Meme (Me Me) Instead Of MeYou (Unity)

Visually similar to these roots all feeding and living in a single trunk,
so has God grafted all of His believing children into the main root and offspring of Abraham.
Just as this tree began as a single seed which sprouted a single root into the ground,
so have we all blossomed from a single man, family, people.
To view ourselves as separated Today in the Light of Christ is to be confused by
arguments based on the things of this world, while ignoring or being unaware of His work.
Separated only by distance and time, our collective humanity branched into several root systems
still derived from that single seedling...and in Christ, we have all been brought home in one, as He is One.

Some internet memes are entertaining... and instigating or provocative.

Most are nonsense, but may contain an ounce of truth among tons of fallacious claims.

There are a few memes which further a prejudiced attempt at racism reversal and other psychologically smothered ideologies.

The simpleminded are easily led astray or convinced by memes.

Not going to share the meme I identified as yet another divisive and ridiculously false idea, but I would rather describe it.

It is religious in nature and claims that Messiah was a particular ethnicity reflecting an African heritage... and the motivation behind it is to praise and give precedence to one physically identifiable people over others.

It is, like so many other religious memes, built on obvious fallacy, poor interpretation of Scripture, and vacant of truth regarding love and what God has done.

Such roadblocks to accuracy never cease to discourage the proliferation of lies and suspicions.

I all places on earth where the Gospel has traversed, a man-made and man-imagined image of Messiah has largely reflected the ethnic makeup of the messengers who brought the Gospel, or the people who received the Gospel's message.

This is why we see images of Messiah in China reflecting a Chinese likeness, in the Americas reflecting Western European likeness, in Africa reflecting an African likeness, and so on.

So it is no surprise that any particular ethic group or people adopt a familiar physical feature and attribute to link themselves in the most literal of manners to Messiah.

This isn't the issue or a major detriment when considering the fruits brought forth.

The issue is: if such images or arguments to pushes one ethnic group or peoples over another.

If such ideas begin to break apart the unity and brotherhood God established in Christ, then what is evidenced is religious propaganda and a blindness to what the Scriptures have declared.

Any claim that attempts to raise one man or people or archetype over another is a fallacious and baseless claim.

It is a claim and argument made from a place of identity crisis, misinterpreting descriptions and attributes in a literal sense rather than the insight Scripture is expanding.

The initial misinterpretation is confusing a color where a texture is described, and interpreting a literal claim regarding how skin appeared instead of understanding why the skin is being described in such a way.

In context, we understand the Old Testament testimony from the book of Daniel being affirmed in John's vision experience described in Revelation.

Both Daniel and John saw a vision of God... in the image of the Messiah / Son.

It is similar to the vision Ezekiel had, described as “...the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord...”

The message in Scripture speaks about an impressionable vision: Spirt manifested in a way so man can 'see' and somehow understand.

Here is the description from Daniel:

On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris, I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around His waist. His body was like topaz, His face like lightning, His eyes like flaming torches, His arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and His Voice like the sound of a multitude. 

- Daniel 10: 4-6

The description from John:

I turned around to see the Voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to His feet and with a golden sash around His chest. The hair on His head was white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and His Voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and coming out of His mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. 

- Revelation 1: 12-16

If one continues to read in greater context both Daniel chapter 10 and Revelation chapter one, they will see that both Daniel and John had the same response (fear).

And they were both comforted in the same manner by what they heard.

The descriptions mirror each other.

In both accounts, the face is described as being very bright (like lightning / like the sun shining).

Both accounts describe a human form, a similar attire (linen / robe), golden belt / sash, arms and legs and feet like the gleam of burnished bronze / bronze glowing in a furnace, and so on.

The sticking point is the skin description... this is the contention sparking pride in some people.

The claim is a skin tone matching or similar to that of an African heritage.

But is this really what is being described, or alluded to, or somehow portrayed in the Scripture?

Or is it simply a modern (and heretical) interpretation that desires, like the claims of many people of a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds throughout history, to raise themselves above others?

Has there ever been a people whose skin glows or gleams as described...aside from a sunburn or a disease?

The descriptions in Scripture are talking about radiance coming from the body, not simply a tonal description.

For the sake of addressing other literal arguments contending about skin color or the flesh as an important identifier of some kind, let us look at some places in Scripture where skin color is mentioned and their context.

I'll include an initial and literal interpretation as context messages in brackets:

Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil. 

- Jeremiah 13: 23 

[likely speaking of things unchangeable according to nature]

Our skin is hot as an oven, feverish from hunger. 

- Lamentations 5: 10 

[likely speaking to suffering and anguish from the consequences of sin]

My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering. 

- Job 7: 5 

[likely reflecting on man’s humble reality and lower - human - nature]

My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever. 

- Job 30: 30 

[likely describing a state of being due to suffering]

Notice in these descriptions the understanding is not literal, but elaborating something else.

There many other mentions of 'skin' or 'flesh' in Scripture.

Where an apparent color is used in describing people (Jeremiah 13: 23), perhaps you can find a certain and clear description of skin color that places one man / people above another in the age of Christ.

I say it doesn't exist nor is acknowledged by God as anything significant... but instead hostile.

What does it say about the skin / flesh?

We read it does talk about the manner God's message is misinterpreted... and this being a cause for confusion to those who see and understand things carnal, but not eternal:

I Am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” 

Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” 

Yeshua said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For My flesh is real food and My blood is real drink. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent Me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on Me will live because of Me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. 

On hearing it, many of His disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” 

Aware that His disciples were grumbling about this, Yeshua said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before! The Spirit gives Life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and Life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Yeshua had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray Him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled them.” 

- John 6: 51-65

Consider the manner things of the Spirit and Life are described in human terms.

Consider the message is not speaking a literal message of eating flesh and drinking blood as in cannibalism or some other wild idea.

Consider how it says the flesh counts for nothing.

This speaks on several levels.

One level is that any thing physical or material is of no concern when regarding the things of God - the Spirit.

This reality is highlighted when Paul talks about how his pride built into an ethnic identity.

We can read how such pride, although previously affirmed by the Word of God under the Law (Old Testament), is Today a nullity in the new age of Messiah (the New Testament):

Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by His Spirit, who boast in Christ Yeshua, and who put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reasons for such confidence. 

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the Law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the Church; as for righteousness based on the Law, faultless. 

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Yeshua my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. 

- Philippians 3: 2-11

The significance of God calling Israel His chosen was to reveal Himself as King on earth through His Messiah.. and this from the tribe of Judah from Abraham.

This buildup, of establishing a certain tribe and people on earth, was to fulfill a promise long made by God.

Not that distinction matters in the new age, but this is expressed to further put to rest contentions over lineage, heritage, skin color, and other notions of tribalism.

Why?

In Christ Yeshua you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Yeshua. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. 

- Galatians 3: 26-29

It is remarkable that not even a distinction between a man or a woman is acknowledged when it comes to all of us being one body and children of God.

Notice how in the following passage flesh is strongly equated with an earthly manner, governed by sin and not living according to what God has established.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Yeshua, because through Christ Yeshua the Law of the Spirit who gives Life has set you free from the Law of sin and death. For what the Law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s Law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives Life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Yeshua from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give Life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you. 

- Romans 8: 1-11

Simply stated: to focus on skin color between human beings, or to argue that Christ had a certain skin tone while walking the earth (and this somehow raises or praises one man / people above their brothers), is a heretic and loveless idea based on the flesh... and is thus hostile to God.

In essence, to view the world through, and according to, the flesh is a hostility against God since He has established His kingdom on earth, through whom the saints exist in His Spirit, not according to things based on a physical plane.

The Law was fulfilled in Christ and its accompanying attributes in the flesh were brought to fruition.

Now exists a landscape based on Spirit and things beyond arguments over physical things and carnal notions.