Let’s face it. We are all image-conscious. That’s not a bad thing. You wouldn’t want go to a job interview looking like you just got up in the morning. It wouldn’t be good to have no concern about how you are perceived by others, or, more importantly, by yourself. Self-image is important. But there is something even more important, and it keeps self-image from being an unhealthy obsession. We can benefit in this from a Biblical-historical perspective.
John the Baptist appeared on the scene when his nation’s self-image would have been very low. Luke makes a point of providing the historical-political setting in which John appears (Luke 3:1-3). Israel was surrounded in its setting and experience by powerful, unfriendly forces, and this had been the case for a long time, centuries in fact. They were ripe for a hero to lift them to new heights, reliving the glories of old, restoring their image, you could say. But who announces this? One who appears in the desert, a wild figure, pointing to one, Jesus, who is the opposite in appearance of the conquering hero.
Nevertheless, there is something about this Baptizer who recalls Elijah and the hope of the ages. Such hope would not be disappointing, because it all points to the one who alone is worthy to rescue the people–all people–from what really ails us, more than any self-image issues: a sense of worth, which cannot come just from a good self-image. It runs much deeper, and withstands what can easily cause a good image of ourselves to evaporate, say, when we fail badly. Sure we say then that we just pick ourselves and get back at it, but the truth is that not everybody does. There are countless human tragedies stemming from failure of self-image.
What is the answer when, like John’s people in their collective experience, you feel oppressed and beaten down by others, but circumstances, by life itself?
Two handy and apparently popular options are: 1. Wall owin victimization and blame of others. 2. Find victims of your own to oppress, i.e., become a bully.
Or, 3, you can change your mind, how you think and deal with such circumstances. A word for this kind of change is repentance. You can say, I’m not even going to think in such categories as options 1 and 2. No matter what happens, no matter what I have to deal with, I refuse to waste my life on what can only bring (further) pain and pointless, soul-sapping misery. I am worth more than that, not from how I view myself, but from how God sees me, loves me, and accepts me, no matter how I might, at times, see myself.