Resurrection – life necessary

Glamour Shots in the Plaza Bonita Shopping Mall in National City, California, offered a
Mother’s Day special one year. “Can I give her a Mother’s Day to remember?”, the ad
read. “Yes, you can.”
Glamour Shots gave good ol’ Mom a new face fashioned by professional photographers
and make-up artists. (The Oprah Winfrey show recently bestowed such a paint-over on
an Encinitas, California resident. Coast News, January 22, 2010) From her existing
features they created dramatic changes that pleased the eye. It certainly proved the value
of paint over old surfaces.
That stirred a thought: Jesus does for our soul in conversion what Glamour Shots does
for the human face, but with significant differences. He uses MAKE-OVER, not MAKEUP,
to achieve our spirit’s renewal. The Holy Spirit, not liquids and creams and clever
photography, rebuilds us in Christ’s image. The photography may, for an instant, capture
a graceful glance lost in other facial contortions, but the Holy Spirit captures all that’s
pleasant and positive about us. And his changes last a lifetime, not hours; for experience
by experience in real life, not from a staged performance in a studio with lights adjusted
to a romantic instant and people of camera-skill freezing the instant good ol’ Mom might
seldom or ever have again.
Glamour Shots makes us what we usually are not; Jesus what we can always be. They
change us into something we wish we could keep; he into something we can’t ever lose.
They turn human reality into illusion; he turns human potential into divine realities. They
do it to show a better side of self; he to make a show-window of his Glory, Grace and
Truth. They paint or brush on what soap and water remove; he penetrates us to saturation
with holiness impervious to contamination. Under Glamour Shots make-up exists
someone who may not be pleasant once it’s removed. In Christ’s make-over exists a
permanent winsomeness.
Why be MADE-UP when we can be MADE-OVER? Why settle for what will only
amuse our friends when Christ gives what astonishes them? Why offer only what WE
ARE when Christ reveals through us what HE IS? Why tolerate a momentary freedom
from normal appearance when Christ wants to give us an entirely new life now and,
ultimately, an incredibly new body to house it?

Illustrations, courtesy of Ugly Dog Productions.
Blessings on Ya!
Pastor Kitner