Light in the Face of Christ.

“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

I would love to see the face of my grandfather once again. He was a gentle and wise man. His demeanor expressed an air for what is jovial as well as serious. His smile made the whole house warm and inviting; in fact both of my grandparents were marked by this same nature. I never doubted that they were my elders and we respected their every word but we were also quite confident in their warmhearted nature.

Is there a face that you would relish regarding once again? Would it be the face of a friend or a missing parent? Would you hope to contemplate the countenance of an uncle or aunt if the opportunity was there for you?

Isaiah and Paul (the writer of 2 Corinthians) would encourage us to look at the face of Christ. Where the face of every other beautiful relative or compadre has some commanding value, the face of Christ has become king of the hill. The face of Christ reflects the glory of God. You can’t trump that.

What is it about the face of Christ that would be so stunning? How is it that Jesus’ face would draw such affection from us, such attention, and almost demand our gaze?

It is the face of Christ and the person of Christ Jesus who arrived on planet earth in order to dispel the darkness of our human state.

Ah yes - our human state. How bad is it really? It may not be that our current existence is that unacceptable. Sure, it’s cold but our life is still pretty chummy. We live in comfortable houses and apartments with moderate heating, cushy furniture to support our working class limbs after a hard day’s work. We eat produce that could not be grown in this environment, at least not in January.

But our human state is really masked by these comforts. How deficient would be our existence if we lived without the pleasurable distractions of our world? We may only need to slow the pace of our life in order to let the darkness of this human endeavor to cloud over us. When this happens, we have but small glimpses into the reason for Jesus and his face.

He came to give us life; a full life and not a masked, intoxicated life. He came to assure us that we were not forgotten in the muck of our mistakes. His face would shine directly on us with an unaltered and undistracted glare of love. His face would bleed with sorrow to let humanity know that He understands and cares when we are low, hovering under the darkness of human failings.

It is darkness that He came to eradicate; He came to give us much more than an existence. He came to give us life. That life is in Him and we can experience it through His Spirit by His Words. Come and let Jesus fill you with His untainted, unscarred, unalterable and full, jubilant life!