Reflected glory

How clear a picture do we present?

Winter is on the run. I can’t say I’m sorry to see it leave. And it never exits easily, like an overlong house guest who lingers at the door to tell just one more tedious story. Or three.

But I can excuse its slow retreat when it leaves an abundance of pools of reflective water -- and when the melting ice frames and fractures those likenesses, reducing them to intricate glimpses.

Random mirror images fascinate me. They display a type of once-removed reality. The object in the reflection seems tangible and solid, but it’s only a facsimile. Imagine if we only had such copies of nature to study. We’d still discern information. We’d get the big picture, but not the details.

Like this tree. I love how we view the tree in the reflection, but within the dark tone of the trunk and branches we also see the stones embedded in the concrete under the puddle of water. It reminds us that we are seeing a reproduction.

This nudges my thoughts toward to our life in Christ. Paul comes close to this concept of reflecting in 2 Cor. 4:6, where he writes:

For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

God’s glory can be seen in the “face of Christ.” Calvin explains, “God’s glory is invisible in itself, but it shines in the face of Christ, so that we behold it in Him as in a mirror.” If we want to see the greatness of the “Immortal, Invisible,” we look intently on the life of the Son.

And, amazingly, in that gaze on Jesus’s reflected glory, Paul teaches, we ourselves become reflections!

But we are such flawed mirrors. Not only imperfect but impeded. The ice sheets on the river today permit such little slices of reproductions.

I have such a longing to present Jesus to the world through my life. But so many things interfere – certainly my own self-centeredness and sin, but also time and opportunity. Since I moved to our new town, I’ve realized how much I need to seek out interactions. And to do so with constant prayer and awareness.

Though impeded, even as the times grow darker, our witness to the glory of God through our relationship with Jesus can be a beautiful, hopeful invitation to an unimaginable life of abundance.

The day is coming when the ice sheets will melt. (Come quickly, spring!) And we will behold God’s glory unimpeded. (Come quickly, Jesus!) Until then, may we give the world glimpses of the wonder of being reconciled to God.

Jesus, even as you shine forth the glory of your Father, would you do the same through us? Remove the obstacles so that our reflection might be accurate.

Reader: where have you seen an engaging reflection – either in nature or in the nature of a Christian friend?