When we Serve Someone we Serve another who Images God

When we serve another person, we serve one who also Images God.  To serve another requires us to do it with humility, with honor, and with love and grace.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux wrote, regarding humanity made in the image of God, that while our imaging may be tarnished and corrupted by sin, it is not destroyed.  Christ's incarnation as human, and willingness to be like us (sleep, eat, play) but for Christ (the perfect and sinless God-man) to redeem and rescue humanity, demonstrates God love for humanity and the whole of creation.  Matter matters to God-- He, being God becomes flesh.  More, the Resurrection, and our future resurrection, directly opposes the false belief of us dying and going to Heaven.  We don't go to "heaven" (maybe temporarily) but it isn't where we dwell eternally.   There is a new (renewed) Heaven and new Earth.  The New Jerusalem (a city!) comes down to earth.   

This has profound implications in how we treat each other, and how we care for the marginalized, the elderly, the ill, the orphans, and others.  Importantly, when we embrace each other as one who is made in the image of God, we are to value everyone that we encounter each day as God values them.     

I am reminded of this when my Indian friends greet me.  "Namaste": meaning, to see God's image in the other person.  Let us serve and love each other with Namaste.