In the Beginning was the Word, but then Came the Emoji

Okay, so, time to interact with a little bit of our cultures’ current affairs. It’s hard to resist an emoji. They are a somewhat cute, imminently lazy, and, like flipping the bird, appeal to our little pagan hearts.

Our world needs symbols, and God has given us plenty of them. For starters, there is man, made in the image of God: Male and female, made He them. There is bread and wine, trees, sheep, mountains and stars. All of which speak of the glory of God. And then there is the emoji.

In particular, and currently trending, is the melting face emoji, about which, even the Sydney Morning Herald (who are obviously short on material right now, but have no shortage of irony), have chosen to write.

Arriving at a time when the world was still reeling from the effects of the pandemic, [the] melting face [emoji] held up a mirror to society, and in it, we spied our own melting reflection.

Thomas Mitchell, Sydney Morning Herald February 1st, 2023

…our own melting reflection. The disappearance of man, made in the image of God. Ain’t that the truth. Many a true word spoken in… well, that desperate need to write about something, anything.

It’s almost like we are reverting to the manufactured concept of the cave man. All we have left are our doodles and scribblings.

All such symbols come and go, but the righteous man will remain. As the world becomes increasingly infantile, the righteous will become more discerning and wise.

They may use an emoji here and there, but their love is a love of words: True words and the symbols that God has given to reveal His word to mankind.

So, I am not bagging the emoji, though it is worthy to be bagged, I am just noticing them. Reverting to the symbols of men, a symbol of a melting face, is simply the humour of God laid upon the failing and decaying image of God in man.

We are lost. We are becoming less. We are melting under the hellish flames of our own hedonistic desire. And all we have left is a symbol that says, “I melt”.

Which means we are also ripe for repentance.

It is often the way with God that He let’s us eat our own lentil pudding in order to bring us to our senses.

Some of us will not see anything more than a cute symbol, handy to reflect our state of mind to the world around us. But others will see the disintegration. A disintegration that goes from seeing the glory of God on a mountain top to upcycling our nipple rings in order to fashion a golden Hereford.

Emojis. Not good, not bad. Just an accurate symbol of our age. A symbol that communicates little because we have little left to say. Thomas Mitchell is right. In these symbols, we see ourselves.

They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. …Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them. (Psalm 115:5-8)

Our world has rejected the logos (the Word) of God, and so we are left with little yellow heads with no bodies. No substance.

But Christ was a man from head to toe. A man to be reckoned with. A man of substance. A man of true words. A man that made other men tremble. A man that weary men could rest their head upon.

He bore a cross, an infamous and hideous symbol of our brokenness, in order to make us men. Men, remade in His image. Men who could and would rise above the shallow symbols of our day and do something real, something beautiful, something good.

These are the men He has called and fashioned us to be. Men who will contend with the world and men who, by their honest lips, this world would have to contend with.

Be that kind of man.