The Great Iconoclast (Exodus 20:4 - 6)

Short teachings from Hillcrest Church further exploring Sunday's teachings.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, hope you're doing well. Tim here, and we are diving deep into the ten words of life. So the word that we are looking at this week, the second word, is this uh uh this commandment, this instruction against um idle idolatry. Uh you shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. Um then it goes on to talk about this punishing children and then covenant loyalty. Um it's interesting because it, you know, it talks about making the images and idols, and it doesn't actually, you know, the first commandment is about worshiping other deities. This commandment actually doesn't talk specifically, this these could be idols or images of other deities. They also could be images representing the living God. Um and so um there's some recognition here uh that we that that that the Israelites could both um worship other other gods and goddesses, but they also could try to represent Yahweh inappropriately. Uh and there's a in a sense a warning uh against that. I do think uh, you know, when I think about us, I think one of the things that this commandment reminds me of is the like the reality that we, it's like it's so easy to slip into worshiping um our ideas about God that we have made up in our own head and not God as God knows Himself to be, the reality. I mean, um part of this commandment is this um this deeply relational, even the the you language, like God is saying the I, Yahweh, the real Yahweh, wants to deal with you, the real you. I don't want to play uh religious games here.

unknown 2:09

C.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

S. Lewis um talked about God as the great iconoclast. I an iconoclast is someone who destroys um idols, uh, and that God is the great iconoclast. Um he in the in his book The Grief Observed, which is a powerful reflection on his um on his lament at the death of his wife, uh, which is worth reading just for itself. Um in it, he's he's processing through his grief. And he connects this uh he connects the way he's processing through the loss of his wife with this uh this reality about uh God, the iconic class. And this is how he connects it. Essentially, he says, he recognizes that he's got this fear that um that he that as uh his wife is gone and he looks back on the old photographs of her, that he will begin um remembering her not as she truly was, but as like an imaginative reconstruction of who he wishes she was. This is what he talks about. Um uh, you know, he says, I want her, not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and an obstacle. Um uh he goes on, um uh. The earthly beloved, even in this life, is incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her, you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness, that is, in her foursquare and independent reality. And this, not any image or memory, is what we are to still love, even after she is dead. Um, and uh what he's saying is there's this temptation. Um he's experiencing this temptation that that his wife in her reality, yeah, was resistant, disagreed, was unexpected. Um that and that was what she was like in reality. Uh you know, she had sharp edges, as it were, and that um the danger he's experiencing is to replace that with like a uh an imagination of her, like with the way he wishes she really was, and kind of this fictional version, this fictional memory. And this is he, because he wants to remember and honor the real her. This is what he's talking about. And what he does in this meditation is he connects this to the same temptation with how we relate to God. Um, and so I'm reading from the same passage, but now the part's about God. He says, I need Christ, not something that resembles him. Uh to me, um, uh, let's see, my idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time, and he shatters it himself. He, that is God, is the great iconoclast. You know, what he's saying is that God, as God comes to us, regularly is trying to destroy our false images of God. Um, could we not almost say that the shattering is one of the marks of his presence? The incarnation is the supreme example. It leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. Um, you know, you read through the Gospels, and all the the first century Jews had all these imaginations about what the Messiah would be like, and Jesus breaks them all. Uh most are offended by the iconoclasm. He's saying those first century Jews they were offended by the way Jesus broke expectations around the Messiah. And blessed are those who are not. But the same thing happens to us in our private prayers. Um, you know, he's and essentially, I don't see if there's anything else. Um, essentially he goes on to say that this is what we are called to. We are called to deal with the the true God. God as God knows himself to be, God in his reality, and to allow God in his reality to break down our false ideas about God um over and over again. And and then he extends it even to how we love our neighbor. He says, um, yeah, doesn't this extend? Um you know, it's so easy um to love the idea of our neighbor, but not the real person that is hard to love. And so he kind of extends this in all different directions. Um I think there's some interesting, this is like a kind of a rabbit trail. I've just found myself thinking about um artificial intelligence um and how there's this um this growing interaction. Like people you hear about people developing friendships with chatbots and romantic relationships with chatbots and how much we want uh we like people with all their sharp edges are hard. And wouldn't wouldn't we rather um a relationship with someone who always does what we want and agrees with us? And I mean that's exactly I mean Lewis would be horrified, but but because the the the AI chatbot is actually um uh it it actually allows us to create um this very thing to flesh it out. But that's a whole nother uh rabbit trail. Um for us in our in our relationship with God, um, I like I regularly find myself praying. I'll I'll say to God, I like I like I pray to you now, not as I even imagine you to be, but as you yourself know yourself to be. Um like I, you know, I I like I think in our hearts we need to continually recognize um that uh that we like God is infinite. And the the reality is is we always are are dealing with an approximation of God and we are seeking to move one step closer to how to who God truly is, as God knows himself to be. And you know, um and I think to the recognition of how do we do that, I think one of the main ways we do that is God reveals himself to in scripture, um, that we we don't know who God is by kind of um reaching up um to him uh out of our own selves. Because the danger is if we start with ourself, um, the danger is we're we will take the longings and desires, the fears of our soul, and project them onto the screen of the universe and just make God in our own image, make the God we wish for to exist. And I think what God, the gift and challenge God gives us is that God does reveal Himself to us through history and through that history carried through Scripture. Um, and it is to allow us to meet God in Scripture and to allow God to define Himself for us and and to meet Him with all his sharp edges. Um and fundamentally, um, and I'll just end with this that over and over again it brings us back to Jesus and to understanding Jesus as he himself reveals himself to be. Because the you know, the the final word of the New Testament um is this. I'll leave I'll end just with Colossians one that the Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. Um verse 19 of chapter one, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, and by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. And over again, what the New Testament declares is if we want to get H D, a high definition uh vision of uh of the living God, we have to look in the face of Jesus, to the words of Jesus, to the actions of Jesus, and this is where we turn over and over again. So be encouraged, God wants to know the real you and wants you to know the real God. And this is one of the ongoing challenges of our walk with Jesus. Grace and peace. May we know him.