Fingerprints of Grace

The Bible is not a flat book of equally authoritative information. It's a constellation of images. What holds the Bible together are not propositions about God but pictures of God, not ironclad ideas but delicate and elusive icons of grace, such as fire, water, trees, lamps, and marriage suppers. Robert Farrar Capon calls these recurring icons God's fingerprints, the trace evidence the Artisan leaves behind after he has crept about his creation among us. Likewise, John presents his Gospel as a diorama of images-bread, light, vine, door, gate, shepherd- and John predicates each of these images (all of which point to the cross) with the same two words Yahweh spoke to Moses using another image, "I AM." In this collection, Jason Micheli interprets the I AM sayings of Jesus in the light of his crucifixion.