I was with trainee vicars recently – someone has to be. We met a lovely deaf woman called Hannah, who was asked through an interpreter if she thought she would be physically healed, or able to hear, before or after death.
“No”, she replied. “We are made in the image of God, and God is not a physically perfect human being.”
Hannah had accepted herself. Knowing we are divine can be hard, even and especially for religious people. But the message of Genesis begins by telling us how God created man in his own image, male and female, and God saw all that he had made, and it was good.
1 Corinthians 13 famously tells us how Love keeps no record of wrongs, but we bewail our sins as if God wants to be reminded of them:
“Remember not my sins, oh Lord!”
- “What sins? I forgot them long ago, you’ll have to prod my memory.”
We are aware of ourselves as evolved creatures who suffer, kill, eat, reproduce and die, which causes us immense anxiety. Perhaps sin should do, but we shouldn’t be stuck on it.
The Greek word for repentance: “metanoia”, means a turning of direction, a change of mind and heart, a new consciousness. In repenting we recognise original goodness, the grace of the living God. “The glory of God”, said Church Father Irenaeus, “is a human being fully alive.” Jesus’ type of life was full because he saw all this whilst in the world. But not everyone does.
“Why do you keep talking about mistakes?” said one spouse. “I thought you had forgotten and forgiven.”
“I have,” replied the other, “and don’t you forget it.”
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