Reflecting God’s Character
We live in a world driven by screens. From our phones to our tables, we rely on glass surfaces to display high-definition text, crisp images, and vibrant videos. But anyone who has ever used a phone or tablet knows how quickly the screen collects fingerprints, grease, and dirt. As the smudges accumulate, the image becomes harder to see. Eventually, the screen can obscure what it is supposed to display.
In Leviticus 19, God says, "Be holy, for I am holy" (v. 2). In essence, God calls His people to reflect His character clearly to the world around them. He calls us to look to His perfection and, by His grace, reflect His goodness in our lives. In this chapter, He makes that calling especially practical in how we conduct ourselves in our dealing with "our neighbor."
But our screens get smudged. In our relationships, those smudges can take many forms: showing favoritism by treating someone popular or influential differently from someone else; passing along juicy workplace gossip or using a text thread to tear someone down; or, when someone hurts us, burying our resentment rather than addressing the hurt directly and gently. These thing may seem small at the time, but they cloud our witness and distort the picture of God's character that we are called to reflect.
When this happens, the words of St. Paul describe us all too well: "I do not understand what I do... For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do- I keep on doing...What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?" (Romans 7:15a, 18b-10, 24). How can I "be holy" when I cannot make myself holy? How can I reflect God's Perfection when my own life is so often clouded by sin?
Paul answers his own desperate question: "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:25). What God demands, He also provides. Jesus did what we could never do: He lived the perfect, holy life we have failed to live. He took our sins - all of them - to the cross, where He paid sin's penalty with His own blood. Through His death and resurrection, He forgives our sins and clothes us in His rightness. We do not become holy by cleaning ourselves up enough to earn God's favor. Through Christ, God declares us righteous and claims us as His own.
And He does not leave us wondering whether this promise is for us. In Baptism, He claimed us as His own. In His Word, He assures us again and again that we belong to Him. At His Table, He gives us Christ's body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins. Through these gifts, the Holy Spirit sustains our faith and works in us, shaping how we live and how we treat our neighbors.
So, as we deal with our neighbors, God calls us to see them as Christ sees us, to treat them as Christ treats us, and to love them as Christ loves us. Not because we have perfected ourselves, but because Christ has redeemed us and continues to work in us.
We will still get smudged by sin. We will still fail to love as we should. But our hope is not in our ability to keep ourselves perfectly clean. Our hope is in Jesus Christ, who forgives us, renews us, and continues to work through us.
We are God's redeemed, holy, dearly loved people - not because we perfectly reflect Him, but because Christ has made us His own. And, by His grace, He enables us to reflect His love to the neighbors He places in our lives