal that blushes – or needs to

A speck of dust in a vast universe?

vv1,9 – Made to worship – wrapped in praise – addressed entirely to God – no petitions – we discover who we are, not by looking inwards, but by looking upwards.

vv3f – Made to wonder – not, ‘What man?’ but ‘What is man, that God, the Creator of this vast universe, should care about us?’  Some talk too glibly about the love of God.  Let’s be astonished by it.

vv5f – Made to rule – dignity: a little lower than the heavenly beings.  God doesn’t just sit back and admire his handiwork: he has a plan us to rule over creation as his vice-regents.

An echo of Genesis 1:27f – created in God’s image to rule, not with contempt but with care, not with hubris, but with humility.  We cannot claim to truly worship God while being neglectful, or wasteful, of anything he has made.

Yes but…something has gone terribly wrong

• We can tame all kinds of wild animals, but cannot control ourselves.
• Using social media we can connect with thousands of people in an instant, for building friendships, or for cyber-bullying.
• Our reproductive technology is capable of preserving unborn life, and of destroying it.
• With industrialisation we have built machines of incredible power and utility, and at the same time have sown the seeds of catastrophic changes to earth’s climate.
• Using our telescopes we can reach into the farthest and oldest part of our cosmos, but are still blind to its Creator.
• We have mastered travel through land, sea and air, but still have not reached our desired destination, and found peace for our souls.

God’s image has been defaced, but not destroyed.

There hangs in the Chapel of Kings College in Cambridge a painting by Rubens.  ‘The Adoration of the Magi’.  In 1974 vandals broke in and defaced it by scratching three letters on it, each 2 feet high – ‘IRA’.  Next day, it was taken down, and a notice put up in its place: ‘It is believed that this painting can be restored to its original condition.’

Hebrews 2:6-9 – under restoration

‘We see Jesus’ – God’s perfect image-bearer (1:3), the last Adam (1 Cor 15), ‘the proper man’ (Luther).  Made ‘a little lower than the angels’, he is now ‘crowned with glory and honour’.

In him we are being restored to our original condition.  We find our true identity in Christ, the perfect, representative, human being.  ‘Here I am, and the children God has given me’

A work in progress.  V8 ‘We do not yet see everything subject to him’.  ‘Already’/’Not yet’.  Our life’s work an apprenticeship for the life to come.  We are being prepared to take our part in God’s new creation.  “I’m shaping this down here, so it will fit in up there.”

I am not what I was, I am not what I shall be, I am not what I should be, I am not what I desire to be. But, by the grace of God, I am what I am.