If you’re as old as I (older than red dirt), then you’ll agree with what I’m about to say.  Mirrors don’t tell the truth.  I’ll say it even plainer - mirrors lie.   Candid photographs, on the other hand, tell the dirty, rotten truth.  Here’s how I know.

Alice and I drove all night a few weeks ago to try to be present for the arrival of our newest granddaughter in Albuquerque.  We arrived 30 minutes after her birth - perfect timing, in my opinion.  When we walked into the room, she was in the arms of her other grandfather, who lives in Albuquerque.  He gladly handed the baby to me - but I deferred to Alice.  Ladies first, you understand (I’m a traditionalist).  

After a few minutes, it was my turn to hold Adalynn Rose Day.  What a thrill!  She whispered in my ear, “You’re my favorite, Papa” (most people don’t know that newborns have this power of speech that they can use only once).  I gladly held her for as long as I was allowed, and I tolerated all the pictures that the family wanted to take.  Isn’t it amazing how the back doesn’t hurt when you’re holding a new grandbaby!

Now, it’s one thing to have your picture made; it’s another thing to suffer through the indignity of having to look at it.  On the next day, somebody with more time on their hands than good sense had printed up their photographs and were showing them to all the world when we got to the hospital.  There was Alice, pretty and composed and smiling.  There was the baby - the picture of perfection and contentment.  And there was me.  Or was it me?  The shape was me.  The hair and contours of the face looked something like me.  But the guy in the pictures was at least a decade older than the guy I see in the mirror every morning when I shave.  Somebody had done some photoshopping and put in some wrinkles and sagging cheeks and even a double chin.  That’s not the way I look!  It couldn’t be.  The pictures didn’t do me justice.

I know what you are probably thinking - and you are right.  When we look at ourselves in the mirror each day, our minds impose a filter over the image that comes through our eyes and we don’t notice all the tell-tale signs of aging and deterioration.  It’s a strange but true phenomenon - mirrors lie.  I should say, we force the mirror to lie by not accepting the message it sends to us each day.  We ignore the painful evidence and walk away from the mirror believing ourselves to be younger and thinner and fitter than we really are.

But then we see the horrible candid photograph!  The true-to-life photograph.  The honest-to-God photograph.  There’s no justice in the candid photo.In fact, that’s just what we have in candid photography - justice.  Pure, unadulterated justice.  The unmerciful truth.  Ruthlessness personified.

Which reminds me of the time a lady went to a photographer for a portrait picture.  The photographer showed her the first proof and the lady exclaimed, “That’s no good at all!  That picture just doesn’t do me justice!”

The photographer replied frankly, “Lady, you don’t need justice; you need mercy.”

When we see ourselves in the mirror of God’s Word, we are faced with an image of a distorted and imperfect creature.  In fact, we see two images - what God intended, and what we have made of ourselves.  “For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” is what the mirror reveals about what we have become.  

Now the mirror doesn’t lie; but we can adjust the image it transmits by allowing the filter of self-will and sin to smooth out the wrinkles and cover the blemishes.  That is, until . . .

Until the Holy Spirit convicts us of our dishonesty and allows us to see what we are, what God desires, and how we can become what God intends.  Then we say, “Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5), we cry out to God for mercy, and we ask Him to make us what He designed us to be from the beginning.

God’s candid photo of my life is pure justice.  But I don’t want justice; I want mercy.  Mercy is His gift through His Son and our Savior, the Lord Jesus.  In Jesus I have not only experienced mercy for my sins; I can also see the perfect portrait of what I am becoming through His incredible grace!  

Thank God for Christmas!  Thank God for Jesus!

Alan Day, Senior Pastor