GLENN'S BIBLE STUDY
Title: THE FACE OF CHRIST
by Pastor Glenn Pease
THE FACE OF CHRIST
Based on II Cor. 4:1-6
By Pastor Glenn Pease
Dr. Rosenow, a man who devoted his life to medical research, was asked,
what led him to this as his life's task, and he told this story. He grew
up on an isolated farm in Northern Wisconsin, and as a boy he had an unforgettable
experience when his brother became dangerously ill. The nearest doctor
was sent for, and when he came to the house, Dr. Rosenow, then only a boy,
followed the doctor into his brothers room, and hid behind a sofa to observe.
What he saw determined his career. The doctor poured out medicine to give
to the patient, and then he turned and said to his parents, "Have no fear,
he is going to get well." The light that came into his parents faces was
wonderful to behold, and so deeply impressed him that then and there the
boy behind the sofa determined that he would do something that would cause
light to appear in people's faces.
We cannot begin to measure the
powerful influence of shining faces in history. Longfellow said of one-
The light upon her face
Shines from the windows of another world.
Saints only have such faces.
When Adoniram Judson, the great missionary, was home on furlough, he passed
through Stonington, Conn. Where a young boy saw his face glowing with the
love of Christ. He was so deeply impressed that one of the chapters of
the book he wrote when he became a pastor was entitled, "What A Boy Saw
In The Face Of Adoniram Judson." This boy became Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull,
a great soul winner. Now you may not know Dr. Trumbull or Dr. Rosenow,
or the million others whose lives have been changed by beholding faces,
but all of you know the man in this third illustration of the powerful influence
of a shining face.
He was not a boy as the other two, but was a grown man who had already
determined his profession. He was engaged in duties that would make his
face bitter and fearful. By his own confession he says, he was in an angry
rage when suddenly at midday he saw a light from heaven, brighter than the
sun, and with that vision his whole character and career was changed. Paul
had seen the light, not just a light, but the light, the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. In spite of the fact that
he was persecuting Christ, the face he saw was not a face of anger like
his own, but a face of mercy and forgiveness, and from that time one Paul
followed only the light that came from his Savior's face.
To behold the face of Christ, and to reflect the light of His face
was the constant goal of the Apostle Paul. He was not a man of a thousand
faces, but the man of one face-the face of Christ. He renounced all underhanded
and cunning methods, and walked in the open light of the face of Christ.
Paul could have written the words of the poet,
For this I strive, for this I pray,
For this all else resign:
Be like my Master everyday,
Set forth on earth the Christian way,
Reflect His face in mine.
Author unknown
In Margaret Deland's story, The Awakening Of Helina Ritchie, a small
boy looking at a picture of the baptism of Jesus in which the artist had
a face looking out of the clouds asked, "Is that a good photograph of God?"
Dr. Lavendar, the pastor said, "If it looks like a kind father, I think
it is a good photograph of God." The Apostle Paul would say, however, that
the real authentic photograph of God is the Son of God, who is the express
image of God. Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." Paul
says to the Corinthians here in verse 6, that the source of our knowledge
of God, in all His glory and beauty, is in the face of Jesus Christ. Back
in 318 He lays it down as a spiritual principle, that only as we with open
face gaze upon the glory of the Lord Jesus, can we be changed by degrees,
and become like Him. Looking at the face of Jesus is not just poetry, it
is an essential and practical aspect of the Christian life, for those who
desire to be Christlike in all their living.
This means, of course, that the face of Christ is not His literal face,
but is the whole character and conduct of Jesus as it is recorded in the
Gospels. The face, however, is the part of the body the most expressive
of one's life and emotions. If you wish to know if a man is happy and glad,
or sour and mad, you look, not at his hair, hands, back, or feet, but at
his face. The face is the index of the heart and mind. When Shakespeare
said, "You have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm, of cloudiness,"
it is not hard to guess the mood of the one he refers to. As Lewis Evans
said, "Your face doth testify but you be inwardly." The eyes in the face
take in light from without, while the face itself is the organ by which
we express the light, or lack of it, within. Abraham Coles wrote,
Contending passions jostle and displace,
And tilt and tourney mostly in the face.
Unmatched by art, upon this wondrous scroll,
Portrayed our all the secrets of the soul.
This was true for Jesus, as for all men. The life of Christ can be
portrayed by a series of portraits showing the expressions of His face.
The album would begin with the baby face of Jesus in the manger, and then
would come the studious face of boyhood, when he debated with the scholars
in the temple. Then comes His delightful happy face as he healed and taught.
Then on the mount of transfiguration His face shown as the Sun. Then comes
His determined face when He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem
to face the cross. Then comes His face of anguish and tears in the garden
of Gethsemane. On the cross we see His disfigured face from the crown of
thorns, and finally His conquering joyful face manifested in the happy days
following His resurrection. We can't begin to look at the whole album,
but we can focus our eyes on a couple of these pictures of the face of Christ
which should challenge us to seek more often to meditate on Him until we
literally see Him face to face. First of all let's look at-
I. HIS DELIGHTFUL FACE.
All of this emphasis of Paul on glory in the face of Christ implies
a face of beauty and delightful joy. The middle ages lost sight of this
face of Christ. It was an age of ascetics. Men were going off to monasteries
where they fasted and cut themselves off from the normal life of man. They
forgot that Jesus never did this. The artists began to picture Jesus only
as He appeared in those last hours of His suffering. The only text they
could see to paint by was that of Isaiah 53:3, "A man of sorrows, and acquainted
with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and
we esteemed him not." This was a true picture of Christ in His suffering.
The deformed face of Christ was real, and for us who know the love behind
that agonizing face, even it contains beauty. Christina Rossetti put it
so well in poetry.
Is this the face that thrills with awe,
Seraphs who veil their face above?
Is this the face without a flaw,
The face that is the face of love?
Yeah, this defaced, - this lifeless clod,
Hath all creation's love sufficed,
Hath satisfied the love of God,
This face, the face of Jesus Christ.
Keep in mind that Jesus was the spotless Lamb offered in sacrifice,
and so even though He was made ugly by the sin of man, He was in His own
perfection the most beautiful of all men. We ought never to lose the picture
of His suffering face, but to suppress all others with it, and to impose
this gruesome image on the whole life of Christ is a great perversion. Some
who have looked so long and often at the face of sorrow have concluded that
Jesus never smiled or laughed. This baseless tradition, with nothing but
silence for a foundation, began as early as the forth century, and still
has its effects yet today, for it is all too seldom that Christians consider
the delightful smiling face of Jesus. The evidence for this portrait is
abundant, even though there is no specific text that says Jesus smiled,
as it says He wept.
One half-positive poet suggests that He might
have smiled when He blest the little children. "A Man on earth He wondered
once, all meek and undefiled, and those who loved Him said-He wept, none
ever said He smiled. Yet there might have been a smile unseen, when He
bowed His holy face I ween, to bless that happy child." Such a half-hearted
defense of the smiling face of Christ is a witness to how strongly men have
been influenced by the sad face of Christ on the cross. It is almost as
if it was irreverent to think of Christ as a person enjoying life. It would
be extremely abnormal for a person with very little to be happy about to
go all through life without a smile or laughter. It is inconceivable that
He who came that we might have abundant life should do so. Unless we are
convinced that joy, laughter, and smiling is of the devil, rather than the
gift of God, we must accept the reality of His delightful face.
Just try and imagine Jesus as a special guest at the wedding of Cana
where He added to the joy of the occasion by His miracle of changing water
into wine. Can you imagine Him all the while expressing no smile or emotion
of delight, but keeping His face as solemn as if He was fasting? I can
hardly conceive of Jesus being stuck with such a dead pan face even during
the 40 days of fasting and temptation in the wilderness. Certainly one
who said so often to others in time of trial, "Be of good cheer." Must
have had a spring of joy in His own heart to fill His face with light, even
while facing the ruler of darkness. Jesus was the light of the world, and
in Him was no darkness at all.
Jesus told His disciples to keep their faces clean and to look happy
and healthy when they fasted. They were not to display a sad face in search
of sympathy, or to be praised for being so sacrificially religious. This
alone, without all of His words of joy and rejoicing, is positive proof
that we fly in the face of the facts when we picture Jesus with the face
of an ascetic. The very record of His weeping shows it was unique and rare
for Him to do so because He was generally so happy. Those who deny to Christ
the universal pleasure of laughter, and paint Him as a perpetual man of
sorrows have an uncanny ability to draw conclusions in total disregard to
the facts. Jesus was not only a friend of children, but of publicans and
sinners. He was frequently at the banquet table, and I have never seen
a banquet where people were not smiling and laughing.
The Pharisees
asked Jesus why His disciples did not fast, and Jesus answered in Matt.
9:15, "Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?"
Jesus was the leader of a delightfully happy band of men, and fasting just
did not fit into their life style at this point. People by the hundreds
were being healed, and they were shouting and praising God as their loved
ones were restored to health. In such a constant atmosphere of praise and
joy, who could fast and be sad? Most of all, how could the Savior, the
Bridegroom Himself, the author of all this joy, have anything but a face
of delight? More Biblical is the poet who paints the delightful face of
Christ without apology.
The men who met Him rounded on their heels,
And wandered after Him because His face
Shown like the countenance of a priest of old
Against the flame about a sacrifice
Kindled by fire from heaven, so glad was He.
Author unknown
Luke 10:21 says Jesus rejoiced in the context of the 70 as they returned
from their successful mission. Jesus was seen powerful success everywhere,
and He could not help but rejoice as He saw the power of Satan being defeated.
If we behold this delightful face
of Christ often, we too can be filled with His joy. No wonder Paul said,
"Rejoice in the Lord often, and again I say rejoice." Paul was a happy
man in spite of all his trials because he beheld daily the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The second picture
we want to look at is-
II. HIS DESIRABLE FACE.
His joy is only one of the values we want imparted to us. His face
has many other desirable characteristics. His face is a face of peace,
a face of purity, and a face of keen intelligence. Everything desirable
is found in the face of Christ. If there is anything lovely, think on it
says Paul, and nothing can be more lovely than the face of Him who is altogether
lovely and the fairest of the fair. A child was afraid of the dark and
the mother said as she left the room, "God will be with you." "Yes, I know,"
said the boy, "But I want somebody here with a face." He wanted a personal
God and not just a God of doctrine and theology. In the face of Christ
all doctrine becomes personal. The face of Christ does away with abstract
speculation and brings God near in everyday life. Jesus is God with a face.
Caryle said, "I would rather have one real glimpse of the young Jew face
of Christ than all the Raffaeles in the world." The face of Christ is so
desirable just because an example of perfection to gaze upon changes the
gazers into its likeness. Paul is saying this in 3:18, and life proves
it to be so. Look at what is evil, corrupt, and defiled and you will tend
to become like that which you behold. Thoreau said, "We are all sculptors
and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones-any
nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features; any meanness or sensuality
to imbrute them." Our face becomes an index of our values and reflects
that which we focus our face upon. That is why we are urged to set our
affection on things above so we can reflect the light from above.
Nathaniel Hawthorne in the story of The Great Stone Face, tells of
a village in a Swiss valley nestled beneath a great mountain. On it was
craved a face that was strong, calm, and loving. People said that one day
a man with such a face would come and lead them and help them. This impressed
one boy so much that he studied the face on the mountain and watched every
stranger who came to town. He compared their faces with the face on the
rock. Always disappointed, he grew to be a young man, and still was closely
studying the face on the mount.
The time came when he attended a
public meeting and the speaker suddenly pointed to him saying, "There he
is, the likeness of the great stone face." He had studied the face so much
that he himself reflected its likeness. This is fiction, but the principle
is not. It is fact, and Paul says look on the desirable face of Jesus
for thereby you will by degrees become like Him and reflect His glory.
We have no picture of Christ, but we have the mirror of the Word which
reflects His glory into our face. Let us be often than at this mirror-the
beauty parlor of the soul, and let us sing, let the beauty of Jesus be seen
in me."
William Hillyer wrote,
No pictured likeness of my Lord have I;
He craved no record of His ministry on wood or stone.
He left no sculptured tomb or parchment dim,
But trusted for all memory of Him men's hearts alone
Who sees the face but sees in part; who reads
The spirit which it hides, sees all; He needs no more.
Thy grace-thy life in my life, Lord, give Thou to me;
And then, in truth, I may forever see
My Master's face.
When a great cathedral was being built the artistic work was entrusted
only to the most skilled artists, but an old man kept asking for a chance
to carve, claiming he was a sculptor. He was unknown so they refused, but
he persisted to ask. In order to get rid of him they gave him a block of
stone in a dark corner. Day after day he worked with infinite patience
until his work was done. Now a special window has been put in to let visitors
see his glorious work. People pass by the carving on the main part of the
building to see the face of Christ carved by unknown genius in the dark.
The face can convey inspiration. It is said of Oliver Cromwell, on the
eve of a great battle, when the odds were against him, that his soldiers
would eagerly seek his face before the bugle sounded the charge. "See,"
they would exclaim as he passed along the line. "See, he has his battle
face today." It was to his soldiers a sign of victory. So also, we need
to behold the victorious face of our risen Lord to be prepared to fight
the battles of life.
Would you like to know the secret
Of the sweetness of the Lord?
Go and hide beneath His shadow;
This shall then be your reward.
But when'er you leave the silence
Of that happy meeting place,
You must mind and bear the image
Of the Savior in your face.
Author unknown
There is a story of Leonardo da Vinci, and of how in the first painting
of the "Last Supper" he had put such pains and a such a wealth of detail
into two cups standing on the table that a friend, seeing them stared at
them in open-mouthed amazement; whereupon the artist seized a brush and
with one sweep of his hand painted them out of the picture, crying as he
did it, "Not that! That isn't what I want you to see! It's the face.
Look at the face!" Fanny Crosby, the great hymn writer who wrote "Saved
By Grace," sang often these words from that song: "I shall see Him face
to face, and tell the story saved by grace." She said she was grateful
to God that she went through this life in darkness, for she said people
who see have seen many hundreds of faces, but the first face I will ever
see is the face of Jesus.
Lord, let me see thy beauteous face!
It yields a heaven below;
And angels round the throne will say,
Tis all the heaven they know.
Norman Vincent Peale tells of the Belgian family whose father had been
taken to the prison in Breendonk by the Nazis. It was a death camp and
they never saw him again. How did they endure such torture and death he
asked, and the son took him to the cell and told him to get down on his
knees and reach up under the bench to the wall and feel the wall. It felt
like the outline of a face, he said. "That is precisely what it is," the
son said. "One of the prisoners carved the face of the Savior under this
bench where the Nazis wouldn't find it. And in the night time he would
run his hand over this face." Other prisoners heard of it and asked if
they could also run their hand over the face. This is how they got comfort
and assurance that Christ was with them in their trials.
In a great church in Copenhagen, Denmark, the famous sculptor Thorwalden
made a statue of Christ. When you enter the church it looks like Jesus
is looking at you, but you can't see His face. If you go from side to side
you the likeness of the Lord, but still you can't see His face. It is only
when you walk down the aisle and kneel and look up that you can see His
face. Only when bowed down looking up does the face of Christ appear.
These, and many other stories, motivated me to write a poem on the face
of Christ.
Of all the faces of the human race,
None shine so bright as the Savior's face.
Of all whom we love, of all whom we embrace,
There is none who can take the Master's place.
His light alone will lead us home;
His light above will lead in love;
His glory pure will ever endure,
Of His guiding light you can be sure.
If you would like to like Him be,
Both now and for eternity,
Be blind to all that is low and base
And gaze instead upon His face.
Be willing however great the price
To follow the light from the face of Christ.
VIEW PAST ARTICLES
|
