By Fred Amata
What do you imagine God meant in Gen 1:27 “Let us make man in Our own Image According to our own Likeness”.
The misrepresentations and perhaps even misinterpretations beliefs and religions is why in 2023 appointing a dreadlocked head pastor for the Fountain of life Church will be raising so much furore!
How easy it is to forget the simple injunction *God is Love and We must Worship him in Spirit and in truth* Simply put. God is Spirit! In whose image man is made.
My Question to you today is. What Image is God’s Image in whom we have been created? Is it the physical image of man with two hands and two feet, fine face, curves, bones joints and limbs? Or is it in the more esoteric more intangible image of His Spirit, His Love, His Intelligence, the Image and likeness of His Bounteous and Creative Limitlessness?
Jimmy Odukoya is a colossus, a Behemoth sent by creation to continue the Legacy of the understanding of an ever present, ever providing and ever blessing ever loving God.
Pastor Taiwo Odukoya, Jimmy’s father was the Only Man I ever called “My Pastor.” Yes despite the fact that I have not been to The Fountain of Life Church in over 20 years.
When recently Pastor Taiwo passed, my spirit became restless, it was a simple urge to write a tribute to Pastor Odukoya and tell the world he is the Man my inner Spirit acceded to call Pastor. So simple, yet, so difficult for me for all the obstacles that bedeviled me. But good will triumph and I did.
The Fountain of Life Church, pastors Taiwo and Bimbo Odukoya are in the born-again parlance, my Spiritual Father and Mother in the Lord.
Indeed my heart is still bleeding with an overwhelming sense of guilt that when Pastor Bimbo died, I bore a grudge in my heart against her…
It was a time when my marriage was already crumbling and I had by this time become a very irregular member of The Fountain of Life Church which the family and I had been attending for over 7/8 years. She had seen me at what is now the local wing of Muritala Mohammed international Airport, and in her easy charm and celestial gorgeousness, she had grabbed by the wrist and dragged me along as she was in a hurry to catch a flight. Come come come Fred where are going?
My heart melted, I adored her, I reverenced her; she was the epitome of everything, beauty, style, fashion, voice, chastity, love, care, understanding, compassion and above all the Grace of God and Anointing… I was enthralled… before I could speak… She said “You are wrong you know, you and your wife… You know you are the man… She spoke to me.”
It was a blow, NO, NO, NO I protested in my spirit, you have not heard from me… No, no I blurted you have not heard from me… But ever so caringly ever so motherly she said…Come and see me when I return. We need to talk…Ribosky. If you know Pastor Bimbo… You know Ribosky!
We never had that talk, and in my spirit I begrudged Pastor Bimbo… Until that ill fated Sossoliso…And Nooo… suddenly she was gone forever ‘and I dey vex’ my heart broke over and over. I condemned myself … see how irrelevant is my anger now. And for years my heart continued to bleed, I tried to comprehend how such a glorious essence could just “off like that” extinguished forever. I started to wonder about the place of anger, offence, grudges et al in the grander scheme of things.
These are the Parents of Jimmy Odukoya.
An oh! I met Jimmy, yep as you may have guessed on set, for a production called “Edge of Time”, by a director Umanu Umanu a talent sure to blossom despite the threat to confirm his talent to barely international standards. Umanu is in a class of his own. It was a brief encounter which would yield profound consequences.
This young man had come to me fully dressed in the Warrior uniform representing a collage of ancient African heritage, flamboyant in it’s enssemble and possessing its own tinge of originality.
The name of the costumiere eludes me but the costume was as visually striking as it was imposing… But not as imposing as that of the King, the role I was playing.
I must have teased him on this, and he said uncle, you know me, there is something I would tell you after the shoot. Something about him appealed to me and I must have insisted.
I am Jimmy Odukoya Sir…
Blank!!! My mind was just off… Ehen? Pastor Taiwo’s Son sir! My heart stopped. I managed to respond, Pastor Bimbo’s son?
That was when I grabbed him, and he grabbed me, I hugged him for a little while longer, as I tried to stem the tears that was welling in my eyes, for suddenly, in that one simple hug that one fleeting moment, all my guilt for all the years that I had vexed against Pastor Bimbo disappeared, at that same moment I understood what Pastor Bimbo meant that fateful last day she ever spoke to me, those last words that have haunted me since the demise of my marriage… “You know you are wrong Fred, you are the man…” The man is the head of the marriage..And in that instance also, I understood what I must do… and thank God I did.
It was overwhelming above all, I had become suddenly unburdened, freed of a guilt that had haunted me for years. And In that one hug, I apologized to Pastor Bimbo asked for and received forgiveness. I hugged Jimmy.
When he managed to get out of that ordained embrace..He reminded me of a time when I stood on stage in the Fountain of Life Church to introduce a movie I had shot with @agathaamata then called “The Addict” and how he had regaled at me and aunty Agatha.
It was a tedious shoot that “Edge of Time”. And all through the hardship of production I watched him keenly, he brought a unique type of energy to production, he exuded charm, charisma and an ever willing hand, in virtually all departments, from camera to directorials, to set design, costumes and props, he was loved in every department, he helped in every department, and suddenly he disappeared for almost an hour, and the entire set seemed in disarray only to return with vigour urging the entire crew to come check out what he found. It was a Brooke that even the locals had been trying to locate for days… Needless to say, replays of the location were so engaging they had to form a part of the trailer for the film. We worked all night that night, his energy motivating many including me who had to film a scene at about 4:30am.
I look back today and bless God for having used me through a film I shot to reach the creative aspiration of one whom He has so Blessed.
It was Kepy that would later tell me, “Ha Jimmy is a Pastor now oh. I spoke with him. He was through out with his father when he died…” And a lot more became apparent.
For in this days of quantum mathematics, and the rapid growth quantum science, Nano Technology, a generation of an exploding influx of Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning, in these days of extremely developed devises that capture memories, thoughts, behaviour of humans and put it in a chip…In these days when stem cell technology and genetic engineering is likely or has already produced genetically enhanced human beings, how can any right thinking progressive bother about the dreads locked in a Pastor’s head? How can we be so behind time that we still grapple with the obsolete nothings and trying to use the Word to justify it.
That’s why my question of Genesis 1:27 still stands.
For indeed in what Image of God do you Imagine God meant when he said let us make man in our own image? Is it the image of Man Standing Upright?
What about the image and likeness of the Love of God, What about the image of His infinite Wisdom, the likeness of His Intelligence, the Creative limitlessness of God?
If you still see only the image of the physical man, I pray the holy spirit hasten your understanding.
But if you already have experienced the magnitude of His Loving Kindness, you will understand that the shepherd boy David, is one and the same King David from whose lineage Jesus The Christ was born
I urge you to take your time and reverence the magnitude of the mantle.
I urge you to take your time and reverence the magnitude of the mantle that this Colossus Pastor Jimmy Odukoya possesses.
He is the Son of my father and my mother in the Lord.
The father and the son are one.
God Bless You
Pastor Jimmy Odukoya.
*Veteran filmmaker/actor, Fred Amata writes from Lagos.
