As a writer, I love words.

As a photographer, I love images, probably a little more than I love words.

As a designer and consumer of electronic information, I'm overwhelmingly bombarded with both words and images every day...

Word and Image are two of the most profound things I can imagine.

On a human level, while culture-bound words and images have similar roles (representing and communicating) they make their influence in very different ways, they are very different vehicles and we use them very differently.

It's fascinating to me that in contrast to this, on a spiritual level (for those who follow Jesus) Word and Image are one and the same when it comes to God's own identity.

Jesus is The Word who was with God in the beginning, The Word through whom all things that exist were made, including reconciliation: he is the great mystery of the Word becoming Flesh then becoming the perfect sacrifice then overcoming death.

Sticks and stones might break bones, but Word trumps Death.

While we are "made in the image" of God, Jesus is The Image of the invisible God.

While we have been made by the word (the Word as both actor and creative act; both the subject and the verb of God's sentences), Jesus is The Word.

While we are worded in the image of God, representing some of the beautiful things about the one who made us, Jesus IS the Word and IS the Image of God, representing all of the beautiful things about the one who made us.