IMAGE!

They say that fools and their money are soon parted. The rest of us wait until income tax time. And it’s almost here. Next week!

(Hey, did you ever notice that if you omit the space “The IRS” reads “Theirs”?)

We’re also in Holy Week, the last week of Lent. Apart from those ecclesiastical lunar cycles and vernal equinoxes that juxtapose tax week and Holy Week, any connection between cash and Crucifixion, possessions and Passion, lucre and Lent?

Lots! There is more than one episode in the Gospels that connects dough with a donkey ride, moola with Maundy Thursday, and loot with the Last Supper.

Indeed, even taxation figures prominently in the accounts of this final week. Soon after Jesus rode into His capital city on Palm Sunday, one of His adversaries asked Him whether the local version of Uncle Sam (His “Divine” Eminence Tiberius Caesar) deserved the Jews’ tribute. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,” was Jesus’s rejoinder, pointing out that the coinage of the realm bore that entity’s image. “And,” He added, “render unto God the things that are God’s”—meaning, evidently, the things that bear God’s image. Now what would that be? Or, rather, who might that be?

God created mankind
in his own image,
in the image of God
He created them,
male and female
He created them.
Genesis 1:27

Thus, Abe’s paraphrase of Mark 12:17: “Fine, give back to that character Caesar these bits of metal he claims are his—these trinkets with his image embossed on them. But, give God everything that carries His image—all of Y’ALL!”

And that’s not all …

At the end of that chapter (Mark 12), Jesus proceeds to show us one who did exactly that—give herself to God. After pointing out that blessed woman to His disciples, He says:

“Truly I say to you,
this poor widow put in more
than all the contributors
to the Temple treasure;
for they all put in out of their surplus,
but she, out of her poverty,
put in all she owned,
all she had to live on.”
Mark 12:43–44

She gave her heart, her soul, her mind, her strength—her everything to God. The tinkling of those two mites tumbling into the coffers of the Temple was the sound of her life being poured out to the Almighty.

He demands it. From you. From me. All of it. All of our lives.

In fact, Jesus had just said so. Quoting from Deuteronomy 6 (Sh'ma Yisrael) …

“And you shall love
the LORD your God
with all your heart,
and with all your soul,
and with all your mind,
and with all your strength.”
Mark 12:30

There’s more …

After a didactic interlude, Mark 13, Jesus returns to this theme. Another anonymous woman (at least in this Gospel). She is “wasting” a gallon of perfume (a TON of $$, a year’s salary) on Jesus. But Jesus’s opinion?

“Truly I say to you,
wherever the gospel is preached
in the whole world,
what this woman has done
will also be spoken of
in memory of her.”
Mark 14:9

And Mark fails to give us her name! She is “everyone”! … Or should be.

Divine-image-bearers that we are, God claims what is rightfully His. Let us, as we approach the end of the season of Lent, resolve to give God His due. All of our selves.

Therefore I exhort you,
brothers and sisters,
by the mercies of God,
to present your bodies
as a sacrifice—
alive, holy, pleasing to God ….
Romans 12:1

Imago Dei. All of us. His. For Him. Pour out.