Hymns: 328 – This Is My Father’s World; 298 – Glory be to God the Father
Choruses: 292 - Father, I Adore You (in G); 461 – Be Thou My Vision (in D); In The Secret
Special Music: Anders Balderston – “Always Be A Child”; Violin Offertory; Courtney Anderson (Piano)
John 14:1-7 (New International Version)
"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."
Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."
2 Corinthians 4:1-7 (New International Version)
Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.
I had an interesting thing happen to me a few months ago. I was visiting my mother in Kingston, and we were on our way out to Swiss Chalet for dinner. As inevitably happens, we ran into some acquaintances of hers, and as we approached them, one of the ladies turned deathly pale, stopped in her tracks, and fixed me with a very peculiar stare. Now I am used to women stopping in their tracks and gazing at me, but this was a different kind of look altogether, one which is normally reserved for old English country houses when the long-dead Fourth Earl of Clotted Barnstable is seen filtering through the walls of a Halloween night, moaning about whatever it is ghosts moan about. For that is how this woman looked at me; as though she had seen a ghost. It actually took a few moments of concerned silence before she was able to stutter out that she thought that I was my father, which would indeed have been reason to stop and stare, my father having passed away better than twenty years ago.
The really interesting thing about this is that I don't look a lot like my father. He was mustachioed but unbearded, somewhat more svelte, and while no less physically imposing, most people could easily and instantly have told us apart at a good long distance. But there was something about me which reminded this lady of my father, enough for her to stand and goggle at me, frozen as a cod, in the middle of a busy market. We may not look alike, my father and I, but the resemblance is unmistakable. What is it? Eyes? Nose? Forehead? Or is it something else – a reflection, somehow, of something inside – attitude? Character?
Have you ever had this happen to you? Someone tells you that you remind them of your father, your mother, your Aunt Sally or your Uncle Fred? And you wonder what on earth it is about you that sparks this recognition? Most of us don’t think we look anything like our Aunt Sally or Uncle Fred. Most of us don’t want to. Aunt Sally and Uncle Fred are old! But there’s something…
Jesus is talking with his disciples, and they are worried, concerned, because Jesus is telling them he is going somewhere, somewhere they are not sure of, despite his reassurances. He is going to his Father's house, he says, and there are places there for them as well, places Jesus is going to prepare. "But what's the way there," asks Thomas, "so we can follow you?"
"I am the way," Jesus said to him, "and no one comes to the Father except through me. I am the way, and the truth, and the life," he said, and you could just imagine the faces of the disciples, straining to try to understand. It is not an easy thing to figure out what God is all about, it is not an easy thing to figure out how to get to God's house, and despite Jesus' reassurances, you just know that Thomas, for one, would have been happier with a road-map.
But instead, what Thomas got was something else altogether. What Thomas and the rest of the disciples got, what we get, is what comes next. Do you want to know what God is like? Do you want to understand God, do you want to get to God's house? "If you know me, you will know my Father also," said Jesus. "From now on you do know him and have seen him."
But wait a minute – isn’t God an old man in white robes and long flowing beard? Jesus wasn’t an old man in white robes and long flowing beard. He might have been eventually, but he never got the chance. Besides, even though we conjure up these images of God, all of us (I hope!) understand that God doesn’t really look like that; we know that the Immortal, Invisible God only Wise, in Light Inaccessible Hid From Our Eyes is not really constrained by human form. Until Jesus.
Somehow, to see Jesus is to see God. To know Jesus is to know God. To encounter Jesus is to bump into God, the very nature of God, the way God is, the way God acts. Jesus is God revealed to us in the way we are best able to understand and apprehend. To see Jesus is to be reminded of God; the resemblance, somehow, is uncanny.
And we are called to resemble Jesus.
Now, there are not many among us who look like Jesus. I think. Who knows? The New Testament tells us a lot about Jesus, but is completely silent on his appearance. You’d think the Bible would have mentioned, at least once, at least in passing, what on earth Jesus looked like. But it doesn’t. What colour were his eyes, his hair? Was he tall or short? Did he smile a lot? We just don't know. We don't know much about his face. All we have to go on, according to the Scriptures, is that he was Jewish, from the Middle East, and didn’t have any remarkable distinguishing characteristics. Could blend right in. Traditional religious imagery has him pictured with long hair, for some reason; we really don’t know if he had long hair, short hair, brown hair or black. And you can’t really go by the movies; one of the big Jesus movies has Max von Sydow, six feet four inches of Swede, playing Jesus. I think Jesus probably looked a lot more like Issa Saliba than Max von Sydow. Either way, there are not many of us who look like either of them.
But physical appearance aside, what we do know, is that there was something about Jesus that made knowing him be like meeting God. Face to face.
To live life as a Christian is to resemble that face. To live life as a Christian is to be the face of God, to a world hungry for a glimpse of hope. Again, I don't mean that we are to physically resemble the Biblical model, although I find a beard helps. Nor do I expect of us what people saw in Stephen, the first person to be killed on behalf of the faith of Christ; it said about him (Acts 6:15): "And all who sat in the council looked intently at him, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel." No, that might be too much to hope for.
But we are called to live in love, in peace, and in mercy, for it is through this, says Jesus, that people will know we are the children of God. There is no greater mission than to live for God, to live as the brothers and sisters of Christ, and through the works God empowers us to do, to help people recognize God through us. To help people catch a glimpse of the face of God, which is the face of love, which is the face of hope.
There’s the key: When people see our face, what do they see? Who do they see? Do they see a face offering sadness or joy? Condemnation or welcome? Judgment or understanding? Impatience or peace? Coldness or warmth? Indifference or care? Apathy or enthusiasm? Self-importance or humbleness? Cynicism or appreciation? Rejection or welcome? Misery or delight? Greed or contentment? Anger or forgiveness? Hatred or love? None of these things have anything to do with our physical characteristics, but each one has everything to do with the spirit that shines through. I have seen people judged to be beautiful who have reflected a shocking inner ugliness of spirit; I have seen people judged to be unattractive who have radiated light into the world through a spirit which glowed with the presence of God. It isn’t about your face. It is about what shines through it that counts.
People looked at Jesus. Maybe he looked like anybody else. Maybe a little taller, a little shorter. Maybe there was something instantly memorable about him, or maybe he had a face which called to mind the words of Isaiah (53:2): “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” In terms of eyes blue or brown, nose big or small, beard full or sparse, hair black or brown or wiry or smooth or long or short, I can’t tell you what they saw. But I can tell you this: When they looked at Jesus, and when he looked at them, by God, he looked like his father. Just like his father. They saw in his face, shining through his face, joy. Welcome. Understanding. Peace. Warmth. Care. Humbleness. Appreciation. Welcome. Delight. Contentment. Forgiveness. Love.
What’s shining through your face? When people look at you, what do they see? Is there, anywhere in there, a reflection of your Father? Is there, anywhere in there, something that might bring Jesus to mind? The Apostle Paul, who was, by all accounts, not much to look at – he is described in one ancient writing as "A man rather small in size, bald-headed, bow-legged, with meeting eyebrows, a large, red and somewhat hooked nose," was described in the very next sentence as, "full of grace, for at times he looked like a man, at times like an angel." I don’t know about you, but I have seldom thought of angels as rather small in size, bald-headed, bow-legged, with meeting eyebrows, a large, red and somewhat hooked nose. It must have been the grace of God shining through the unibrow and red hooked nose that brought an angel to mind. Maybe that’s what Paul was thinking when he wrote, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
My prayer for you, my prayer for me, is that the light of God would so shine in our hearts that it might illumine, in our face, through our actions, the very face of Christ. And until we reach that point, let’s help the process along, and work on expressing in our faces, joy. Welcome. Understanding. Peace. Warmth. Care. Humbleness. Appreciation. Welcome. Delight. Contentment. Forgiveness. And love. Try it out on somebody today. It might hurt; your face might not be used to expressing such things. You might have gotten stuck on one of the negative expressions, and like my mother said when I would make a face, “If you keep doing that, it will stay like that.” But it is worth a try. And above all, let the light which God has placed in your heart, shine through whatever face you’ve been blessed with. As you do, no matter how you look, people might think you have the face of an angel. Or better, the very face of God.
“I thought for a moment you were your Father.” May it be so. Thanks be to God. Amen.