See the photo that runs with this column? Let’s look—it’s here somewhere.
Hmmm, what do we see—a smiley new photo or the old one that refuses to die?
You may not have noticed, but the same picture isn’t used every week with my column. Actually, I hope you haven’t noticed; after all, the picture is irrelevant. I hope my words aren’t, but the picture is. To everyone, that is, except me.
And the picture only matters to me because it’s become a “thing,” a molehill I’ve gone and made into a mountain.
You see, I hate to have my picture taken. When I see photos of myself, I invariably ask, “Do I really look like this?,” always hoping the answer will be, “Heavens no, you look LOTS better.”
The newspaper ran the same picture with my column for years, but when it was time for an updated version, I gave them one. Occasionally, some honest soul would tell me they didn’t think the newer photo did me any favors. Photos never do, I’d say.
My daughter-in-law volunteered to take on the ultimate photographic challenge—me—and, wonder of wonders, I liked the picture. Or at least I didn’t hate it, which is progress.
I asked the newspaper to start running the new picture with my column, and they did, for awhile. But the old one kept popping back up. So I emailed and asked them again to please run the new one. And they did, for awhile.
Then, here it came again—the old zombie photo, up from the dead.
Old…new…new…new…old. That’s how it’s gone. And no one probably notices or cares but me. One time I emailed and practically begged the editor to stop whatever important thing he was doing and to immediately delve into the murky depths of his computer files to delete the old photo. Drive a stake in its heart, for Pete’s sake.
I hoped he did, but he didn’t. The photo lived on.
“Okay, so that’s how we’re playin’ this,” I thought, thinking in my best James Cagney voice. I emailed the editor and half-jokingly said, “Next time you run that picture, I’m writin’ about it.”
He did, so I am. It’s the principle of the thing, and here’s the principle: Sometimes we just want to leave the past in the past. Sometimes we don’t want to be judged on what we used to be like.
I freely admit that my picture in this newspaper isn’t important at all , but this transcending principle is incredibly important in other arenas. It’s the very truth that makes the gospel of Jesus Christ so freeing.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
A new start—that’s what Christ offers. A genuine new start, not something manufactured or fragile like a government witness protection program. The New Testament is full of new beginnings. So is the church. So is my life.
At the age of 19, I came to Christ and handed Him my slate full of sins. He not only wiped it clean, He wrote upon it all His righteousness and gave me a brand new start. The old me, the old image, the old zombie picture was gone.
People (and newspapers) may have a hard time letting go of what we used to look like, or used to be, but God doesn’t. We humbly bring Him all that we are, and He joyfully gives us all that Christ is.
Forgiven, clean, new. Amazing grace.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” – 1 John 1:9