Stamped With God's Image

TODAY'S DEVOTION:

Stamped With God's Image

In today’s readings, we journey through the wilderness with the people of Israel and we hear the words of Jesus confronting tricky questions from religious leaders. What emerges is a striking invitation to remember who we are, and to whom we belong.

As Moses recounts Israel’s wanderings in Deuteronomy 1 and 2, we witness a story of human frailty—fear, rebellion, and wandering—and God’s persistent, patient presence. Despite Israel’s missteps, God never abandons them in anger or retribution. He guides, feeds, and tends them, always seeking their restoration and flourishing. This is not the story of a violent deity craving appeasement, but of the nonviolent, faithful God revealed supremely in Jesus—in the Trinity’s love, endlessly patient, desiring wholeness for creation. Even when correction comes, it is to renew and to heal.

In today’s Gospel reading (Mark 12), Jesus faces a trap—should God’s people pay taxes to Caesar? Rather than aligning with political power or violence, Jesus reorients the conversation. “Whose image is on this coin?” he asks. “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” What bears God’s image? We do. All of humanity is divinely stamped; we belong to a God whose love has no rival and who seeks to set us free from all lesser allegiances and idols.

Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One, does not win through violence or demand satisfaction for wrath. Instead, he triumphs by forgiving, by laying down power, by breaking the cycles of oppression and death—Christus Victor, liberator of all. The real “tax” owed is to return love for love, to entrust ourselves back to the God whose image we bear. As Hunter reminds us, “our only hope in life and death is that we are not our own, but belong to God.”

Let us then, like Israel finally crossing into promise, like the widow who gave her last coin, return our whole selves to God—not out of compulsion or fear, but joy, knowing we are beloved and remade in Christ. Let the traps of money, politics, and power lose their grip. Let idols fall, and let us find, in giving ourselves fully to God, our deepest joy and truest life.

That’s a prayer I have for my own soul—my family, my wife, my daughters and my son. And it’s a prayer I have for you: May you know how deeply you belong. May you live stamped with the image of the Triune God, walking in hope, free and beloved.

May it be so.