Mirrors are rather handy aren’t they? You would be an unusual person if you didn’t use a mirror today. For starters there’s that bathroom mirror. You can’t not look into when you are there. And when it comes to putting on your make-up…? Or shaving… or trimming your beard…? Suddenly a mirror becomes an important piece of equipment. If you drove your car today it would hardly be possible to do that without a frequent look at the rear view mirror. Mirrors are part and parcel of life.
But sometimes mirrors have another side to them… a metaphysical side. Maybe the most obvious example of that is in the fairy-tale, Snow White and the seven dwarves, where the wicked stepmother queen looks into the mirror and asks, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” And of course that magical mirror sets the scene for the rest of the story.
Mirrors are also mentioned in the Bible and when the apostle James mentions a mirror he also seems to have something metaphysical in mind. He talks about people who hear God’s Word but who never get around to doing anything about it. He says that such people are like those who looked in the mirror in the morning to put on their make-up or to trim their beard… but by the time they left the bathroom they’ve forgotten what they saw in that mirror.
That is such a fitting picture of us human beings isn’t it? A thousand and more glimpses into a mirror every year of our life but there are no lasting impressions. And so often it’s like that when it comes to our relationship with God. A friend challenges us about our relationship with the Lord and we think, “Yes, I should do something about that!” But we walk away and nothing happens… nothing changes. We listen to a sermon in church and we feel challenged but by Monday morning we’ve forgotten.
And then James paints a contrast: “But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works – this person will be blessed in what he does.” What James is saying is that the Law of God is like a mirror. Just like a mirror shows up the grime on your face when we’ve been working on the car, so the law of God shows us our failings and flaws. And then James expects us to look into that metaphysical mirror intently… with the aim of doing something about what we see there. We are not to be forgetful hearers but active doers.
Perhaps I should add that we don’t use mirrors to look at other people… we use them to look at ourselves. So too God’s law is not given us first of all so that we can point the finger at others. It’s there first of all to draw attention to one’s self. What do I need to deal with in my own life that doesn’t measure up to God’s standard?
There is one other thing about what James says that is interesting. We could be forgiven for thinking that the role a mirror plays in our life can be harsh, even brutal. Mirrors show up our problems… the dirt and the grime… with a brutal honesty. We might even feel that it enslaves us – we are (as it were) tied to it until the last bit of grime is gone. And we might think that’s its the same with the mirror of God’s law. That’s where James surprises us. He calls God’s law “the perfect law of freedom”. Why does he do that? Well because ultimately that mirror drives us to the Lord Jesus Christ who removes the grime and dirt of sin, who sets us free and who remoulds us and remakes us into creatures who are fit to have fellowship with the living God.
John Westendorp