Ikon — "made in the image"…

With increasing frequency we hear by way of the media of this or that public figure or sporting hero, being 'iconic'. However lyrical such a turn of phrase may be, the term 'icon' actually speaks far more deeply than the mere suggestion of someone being, 'symbolic' or an 'epitome'. The Greek word 'ikon' translates into English as to be "made in the image". Hence, when used in its truest and most profound sense, to be an icon is to be a living image of God, not God in essence, but God through participation in God.

	St John Damascene

In the Eastern Catholic tradition the prominent veneration of painted icons has always had two poignant pre-conditions which determine their liturgical use. The first, as the Syrian, St. John Damascene tells us, is that through them we give due honour to God and to those who consciously lived their lives realizing their vocation as being made in His image — the Saints. The Damascene defends veneration of Icons by stating that if we are so protective of images of our own parents and children, and give these items places of honour in our homes, we should give even higher honour to those who reflected the light of the Divine through their spirits while they were pilgrims here on earth.

However, what many Western Christians forget when they adopt the veneration of Icons is the second and perhaps most important pre-condition — that these Icons not be hung lower than the level of the eye. Eastern theology dictates that as we venerate the heroes of the Church, we should not eschew that we are the present, living, images of God, and respect is owed both to ourselves and to our neighbour, both who have been struck from Christ's template, both who are indeed the image of God (Genesis 1: 27).

A 'living icon' of God…

Too often we recoil from such a message which God has given, that we are worthy of His love, not by what we can become, but by the very nature of our being. The Book of Genesis tells us that we have been created in His image, male and female, black and white, healthy or infirmed, yet each individual a living icon of God, with the potential to rejoice in the eternal communion of saints. What therefore makes us images of God, must either transcend all differences, or encompass them all — the sheer diversity of humanity demands this to be so. In such a light, we as a Christian people must simultaneously embrace the span of our differences, and rejoice in our common nature. Prejudice, racism and bigotry deny the first, low self-esteem or pride eat away at the second. In such a light we can also see the truth in that by doing good or ill to our neighbour we do good or ill not only to another image of God, but also to God Himself who is integrated in our being.

Too often we also recoil from a close relationship with God, perhaps for the same reason that our eyes avert the direct vision of the sun — that it is too much for us to bear, or comprehend. Or perhaps we feel unworthy in our selves to be loved so much, because the negativity in society has slowly eroded our spirits, and has limited the reflection we have of ourselves in the mirror each of us carries within us. Every man shares this feeling at the moment when a woman tells him that she loves him — how could something so beautiful ever think the same of me; me, who has all these faults, and all these aches and pains from countless sporting injuries?

The Gospel of Luke gives us a wonderful message as to our inherent worthiness and the stature of who we are in the gamut of creation. In a well-known story, St. Peter is fishing at Lake Gennaseret with his brother Andrew, and James and John. They have toiled long hours and have failed to make a worthwhile catch. Christ tells Peter to pay out his nets one further time, to which a return so abundant threatens to sink the boat. Peter's reply is often ours when we are confronted by great love offered to us by someone, or when faced with a revelation of the awesome nature of God's being: "Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man". (Luke 5: 8). Christ's reply is all embracing, and all affirming — "Do not be afraid". (Luke 5: 10). At one and the same time, Christ teaches us to accept our dignity and our deservedness to be loved by God. True, we have the capacity to sin greatly, but as St. Peter himself later wrote in a letter, we are all obliged "to become partakers of the divine nature". (2 Peter 1: 4). We have an obligation to climb upward to God, and not to waste lives in self-pity and in self-denigration. We can and do sin, but we can and do soar to the heights — the choice is ours.

The Son of God vecame man, that we might become God…

St Athanasius of Alexandria

To be made in the image of God informs us that we are not God by essence, but God by participation with God. John the Evangelist expresses this so well when in his Prologue he writes: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name". (John 1:12) We can also recall the words of another early Church Father, St. Athanasius of Alexandria who asked us to remember that "The Son of God became man, that we might become God". Being made in the image of God demands for each of us to live up to the nature of what is within. We can either, using an allegory borrowed from Tolkien, sit in Bagend by the fireplace, smoking a pipe, letting battles and injustice rage around us, or take up the Ring and march to a greatness which we never quite fully understand, but which we know is somewhere deep within us.

The journey of the soul according to the Eastern Catholic fathers is heavily entwined with the concept of "theosis", possibly best described as the process of divinization, or the putting on of God. What is spoken by the Fathers is not a New Age pantheism, but rather it is the striving each day to tear away the shackles which pin us from striving to our upward climb, which restrict our pilgrimage to one day see the face of He who deemed us worthy to feast with His Son. In this striving upward we must begin to accept our worthiness as created as images of God, and appreciate the same in others. We climb upward, called all the while by Christ, who stretches out his hand across an abyss of fear and doubt, to pull us ever toward Him, upward to the fullest realization of our potential and the fullest revelation of His love.

©2007 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

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