Some old Orthodox branches of Christianity are into Icons:
They are pictures that depict Jesus or past saints. Some of these are ancient
works of art and very precious to them.
The trouble with Icons is that they are a painting of a
painting of a painting etc. Like a rumour or piece of gossip they change or
“morph” over time and various interpretations emerge. No-one gets the original
idea.
Our own faith can be like this as we continually re-invent
our Christian life to fit the environment or circumstances we find ourselves
in. We lose the pure and simple sense of an “original.” The Image we portray is
not “minted” but is “munted”. Our life can become a distorted image of Jesus
Christ.
Image in scripture can be translated as Icon (Eikon in
Greek) which is an interpreted image or picture. Another word is Character
(Charagma in Greek.) The sense of Charagma is that of an exact image such as a
coin made from the same stamped impression. It is hard to turn what has been
truly minted to munted unless you put “U” in the picture.
No comments:
Post a Comment