Today we celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy, because we icons in our architecture, our liturgical artwork, and our worship. This ancient tradition of using Christian artwork as part of our authentic worship of the One True God was debated, and icons won the day.
What is an icon? An icon is an image. Nowadays we have videos and photos in addition to artwork, but these are all images. How many of you have seen Punch the monkey this week? Well, but we haven’t actually seen Punch, have we? We’ve seen an icon of Punch. And to you and me, Punch is real. Well, icons work the same way. The difference is that this artwork isn’t trying to match what our eyes see in the world. But pictures and videos are images- icons – too.
Why do we have icons in our worship? Because matter matters! Matter matters. When the fullness of time had come, the Son of God took flesh and dwelt among us – deigned to be born of woman, born under the law. And the incarnation affirms that God stands by what was said in Genesis: that God made the heavens and the earth, and he saw that it was good. Jesus’ presence affirms this decision – the world is worth saving. Created, physical matter is worth saving!
It is not a promise that all things will be saved, but all of us and everything in this world have the potential to be saved. You all know what potential means, yes? Just like the bread we use for liturgy – it has the potential to become what it was meant to be – the body and blood of Christ. The process is now underway for these five loaves, but it isn’t finished yet! So it is with all of us and all the created world – through our baptism and through Jesus’ incarnation, and crucifixion, and through his bodily ascension into heaven, he confirms our saving potential and shows that this process is underway.
And because Jesus Christ was a person, we can paint pictures of him as a person. Does that somehow leave out the part of him that is God? That’s silly. There is not a part of Jesus that is godly and a part of him that is just human. It’s not like his voice raised Lazarus from the dead, but his feet got tired. His hands healed the blind men but his nose got itchy like mine right now. The mystery of Christ is that He is fully God and fully human. And our icons of him don’t make any division or confusion about that. These icons are the image of Jesus, and Jesus is the image – the icon- of the Father (Paul tells us). His Father by nature, and our Father through adoption.
So because (1) matter matters and because (2) our Creator says that we still have the potential to be saved, and because (3) in the one person, Jesus is fully God and fully Man, we paint images of our savior. And we venerate the image, because we know that respect we show to an image goes back to the person who is pictured here.
We all know this. Do you hang pictures of your family members on the wall? Yes! Would you ever draw a mustache on grandma’s photo? Not if you love her and value your freedom! That is disrespectful. How? Because the image of something has meaning… to us. Pictures and videos and icons are images that help us connect to real people. And we show them love and care and respect! Icons are not different! They simply aren’t trying to depict what our eyes can see. They tell a slightly different story, like we do with filters on photos or reels or shorts. Editing content.
Now, I know at least some of you are familiar with Moses and the 10 commandments, yes, including that one about “thou shalt not make any graven images of anything in heaven or on earth”? So why did God give that commandment if it was all going to go away after Jesus came? And why didn’t Jesus or the apostles tell us we could skip Commandment number 2 now?
Idols, whether paintings or statues, were icons, too. They were images. And they were images that were made of other gods. False gods. And they were heavy. The bigger and heavier and stronger your idol, that means the bigger and heavier and stronger was your god. Your god was huge and your city walls were huge and nobody could conquer you. These graven images had weight. KBD (kavod). Heaviness. Splendor. Worth. Glory. In Greek, this becomes doxa – Glory, brightness.
But the Glory of the LORD has no weight at all! When we encounter the Glory of God in scripture, it is light. A pillar of flame, a cloud. Lightning and thunder. We hear that God rides on the wings of cherubim – better still, we hear that God rides on the wings of the wind. He has no weight at all. He zips about freely, everywhere present. And God is also a creator. He loves to create. Loves to make things. And he already created his own icons. His own statues, his own temples.
And do you know what they are? It’s us! The Glory of God is a human being. The Glory of God – the icon of God - is a human being. We know that Jesus is the image of God the Father – he is the Glory of God the Father. But he was able to fulfill what we all have the potential to become, through Jesus Christ. Matter matters, and we are all the glory of God.
Now, this sounds very nice, and calling ourselves the glory of God. That’s as bold as calling today the Triumph of Orthodoxy. But here’s the catch. If I am the glory of God, then so are you. And so is that coworker I got mad at on Thursday. And so is the person I cut off on my drive here this morning. And so is my screaming baby brother and sick mother-in-law.
And we need to start treating each other with the respect that we show our Christian artwork.
We stand here surrounded by all these strange saints from every walk of life, and we look at them with reverence and admiration and curiosity, or at the very least, polite indifference. Are we even that respectful to the people in our neighborhoods or schools or offices, or even at our dinner tables?! Polite indifference would be charitable compared to some of the things we actually say or do. Yikes.
We venerate the icon of these Myrrhbearing women when we enter the church. There are lots and lots of images of women we look at in this world – in person, in advertisements, on our phones or computers? Or is reverence the right word to describe our viewing of female images, or is it actually something worse? Our society has been plagued with inappropriate images for decades now – and they are instantly accessible from the devices in our pockets. Those pictures and videos are of real people. These are icons of humans, remember. They are the glory of God.
Our news inundates us with images – caricatures – of people in our world, tailoring extreme, attention-grabbing headlines out of the simplest things. The process is incredibly dehumanizing. When we follow along, when we have untampered emotional reactions to people we aren’t in the same room with, what are we doing?! Certainly we are not seeing these caricaturized versions of people – usually elected leaders – as images of God.
And – this one is tough to process – the people we bombed half a world away, who themselves are guilty of murdering tens of thousands of people over the years – they too, are the glory of God. They too, are icons, and as human beings, they have the potential to be saved. “Do I desire the death of the wicked?” says the Lord twice, through Ezekiel (18:23 / 33:11)? “No, but that he turn back from his sins and live.” Was there a wise thief among them, who in a single instant confessed his sin, cried out to Christ and was granted salvation? I don’t know. But most of us can’t even conceive this possibility! And that is really too bad for us. Because icons have meaning… to us.
Today is the Triumph of Orthodoxy – the triumph of icons in our worship. A true celebration of this feast is not merely the carrying of icons in a procession – we’re almost there, guys! – or the kissing and veneration of icons in our churches and homes. A true celebration of Orthodoxy is the veneration of all the human images we see as icons, and the reverence and respect of all the humans we meet or contemplate, who are all created in the image and likeness of God.
Matter matters, and we all have the potential to be saved by our Lord Jesus Christ, the true icon of the Living God.
