Bearing The Image (Mark #40)

The summer before I started first grade, my family moved. We went from a small two-bedroom house to what seemed — to a six-year-old — like an enormous four-bedroom house.

This new-to-us house was well over a hundred years old, and my parents decided it needed a few things done. Chief among them: the kitchen needed new wallpaper. I only vaguely remember it, but I’m told the existing paper was hideous enough to frighten off demons.

So my parents got out the steamer and started scraping. And underneath was another layer.

Maybe you’ve heard stories like this. But it wasn’t just one more layer underneath. It wasn’t two. There were four layers underneath. My parents’ kitchen had five layers of wallpaper, and it took what felt like forever to strip. I think they finally finished sometime around my high school years.

What I imagine is that every previous owner moved in, looked at the kitchen, decided the wallpaper was hideous, and wanted a change — but rather than deal with what was already there, each one simply slapped a new layer on top. It saved time and energy. And it created a nightmare for my folks.

A Lot of Us Are That Kitchen

I think a great many people live like that old kitchen. We want a new identity — something that will make us look better, feel better, be happier — so we go get something new. But in the process, we never deal with what’s underneath.

When I was a young adult pastor in Cedar Rapids, I saw this constantly. I watched young adults get a new dating relationship, a new job, take on debt for a nicer car. And as they acquired these things to feel better about themselves and to construct an identity, I kept noticing that the stuff underneath was never addressed.

The longer I’ve done ministry, the more I’ve realized this isn’t a young adult phenomenon. It’s a human phenomenon. We all do it. We get the new job. We upgrade the house. We get a dog. We reach for something that will confer an identity and make us feel better — and in adopting it, we’re really just layering it onto our lives without touching the core issue.

Today we’re going to watch Jesus confront exactly this. His words will sound innocuous at first, but as we look closer we’ll find that Jesus wants to strip away the ugly wallpaper of our lives — all the layers we apply to feel good and look better — and get down to the raw, gritty core.

Which means some of us may feel exposed. A little emotionally or spiritually naked. Possibly uncomfortable. And yet the reason we layer on the wallpaper in the first place is that we want to look good so we can find joy and peace — and what we’re going to discover is that neither is found in those identities. They’re only found in an identity in Christ.

The Passage

In Mark 12:13–17, the Jewish leaders send some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians to Jesus to trap him in his talk.

They open with flattery: Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God. And then the question: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?

But knowing their hypocrisy, Jesus says: why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it. They bring one, and he asks whose likeness and inscription is on it. Caesar’s, they say.

And Jesus says: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

And they marveled at him.

How the Trap Was Built

Last week we watched Jesus in conversation with these leaders at the end of chapter 11, flowing into the parable he tells in chapter 12 — a parable that exposed their intention to have him arrested and killed. They perceived it was about them, and verse 12 tells us they left angry and frustrated.

Throughout Mark we’ve watched these leaders dislike Jesus. He doesn’t play the religious game their way. He unsettles them. He’s ruining things. So they want him canceled — and they can’t manage it. He is the slipperiest person they’ve ever encountered. He gets out of everything.

So between verse 12 and verse 13, they go away and construct a plan.

Part One: Recruit Help

They’ve failed on their own, so they bring in reinforcements. And notice who: the Herodians.

The Pharisees and the Herodians never did anything together. They were as opposed as two rival political parties.

The Pharisees were devoted to religious law and wanted God as their king rather than Rome. The Herodians backed Herod — they also wanted Rome gone, but they wanted Herod on the throne. And the Pharisees despised Herod, whom they regarded as a fraudulent Jew playing the religious game purely to hold power.

These two groups disagreed on core issues. But they agreed on one thing: neither of them liked Jesus. The Pharisees had their reasons. The Herodians saw him as a threat to Herod — because if Jesus really was the Messiah, then the Messiah should be king, and they wanted that seat for their man.

So in a rare moment, they partner up.

Part Two: Go in Disguise

Not hats and fake mustaches — they send people to pretend. To act as though they genuinely like Jesus, are impressed by him, and respect him.

Hence the flattery in verse 14.

Have you noticed how differently you speak around people you’re genuinely comfortable with versus mere acquaintances? The way you discuss politics at home is probably not how you discuss it at the office or over the fence with a neighbor. We talk more freely with people we believe are on our side.

That’s the plan: if Jesus thinks we like and respect him, maybe he’ll drop his guard and say something incriminating.

Part Three: The Perfect Question

They need a question where every possible answer destroys him. And they have the ideal subject: Rome.

Most Jews disliked Rome — that wasn’t in dispute. The live controversy was whether you should actually pay taxes to Rome.

In our day the flashpoint question is a different one. Watch how pastors get interviewed by media and you’ll recognize the technique — ask the question that traps them and gets them canceled. In Jesus’s day, the flashpoint was taxes.

Here’s why it cut so deep. If you paid your taxes, you were fueling the beast — supporting Rome, propping them up. And to pay, you had to use a Roman coin bearing the image of Caesar with an inscription identifying him as divine. To a Jew, handling a coin declaring a man to be God felt like a denial of the true God. So there were people arguing: don’t pay.

But others argued the opposite: you must pay, because refusing dishonors the governing authority God has permitted to be in place, and therefore dishonors God.

Why They Reached for Jeremiah

Those of you who have been Christians a while know Romans 13 instructs us to honor governing authorities. But this conversation is happening before Romans was written. So they would have reached back to something like Jeremiah 29.

In Jeremiah 29, the prophet writes a letter to Jews in exile. People had not liked Jeremiah — in earlier chapters he told them repeatedly that God would bring an army against them because of their sin and they needed to repent. They ignored him. Then Babylon arrived, defeated them, and carried a large population back into exile, intent on assimilating them.

And then this letter arrives. I wonder whether some of them approached it warily — is he going to pile on with “I told you so”? More doom and gloom? Isn’t exile bad enough? Others may have hoped he’d announce that God’s punishment was complete and release was imminent.

Instead Jeremiah tells them to work for the welfare of the city. Put down roots. I’ve sent you here. Now do what you can to help these Babylonians.

In Jesus’s day, many people saw Rome as the new Babylon. So the argument ran: if this is the new Babylon, we work for its welfare — and part of that is paying taxes. Pay your taxes and you honor God.

Why Either Answer Ruins Him

Now you see why it’s the perfect question.

If Jesus says pay your taxes, the Pharisees take it and announce that he’s pro-Rome — and being pro-Rome makes him anti-Israel, and being anti-Israel makes him anti-God, so clearly he’s no Messiah. Canceled.

If Jesus says don’t pay, the Herodians run to the Romans: did you hear what he said? He’s inciting people against the government. Arrest him. Execute him. And with him eliminated, they can push their man toward the throne.

So they go in disguise, they flatter him, they ask the question, and they wait.

And everything goes perfectly until Jesus opens his mouth.

He Sees Straight Through Them

Verse 15: But knowing their hypocrisy…

He looks right through the disguise. Through the fake smiles. He knows these are frauds who neither like nor respect him and are simply trying to trick him. Mark has been showing us again and again that Jesus is King — God the Son — and as God he perceives hearts. He knows precisely what’s happening.

And then: Why put me to the test? Bring me a denarius.

A denarius was a Roman coin bearing Caesar’s image, worth a full day’s wages. To put it in modern terms, imagine a single coin worth roughly a day’s pay — not a quarter, but something genuinely valuable. And it was what you used to pay your taxes.

That coin was so offensive to Israelites that, according to background commentaries, they minted their own coinage without Caesar’s image. It was worthless outside the region, but within Israel that’s what they used.

And yet when Jesus asks for a denarius, these men produce one immediately.

I imagine the moment: Jesus holds out his hand, someone reaches to place the coin in it, and they’re nervous — not because they fear he’ll pocket a day’s wages, but because this is not in the plan. The plan was that he’d relax and start talking and hang himself with either answer. Nowhere in the plan did he ask them for a coin.

“Whose Likeness Is This?”

He takes it and asks whose likeness and inscription it bears. Caesar’s, they answer. And he says: render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

Imagine I pulled a coin out of my pocket and asked who it belongs to. You might say it’s mine, since I produced it. Someone quick might claim they’d lost it and I’d found it.

But look at the coin. My likeness isn’t on it, and neither is yours. There’s a former president stamped on the face — which tells you the coin technically belongs to the government. It may be in my possession, but only temporarily. They made it. They chose the design. They determined what it’s worth. I hold it briefly and spend it, and when I die I can’t take it with me — and the government will likely reclaim a portion anyway.

Same with that denarius. Caesar and the Roman government minted it, set its value, and declared it the instrument for paying taxes. So it belongs to them. Whoever handed it to Jesus was its temporary holder, and when tax time came that coin would go right back.

That’s why Jesus says render — a word that simply means give back. It already belongs to Rome. They lent it to you for your labor. Give it back.

Which Means: Pay Your Taxes

If you follow Jesus, you need to hear that. We pay our taxes. We render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.

You may dislike the current administration. You may have disliked the previous one. You may object to how Congress handles money right now. And Jesus offers no caveat. We’re part of this nation at this time, and God placed us here for a reason, so we work for the welfare of our country. We pay our taxes.

But he didn’t stop there. If he had, the Pharisees would have been thrilled — he just told us to fund the pagan Romans.

He kept going: and give to God what is God’s.

What Belongs to God?

I could ask what belongs to God, and some of you would immediately think everything — and you’d be exactly right.

But good interpretation means drawing the answer from the text itself. And Jesus is drawing a parallel. Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s — and what makes the coin Caesar’s? His image is on it.

So on the other side of the equation: what belongs to God is whatever bears God’s image.

And what bears God’s image? Humans.

In Genesis 1:26–27, God the Father, Son, and Spirit deliberate together: let us make man in our image, after our likeness — and give them dominion over the fish and the birds and the livestock and all the earth. So God created humanity in his own image; male and female he created them, and he blessed them.

You bear the image of God. Which means you belong to God.

Which is why God has the right to tell us what we should and should not do with our bodies. Why he has the right to tell us how to treat other people. Why he even has the right to tell us what to do with our money — including telling us to pay our taxes.

We bear his image. We bear his likeness. We belong to him. And therefore our identity should be found first and foremost in him.

Marred, But Not Erased

But that isn’t how we live. We inherited the rebellion of Adam and Eve. Their sin passed down through the generations, and it hasn’t weakened with time — if anything it’s grown stronger. So we still carry it, and it keeps us separated from God.

That image God placed in humanity was marred by sin. Distorted. Shattered. Broken.

But it was not eliminated. It’s still there.

Look at creation. It’s astonishing. God made the stars, the oceans, the mountains, the butterflies — all of it, and it’s beautiful. But on the sixth day he made humans, and he made us different by placing his image in us. He gave us will. Personality. Intellect. He built us for relationship.

That’s not to say animals lack these entirely — anyone who’s met a stubborn mule knows about will, some dogs have remarkable personalities, and dolphins are genuinely intelligent. But none of it comes close. That gap is the image of God, embedded in our very makeup. And though sin has distorted it, it has carried through all of history.

The image of God is in you. Therefore you belong to God.

One Application: Give Yourself to God

So I don’t have three clever takeaways today. I have one unpoetic point: give yourself to God.

It sounds easy and it’s extraordinarily hard, because we live in a physical world surrounded by tangible things — and because of that broken image in us, we keep trying to repair ourselves. And all we manage to do is find more ugly wallpaper and slap it on, while the core remains untouched.

So here’s what I think God is saying. Don’t find your identity first and foremost in your job. Don’t find it first in your family. Don’t find it in your income or your possessions. Find it first in Christ.

That doesn’t mean handing in your resignation tomorrow. It doesn’t mean disposing of your children or serving your spouse with divorce papers.

It means you don’t go to your job in order to get an identity. You find your identity in Christ through the gospel — in the image of God being restored in you — and then you carry that into your job to be a blessing.

You don’t enter your family looking to extract meaning and fulfillment from your spouse or your children. You find your identity first in the image of God being restored through Christ’s sacrifice, and then you go into your marriage to love and serve and give, and into parenting to lead and love and nurture.

Do you see the difference? You don’t go to these things to put them on you. You go into them to be a blessing.

If You’re Not a Follower of Jesus

If you’d say you’re not a Christian, thank you for reading this far. And your application point is the same one: give yourself to God.

When Adam and Eve sinned in that garden, the consequence transferred down through history, and you carry it too. But Jesus Christ went to the cross to die for that sin so it could be paid for and the damage repaired. His blood became the currency. He spent it to buy you back.

Most people, when they grasp that the gospel is true, confess their sins and give their life to Christ — because they realize he gave himself for them.

And If You Already Have

For many of you there was a moment when you knew it was true and gave yourself to God. But you may be realizing that isn’t actually your first and foremost identity anymore.

You’ve layered on the wallpaper of your job. The wallpaper of your possessions. Your hobbies. Your appearance.

And today God is saying: give that over to me. Maybe that’s an emotional surrender. Maybe there’s something you physically need to give up. What have you been layering on and calling your identity? Today God wants to strip it away and get to your raw, unadorned core.

And rather than that being a frightening place, it’s actually the safest place — because Jesus sees straight through our hypocrisy anyway. He sees through the disguises and the forced smiles. He can strip it all away and reach the core of who we truly are. That’s exactly where God wants us.

You Are Doubly His

Maybe you need a little more convincing.

In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul is writing to a badly troubled church in a city saturated with corrupting influences, including ritual prostitution attached to temple worship. And in the middle of that discussion he writes: you are not your own, for you were bought with a price.

Paul says it in a conversation about sexuality — you can’t simply hand your body wherever you please — but the principle reaches into every area of life. You were bought with a price, so you are not your own.

Do you see what that means? You are doubly his. God created you and placed his image in you. And when sin snatched you away, Jesus Christ paid the price and bought you back. He created you and he purchased you.

Come to the Table

So as we come to the communion table, hold onto that truth. The image of God is in you. And when your sin broke it, God was not repulsed. He didn’t back away. He didn’t decide he was finished with you.

He loved you so much that Jesus Christ left his throne in heaven, took on human flesh, lived a sinless life, and died in the sinner’s place.

I have no idea what your past holds. I have no idea what this past week held. I have no idea what you’ve been building your identity on. But God does — and he loves you.

It doesn’t matter how hideous your wallpaper is. He isn’t frightened by it. He loved you enough to go to the cross for you.

That’s why we come to this table in remembrance of him.

And if you’re not yet a follower of Jesus and remain unconvinced, I’d ask you respectfully to abstain from the elements. You don’t need to perform anything, and there’s no one here you need to impress. Instead, have a conversation with God. Ask him: Is it true? Did you create me with your image in me? Is that image genuinely distorted by sin? Did Jesus really come to live a sinless life and die in my place?

And if in that moment you sense the Holy Spirit answering yes — then take that holy moment and give yourself to him.