After the last pastor’s conference I have been reading “Sculptor Spirit” by Leopoldo Sanchez, a Concordia Seminary – St. Louis professor who specializes in knowledge about the Holy Spirit. In Sanchez’s new book, he opens up a question about how we view and talk about the Holy Spirit and His work. This is a good thing as our approach most times has been either to ignore the Holy Spirit (or even actively hide Him away due to fear) or to become overly enthralled with the 3rd person of the Trinity at the expense of the 1st and 2nd.
Metaphorically, Sanchez approaches the Spirit as the person of God who sculpts us to form us into the likeness of Christ. At the end of our journeying on this earth so that “when He appears, we will be like Him.” (1 John 3) This got me thinking about what it means for us to be in “the likeness of Christ,” especially in terms of sculptures. Some sculptures of Jesus are more life-like and others are more interpretive. Some sculptures of Jesus are big and some are small. The sculptures can differ in material, in method, and in so many different ways – but still, when you see a sculpture of Jesus, there is something that communicates to you that it is Jesus’ likeness. 
There’s a meme/story about a son who gave his religious mother a picture of Ewan McGregor in his Jedi costume from Star Wars: Episode II, telling her it was a picture of Jesus. In the picture, Ewan looks somewhat like a typical picture of Jesus: expressionless but kind face, monastic looking robe, longerish hair, and stereotypically Caucasian features. If you look up the picture, you can probably get why the mom was fooled. Ewan bears something of the “likeness” of Jesus as the Son of God has been portrayed in art over the last few centuries.
But when the Spirit is sculpting us, He isn’t sculpting us to look like Ewan McGregor. The Spirit’s work isn’t “putting lipstick on a pig” to use the old adage. We don’t bear Christ’s likeness through walking around in robes with longish hair, a beard, and maybe a red sash and sandals. Instead, we bear Christ’s likeness through having our being formed by His. He does this by chiseling and forming us to be the likeness of Jesus who is the likeness of God.
There is a potential heresy in the metaphor, that the Spirit simply “carves away the bad and shows what is good on the inside of every human being.” That’s a simplistic and honestly narcissistic view of one’s self as a human. It is easy enough to side step as well when you think about the great sculptures. A great sculpture isn’t made simply of great material, but by the work of a master sculptor who has chosen his medium. The Father has made you a great medium for the likeness of Christ, but the artistry is the job of the Spirit, not the stone.
We are the medium of the Spirit, and His goal in us is not to create a carbon copy of Jesus, but to form us into being the likeness of Jesus. Because of this, we will look different from one another, but we will all bear marks that clearly show how we are formed into His likeness. For the next few newsletters we will look into the different ways in which the Spirit sculpts us to bear the likeness of Christ. But for this week, simply rejoice that the Spirit has begun to form you into the likeness of Christ, and look for evidences of His work in your life in forgiveness and absolution.