What Does It Mean “To Be in Your Likeness”?

What does it mean to be in Your likeness?

In heaven You were perfect,

No scars marked Your brow,

No tears of pain and grief fell down Your cheeks,

Your hands had no nails driven in them,

Your side was not run through.

 

In heaven You were perfect,

Your visage unscathed,

Yet You chose the path to pain,

And death put You in the grave.

 

You did this because You didn’t want me to lose Your likeness,

My sins—my life—were what had almost obliterated

The likeness of You in me;

The hope of glory.

And You couldn’t bear to see me standing alone in my misery,

And so You came.

 

To walk how I walked,

So that I may walk as You walked,

To feel what I feel

So that I may feel what You feel for humanity;

To see what I see,

So that I may see others as You see them,

To love me unconditionally,

So that I, too, may love.

 

You came to cry aloud, to feel the pain,

The burden of sin, the sting of death.

 

What does it mean to be in Your likeness?

When one day I will reach out and touch Your hands

And ask You,

“What are these wounds in Your hands?”

How will I ever be able to look into Your eyes

When You reply,

“I was wounded in the house of My friends”

Knowing that I was one of those friends?

 

What does it mean to be in Your likeness?

When Your likeness will forever be marked and scarred,

So that my likeness will never again be marked and scarred?

 

For me You were scarred,

Your beauty was marred,

Yet those very scars

Are what make You

More than beautiful.

 

I can never transform myself into Your likeness.

Only You can do that for me.

From glory to glory.

 

Oh Lord, teach me, show me,

What it means to be in Your likeness.

 

May I one day rejoice as the psalmist did,

And exclaim,

“As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness:

I shall be satisfied,

When I awake, with thy likeness” (Psalm 17:15).