Double Exposure
a sermon based on Ephesians 5:8-14
by Rev. Randy L. Quinn

I don't know how many of you saw the picture in the paper this week of the Mount Vernon Girls' Basketball team.  It was a picture of one of the players with her arms stretched out.  On her arms were the pictures of four other players.

I looked at the picture at first with a sense of awe at the mystery of how this could have happened.  (There isn't much mystery left in our scientific world, so I relish it when I see it.)

Seeing the photo reminded me how much technology has advanced.  We now digitally enhance photos.  By that, I mean we take the picture, scan it into a computer so that we're now dealing with digital information rather than an actual photograph, and then we make changes to it.

I know of a family who removed a person from family pictures after a difficult divorce.  All of the pictures which used to include her have been 'digitally enhanced.'  There is no trace of her in the family pictorial records.  Removed by the computer.

I know of another family that added a person in to the family portraits.  He was in the service and couldn't be there when a family portrait was taken.  So they 'digitally enhanced' the photo and placed him alongside the rest of the family.

Unless you knew the story, in both cases, you'd never know what had happened.

It used to be that a photograph was a snapshot in time.  It revealed what was actually in front of the camera at a particular place and a particular time.

The process itself was -- and still is -- mysterious.  A piece of film was exposed to the light, and images were left.  Images where the light had reflected off people . . . buildings . . . things.  Anything that reflected light left an image on the film.

I remember going into a dark room with a friend of mine years ago.  Even as he explained what was taking place, I found myself captivated by the mystery of it all.  Somehow this film had recorded things that were now being revealed.

In those days, there were people who would take two pictures with the same piece of film, resulting in a 'double exposure.'  Those double exposures were sometimes done intentionally, though more often it was accidental.

Some photographic artists intentionally took double exposure settings of people or things.  You may even have some portraits done in that style, with a person's picture super-imposed on their own silhouette.  Or maybe a picture of a tulip field framing two lovers walking on the beach.

Today, most cameras prevent accidental double exposures.  It takes a lot of work to override the safety feature, so most novices can't take those shots without buying a special camera.

But there is another way to do the same thing.  We can digitally enhance the picture.  We can take one picture and make changes or combine two pictures into one.  We do that with a computer rather than a camera.

The trouble is, it takes away the mystery of it.  It simply makes it a curiosity.

It's the mystery of the process rather than the quality of the photos that makes me like the Polaroid pictures better.  (As I said, I enjoy recognizing the mysteriousness of life.)

In our text for today, Paul speaks of another mystery, the mystery of how the light of Christ shines through us.  We are light, he says (v 8).  God is reflected through us to the world around us.

Our lives are like that film.  The mystery of God's grace is being developed day by day.  As our lives unfold, more of God is being revealed in us and through us.

Two weeks ago I was coming home from La Conner late in the afternoon.  On my way home, there was a glorious rainbow in the sky.  It went from horizon to horizon in brilliant colors.  It also had a mirror image rainbow alongside of it.  It was a 'double rainbow' that I've noticed happens quite often.

When I got close to home, it appeared that the rainbow was falling directly on the church building.  I thought about running in to get my camera.

Then I remembered that a similar thing had happened a couple of years ago . . . and the pictures weren't the same.  The colors were less vivid.  The awe and mystery of the rainbow was gone.  It was simply a picture.

You see, a rainbow is another of life's mysteries.  We need the sun to have a rainbow.  And while we don't like it, we also need rain to have a rainbow.  God takes the good of the sun and shines through the bad of the rain to make a beautiful and wonderful treasure.

When Paul suggests that our lives reflect the light of God's glory, I think it's a lot like the rainbow.  The light of God shines through the faults of our lives and produces a wonderful fruit, a beautiful rainbow of love and joy.

Yet there is more to it than that.  There is also a sense in which we are a double exposure, an intentional artistic act on the part of God.  You see, God looks at us and sees what we were intended to be.  God sees the forgiven and perfected person you are beneath the surface of your sin.

Your sin has been exposed.  And so has God's grace.  The double exposure of God's light reveals both our need for God and the truth that God meets that need.  Life looks different from God's perspective.  When we see ourselves as God sees us, we know that we are loved and accepted by a God who has exposed us to the light of truth and the light of grace.

When we look at other people with God's eyes, we are invited to see the double exposure of what a person is as well as what they will be.

He still remembers the details of it.  He came home from school and sobbed.  When the list had come out, he didn't make the team, but his parents didn't know it.  He went to practice and he showed up for every game.

When it came time for the tournaments, he begged the coach to let him ride in the players bus.  After much pleading, the coach agreed as long as he would carry the team's equipment bags.

And when his parents saw him going into the locker room with the other players, they were convinced he was going to get a chance to play in this game.  It was their crushed hopes that hurt so much, he would later say.

It turns out that is just the first exposure of his life.

The 'double exposure' also reveals a player who became synonymous with the game.  When Michael Jordan retired, he carried both pictures of himself in his mind, the young boy with a passion for the game but not enough talent to get on the team as well as the man who raised the standards of the game to a new level.

God sees both in us already.  The before and after, the person exposed by the truth and the person exposed to grace.

There's a wonderful song written a few years ago that speaks of this mysterious double exposure.  The chorus of the song says,

I'm not what I'm gonna be,

I'm not what I want to be,

But thank God I'm not what I was.

We have experienced the double exposure of God's light.  Our sin has been revealed, but so has our perfection.  God sees both at once.

We don't need to remain in the past, a past full of sin and deceit and lies.  God invites us into the future, a future full of hope and promise and peace.

We're not there yet, but God can see what it will look like and encourages us to move beyond what we are to become what it is we're gonna be.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.