We are all mirrors cracked. Man, as man, was made to reflect the glory of God. Adam and Eve were put into the Garden to reflect their Maker, to show forth His glory. In defying Him and eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil the mirror that we were shattered.
While we rightly mourn over this destruction, we would be wise to note that it is not, at least yet, total. A shattered mirror isn’t something we want to use to help us shave, but it retains some of its former features. That is, a shattered mirror is part mirror, part cracks. The image may indeed be hideous, but it is still an image. God made us to worship Him, and to exercise dominion over His creation for His glory. In our fallen state we worship the creature rather than the Creator, and exercise dominion for our own glory. That we worship is a sure sign that there is mirror left in us. That we worship creatures is a sure sign that there are cracks. That we exercise dominion is where we see the mirror pieces. That we do it for our glory is where we see the cracks.
But God. When we are born again, when we embrace the work of Christ for us, we are declared to be whole, righteous, all mirror and no crack. When our Father looks at us He sees Himself, because He sees His Son, the express image of His glory (Hebrews 1:3). Sanctification is that process by which we are being remade into what He has already declared us to be. The scars, the cracks in our mirrors are healed over time such that we more accurately reflect who He is. We become over time more and more mirror, less and less crack.
The process, however, moves in the opposite direction as well. Those who are outside of Christ, who have not been given the gift of new birth, instead grow more dead. They yet have slivers of mirror, out of which they may love their children, help those in need, exercise dominion. Those slivers, however, are becoming smaller and smaller. In us cracks become mirror. In them mirror becomes cracks. Glass is ground into dust from which we all came. C.S. Lewis, as he is wont to do, said it better in The Weight of Glory:
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
May we learn to show more to mirrors cracked the One who makes us whole.