The Netflix -- and I always think of it that way: THE (pronounced “thuh”) Netflix, like I think of stores as THE Ross or THE Walmart -- The Netflix just may be another addiction passenger on my struggle bus.  I find “comfort” series that I watch over and over (NCIS, anyone!?), and I’m always on the prowl for others, old or new, that will feed my habit.

This week I found an old gem; the original Star Trek series is available to view! I’m not a Trekkie, but I like the old ones a lot.  I settle in each evening with a quilt and watch an episode or two.  The pilot episode (sans James T. Kirk, can you even imagine!? A later pilot episode included him, according to the Interweb) that I watched this week was called “The Cage.”  

The Enterprise with Captain Pike (he is Kirk’s Admiral in the movies with Chris Pine) is called to rescue survivors on a planet, and when Pike and Spock arrive they find a group of crusty, aged crewmembers and a beautiful young lady, full grown, who was just a baby when the crash happened.

As the episode progresses, we find that the crusty old crewmembers are an illusion, and the brainy species of the planet has lured the starship there to capture a human specimen for their “zoo.”  The beautiful lady is indeed a survivor, but she was badly injured and the aliens who put her back together had no idea what a human looked like. When the illusion is revealed, the gal has been assembled something like a Picasso painting!!

That got me thinking… How much do we resemble the original?  We call ourselves “little Christs” -- Christians -- but often we have assembled ourselves with little thought to what the original looks like.  How many times have I read comments on facebook (or made them myself) or been told by well-meaning people, “That is NOT what Jesus would say/do”? And yet how well do we know Him to make those kinds of statements? What can we do to know Him well enough to be authentically “Christian” — to look/act/be like Jesus?

EXPERIENCE HIM

I’ve heard it said that people who are married for decades often end up looking alike.  I think the same is true of resembling Jesus. We have to put the time in!! Otherwise we will present a Picasso-esque version of Him to the world.  

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a sister-in-law a few years ago.  “How do you fix pumpkin out of the garden?” she asked me. And I told her to cut out the top, scoop out the seeds and such, put the top back on and bake it for an hour at 350 degrees.  Her next query was “Have you ever done that before?” “Um, no. But I read about it once!”  I had great difficulty convincing her it would work because I’d never experienced that method of preparing pumpkin.

Similarly, if our experience with Jesus is limited only to reading about Him, the likeness to Him will be limited.  Jesus invites us to experience Him; His “follow me” is a call to spend time with Him, to hear/see/do what He did.  “I only do what I see the Father doing,” He told His disciples (John 5:19), and we are to follow His example. The chronicles of His life are available to us to explore and read and process, and ultimately, to duplicate.

LOOK IN THE MIRROR!

Are your eyes where they are supposed to be? Your lips? Your hands? When I ride anywhere with Jeff, I pull the passenger seat visor down to check my appearance.  I’ll do it three or four times before we reach our destination.  It’s not that I’ve changed in the last five minutes; I just can’t recall what the total picture looks like! So I check. Again and again. And again.  

James wrote, “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”  (James 1:23-25)

The same way we check our physical appearance should be true of our spiritual appearance.  The only mirror that can perfectly reflect both who we ARE and who we SHOULD BE is the Word. Seeing ourselves through the lens of Jesus and Scripture will reveal what needs to be “tweaked” to more closely resemble His perfection.

GIVE YOURSELF GRACE

After the aliens became aware of what a human should look like, they presented the image of a perfect female to the crew of the Enterprise. She knew what was hidden from view, as we do. That shouldn’t stop us from striving to be like Jesus! The apostle Paul wrote,

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:12-14 NIV

There is grace for the days we are less than perfect, forgiveness for when we show our Picasso Jesus to the world. His grace is sufficient to cover our sin.  Like the alien’s “cloak” of beauty, Jesus reveals Himself in us when we surrender to the process of following Him.

The episode ends with Captain Pike asking the aliens, “Will you restore the girl’s illusion of beauty?” And they answered they’d do better than that; they’d give her a companion (who looked like the dishy Pike, of course).

I am grateful that Jesus restores our beauty before God. And that He has given us a companion, His Spirit, to be with us on our journey to “seek out new life… to boldly go where no man has gone before.”