Intro
Earlier in the service we asked the children to think about the face of God and how it is reflected in our faces. Isn’t it interesting how easily children can misunderstand things?
It’s like the boy who listened to the Bible reading about how God told Lot to take his wife and flea. His wife turned around and was turned to a pillar of salt. The young by asked his father “And what happened to the flea?”
Which reminds me of my Mum’s Biblical joke: Do you know the name of the bear in the Bible? Gladly. As in “Gladly, my cross-eyed bear.”
I mentioned once before about the boy who thought God’s name was Harold. After all, we do say every week “Our Father in heaven, Harold be thy name!”
And what about the girl who thought God was called Andy, from the hymn “Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am his own…”
Jacob’s experience
In the OT reading today [Gen 32:22-31], Jacob thought he came face-to-face with God. Twenty or more years before, Jacob had swindled his brother Esau out of his inheritance and then ran away to his father-in-law’s. But now God has told him to go home. So he is on his way to meet his brother, filled with fear at what Esau might do to him. On the night before he expects to face his brother, Jacob struggles with God. He is scarred for life by the encounter, but contrary to the popular belief of the time, he does not die. He has seen God and lived! The event is so significant that Jacob takes on a new name, a name that has stuck with his descendants for the past 3,900 years: Israel, the one who struggles with God.
Not only did Jacob survive a face-to-face encounter with God, he has also found the courage to face his brother. In fact the meeting turns out far better than he had feared and when he realises that Esau means him no harm, you can almost hear the sigh of relief as he says “To see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favourably.” I wonder whether our own experiences of God strengthens us to face our problems in the same way?
So, what is the face of God like?
It is said that the majority of human communication happens via body-language rather than words. And the most expressive part of the body is the face. With our face we express happiness, sadness, grief, anger, shame, affection, stubbornness, concern, attentiveness, contentment and embarrassment. Faces reflect a person’s character.
Let’s look at some faces and imagine what the people behind these faces are like. Can we see something of God in these faces?
[View photos in the attached PowerPoint file]
O.T. perspective
Prompted by Jacob’s experience, I looked through the Bible for other references to the face of God. The theme is woven through the Old Testament:
- Moses regularly met with God face-to-face. It was considered so extraordinary that a person could see God’s face without dying that the Israelites saw the experience of Moses as an indication of the uniqueness of their relationship with God.
- There is an oft-repeated fear in the O.T., sometimes phrased as a threat, that God would hide his face from Israel, meaning that he would ignore or reject them.
- But on the positive side, there is encouragement to seek God’s face, an assurance that the righteous will see God’s face and that seeing his face would bring joy, peace and salvation.
- And there is a repeated allusion to God’s face shining. God’s face shines with so much glory that whenever Moses came away from God’s presence, his face also radiated a light that was too bright to look at.
N.T. perspective
In the New Testament, the theme of God’s face takes a new direction. In John 14, Jesus tells his Disciples that they have already seen God. They don’t understand, so he makes it more explicit: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
[Show illusion of Jesus’ face in attached PowerPoint file.]
It is one of the fundamental claims of Christianity that we see God’s face in the face of Jesus. Not that his eyes or nose have a family resemblance, nor even that his personality reminds us of God, but that his character reveals the very nature of God. Jesus is the face of God made visible.
When we reflect on today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew [Matt 14: 13-21] – the feeding of a huge crowd with a few loaves of multi-grain and a couple of flathead – we can see a few indications of what God is like from the actions of Jesus:
- Firstly, notice the context of this incident. John the Baptist has just been beheaded after Herod made a foolish promise to the daughter of his sister-in-law and mistress. When Jesus hears of this, he withdrew to be by himself. It doesn’t stretch the imagine much to understand his sorrow at the death of his cousin, and most probably his apprehension that the same fate awaits him. Does this indicate to us that God is saddened by the evil in his world? That God can understand the kind of grief that we feel in times of loss?
- But Jesus’ retreat is cut short by an inquisitive crowd. He reacts, as God would, with compassion. Not with impatience, or anger, or despair, but with compassion. He opens his heart to the crowd, heals the sick and provides food for their hunger.
- In Matthew’s version of this episode, he emphasises the amount left over after people have eaten their fill. Twelve baskets full of leftovers after more than 5,000 have eaten five loaves and two fish. I see in this a statement that God is generous, far beyond what is needed, expected, or hoped for. God has filled the world with an incredible variety of plants and animals, colours and climates, and has blessed us with far more riches than we could possibly deserve. Jesus provides an object lesson pointing to the fact that with God there is always more than enough.
- The miraculous feeding by Jesus also brings to the foreground the sovereignty of God. Neither hunger, sickness nor grief, rebellion by humans or devils, neither wild storms nor death can hold their ground against God. Jesus is Lord of all, pre-eminent in all things, the very essence of God in human form, and all powers on earth and in heaven are subservient to his word.
This brief passage shows us at least these characteristics of God’s face. Imagine a face that shows sorrow, compassion, generosity, with a regal look of sovereign authority – imagine these and we glimpse something of the face of God.
We also reflect God’s glory
In searching for references to the face of God through the Bible, I found one more aspect. It is illustrated by the way Jesus delegated duties to his disciples. He asked the disciples to feed the crowd and, after his blessing, it was them who distributed the food.
God continues to delegate to his disciples, that is, to us. Like Jesus, we also present God’s face to the world. As Paul writes in 2 Cor, the same sovereign God who said “Let there be light” has 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 (4:6). And Paul also writes that like Moses, our unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory (3:18).
We need to be an outward facing church. Of course we also need to be upward-facing – looking to God – and inward-facing – caring for each other, but our chief mission is to the outer world. William Temple, one-time Archbishop of Canterbury, claimed, quite rightly, that the Church is the only organisation that exists for its non-members. In being outward-looking, we reveal the face of God to our community.
Concluding prayer
God of eternity, thankyou for showing us your face in terms that we can understand. Thankyou that in Jesus we can see you. Make your face shine upon us, and empower us to reflect your character as we live for you in this world.
| Faces.ppt Delivered to Berowra Uniting Church on 4 August 2002 |