Created In Love

I was stomping around Rome with my wife when I saw this long line of people. Tourists from every corner of the globe – fat ones, skinny ones, tall and short. Americans with loud colored shirts, Asians with big cameras and selfie sticks, and Europeans with tight-fitting black clothes. All tourists and all in line.

“What the heck is that,” I asked out loud after the fourth city block of this single-file mass of humanity. “It is the line for the Sistine Chapel,” said our taxi driver.

I found out from Trip Advisor that waiting in line without a guided tour can take an entire day before you are herded through for a break-neck glance at the painting that changed history.

“The Creation of Adam,” painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, started a revival across Europe that crushed the Catholic domination of the church because it gave people a new revelation of God.

Before that, people thought of God as the cosmic punisher. They believed He was just waiting to hammer them with disease, disaster, darkness, and despair if they messed up. God, they thought after the death and destruction of the Crusades, cannot be good.

Then came this beautiful, inspired painting of a benevolent God gladly imparting life – not death or punishment – to the lifeless Adam. The truth was revealed, and it blew people away. They had not dared to think of God as good. Could He be?

The answer is yes. He is good. He is a life-giver. It’s a truth we need to be shouting from the rooftops even today. People in the 21st century are hungry for the goodness of God. See the line of people at the Sistine Chapel? They wait all day for a glimpse of goodness. Show them there is more! He is more!

In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. – John 1:4