‘In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways,but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son’ (Hebrews 1.1–2)

Last week I delivered a sermon on Hebrews 1, looking at how Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God – the one who fully reveals His nature and purpose. We saw how in ‘the past’ God spoke in a variety of ways; through dreams, visions, angels, a burning bush… even a donkey! He is a creative God who can use any means to get his message to us.

Hebrews says that God’s revelation came not only in many ways, but at many times. The word translated ‘at many times’, polymerōs, actually means ‘in many pieces.’ Of course, these did take place at various times, right down through the ages, but the point is less to do with chronology, and more to do with the fragmentary nature of the revelation. It was little by little; piece by piece. Each prophet had a fragment of revelation – each bit fully true, but none of them showing the full picture. Together, they give us a sense of what God wants to communicate, but they could never bring the complete revelation of his character and his plan.

I said in the sermon that it was somewhat like a jigsaw puzzle, pieced together through the ages. But that’s not quite right. With a jigsaw puzzle you already know what the final picture looks like. You’ve seen it on the front of the box, so before you’ve even started you already know exactly what you’re building. There’s not a lot of mystery around a jigsaw.

So I wonder if a better metaphor isn’t a wasgij?

If you’re not familiar with a wasgij, essentially it’s a reverse jigsaw (hence the name is jigsaw spelled backwards). With a wasgij, the picture on the front of the box is not the final image you’re constructing. Rather, it gives you some initial clues and invites you into a story, in which you need to use your imagination and deductive skills to start putting the pieces together, and work out what the picture might be. It’s a mystery, which gets unveiled over time, and is only completed when the final piece is put in place.

Often, the image on the box is the reverse perspective of the final picture, something like this.

It’s a crowd of people observing something. And you have to work out the scene they’re looking at.

This image gives us some clues. It’s obviously an underwater setting; the faces express shock and fear; you can see roughly where they’re pointing and looking, which gives you an idea of where key items might be located in the final image, and you can work out how some of the lines might extend out. But it’s not until you actually start piecing things together that you begin to get an idea of what the final picture is going to be.

I think that’s a bit more like what Hebrews 1 is saying. In the past, God spoke in many different ways to many different people, and each was like a fragment that contributed to the unfolding mystery of God’s revelation. But nobody knew exactly what the final image was going to look like.

With each fragment of Old Testament revelation, we find ourselves asking:

“From Moses’ perspective, what did he think he was seeing about God and His purposes?”

“How does the perspective of Ezekiel fit into this final picture? What might he be seeing from his unique angle and point of view? And is his perspective different from that of Isaiah, or other prophets?”    

“What does the look on Jeremiah’s face – the tone of his writing – tell us about the things he’s observing?”

The strange thing about a wasgij compared to a regular puzzle, is that you can have an idea of what something might be and how it fits, and you can spend quite some time working away based on these assumptions. But then you stumble upon another piece of the puzzle and it makes you rethink it all. You realise that what you always assumed went in one place, actually connects to something else entirely. Maybe you had the whole thing upside down, and it wasn’t what you thought at all!

In the past God spoke in various fragments, but in these last days he has spoken by his Son. In Jesus we see the mystery revealed.

When Jesus came, he didn’t wipe the table clean and start from scratch. He didn’t cast aside all the ways God had previously spoken. Rather, he took all the fragments of revelation – all the things we thought we knew about God and His purposes – and he rearranged them, showing us how they fit together in a way we never saw coming.

The law; the prophets; the sacrificial system; the tabernacle; the temple; the genealogies; the hopes, dreams and longings of Israel; the prayers of the saints… Jesus connects it all, putting each piece in its proper place. Sometimes he turns it on its head and confounds our expectations. But nothing is wasted. Everything finds its proper place.

And when we stand back and see the final image, it looks like him.

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Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash