Читать книгу Luminescence, Volume 3 - C. K. Barrett - Страница 10

(Preached forty-seven times, including James St, York 6/13/34, Pleck 8/1/37, and Nottingham 9/7/42)

Genesis 33.10 “I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God.”

Unless that is simply a prettily phrased compliment with a good deal of flattery, it is one of the most staggering and sublime utterances that ever fell from the lips of one mortal man about another. That any man should see the glory of God is a wonder. If we think of that honor being granted at all, we think of it as the high honor which is the privilege of a few saintly souls of surprising holiness, and granted to them only in honor of deep meditation and rapt adoration. But that Jacob, the supplanter, should see God, and see Him in the face of Esau, the “profane person”—well, here is a marvel of marvels.

And everything about the incident suggests that the expression was not merely a piece of fulsome flattery, but the truth leaping from a surprised soul. It is too swift and unpremeditated to be anything less than the lip’s utterance of the heart’s feeling.

RECALL THE FACTS OF THE CASE

If they do not carry conviction, no argument will. Jacob had deceived his father and deeply wronged his brother. Esau had been deprived of birthright and blessing by a miserable trick. The twin brothers had parted with anger and the lust of vengeance in the heart of Esau and a great fear in the heart of Jacob. The years had sped away. In a hard school, Jacob had learned that what a man sows he reaps. The supplanter had been supplanted. Now he was returning a wiser and better man, a rich and prosperous man too. He had reached the borders of the old homeland. His return might have been a triumph but for the sudden appearance of Esau and his warlike band. That turned the triumph into terror. Here were the consequences of his deception and treachery meeting him with a vengeance. He had made his peace with God, but he still had to face the brother he had so cruelly wronged.

Now comes a miracle of grace. In fear and trembling Jacob went forward expecting the worst and knowing he deserved it. But God had touched Esau’s heart. He looked upon his brother, something went soft within him, his lips quivered, his eyes shone with strange, tender light. There was no form of hate, but a look of love on his face. Instead of a clinched fist or an upraised weapon there were outstretched arms. Jacob found pity where he expected vengeance, saw compassion where he looked for anger, discovered love and forgiveness where he deserved wrath and punishment. It is written, “Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him.” Why, those are the very words Jesus used to tell of the father’s welcome of the prodigal. Esau was doing a divine thing, a God-like action and it transfigured his face. Jacob saw it and summed it up in a genuine, poetic, inspired flash—“I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God.”

THE DIVINE GLORY CAN BE SEEN ON A HUMAN FACE

It has perhaps been one of the weaknesses of our theology that we have fixed too wide and deep a gulf between humanity and God. We have been anxious to emphasize the transcendence of God and have missed His immanence. It ought always to have been clear that the Divine dwells in the human as revealed through it. The great figures under which men thought and spoke of God are entirely human. He is the Good Shepherd, the Gracious Guide, the enduring friend. He comforts like a mother and pities and forgives like a father. When we go back to the sources of our personal knowledge of God we have to confess that the light of the knowledge of God shone for us is a human face—the face of a godly man, and saintly woman, or a lovely child.

And what ought to have left us in no doubt at all is the fact that, when God was pleased to fully reveal His glory He did it through a human life. The glory of God was seen in the face of Jesus Christ. Men saw God full of grace and truth in the Word made flesh. Reverently one asks, “How else could God reveal Himself to men except in a man, to persons except through personality?” The human heart craves such a revelation and cannot be satisfied with less. God meets and satisfies such craving.

As Browning makes David say to poor, tortured Saul, “It shall be a face like my face that receives thee, a man like to me thou shalt love and be loved forever, a hand like this hand shall open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!” On the side of a privilege we accept that and most of us thank God that He has revealed Himself to us through human lives. What we do not always realize is that now—

GOD WANTS TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO OTHERS THROUGH US

It seems too much to expect. We are so conscious of defect and weakness. But we must not hesitate to accept the responsibility which is a further privilege too. We are not simply to be the recipients of a Divine revelation, we are to be the medium of it. It is for us as St. Paul says to “mirror the glory of the Lord with face unveiled” (2 Cor 3.18, Moffatt). God wants it and the world needs it. Men and women around us are blind to many forms in which the glory of God is set. They do not see the glory that fills God’s House for they do not come, and they are blind to the glory of God revealed in nature. Only through Godlike men and women, filled with the constraining love of Christ, manifesting the spirit of the gospel in their consecrated lives, will they come face to face with God.

If the beauty of Jesus is not seen in us it will not be seen at all by many. They must see the Divine brightness, benignity, compassion on our faces or they will miss it. For them, God’s light must shine in human eyes, His love irradiates human faces. They must say of us what Jacob said of Esau—“I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God.” In his book Margaret Ogilvy, J. M. Barrie has a tender and beautiful chapter on, “How my mother got her soft face.”5 We are getting to the heart of our subject when we seek for—

THE SECRET OF THE CELESTIAL LOOK

It cannot be put on. A man who tries to look important generally ends by looking ridiculous. We do not deceive when we try to look pleased at unwelcome visitors. Any man who says in effect, “Now I’m going to look like God,” will spoil the whole effect. Moses “wist not that his face shone.” Consciousness would have taken the shine off. Shining is the outshining of the heart’s transformation. The man who looks most like God is least conscious of it.

Love lights up the face. It is almost sacrilege to intrude, but watch the face of a mother as she bends over her baby, or the face of a man as he turns to the woman he loves. Take note of the homely face of a genuine lover of God as with his heart expanded and warmed he says, “Bless Him. I love Him.” Communion with God transfigures the face. It was from the mount when he had talked with God that Moses came down with a shiny face. The seraphim are the “burning ones.” Standing near God they have become like Him. Because they were like their master men took knowledge of the disciples that they had been with Jesus. Some of us are so little like God because we are so seldom with Him.

But the way I want specially to emphasize is the way in which Esau revealed God. He did the Divine thing. That is what you must do. People try you, irritate you, annoy you—don’t lose your temper, keep your patience. Someone has wronged you, deeply and grievously, the natural thing would be to harbor revenge and try to get your own back. Don’t do it. Forgive and prove forgiveness by returning good for evil. To angry words, give soft answers. Do good to them that hate you and pray for those who despitefully use you. Give a helping hand to men who are down through their own folly and sin. Go on with your good work though you are laughed at or scorned. It’s not natural, you say. I know, that is my point, it is supernatural, it is Divine. By doing such acts you prove yourselves sons and daughters of the Highest and you will carry the family likeness on your face.

In Esau’s case, it was just a flash of the Divine that lit up his face. But the heavenly look should be permanent on our faces. The secret of it is to act like the God Jesus revealed, and keep on so acting. Every Divine act reacts in the soul and the countenance. It has been said that you never see a coarse face under a Salvation Army bonnet. The exceptions are so few as to prove the rule. Some of the faces are homely and plain, but the years of fellowship with God and of Divine service have made homely faces glow with Divine light.

THE POWER OF THE REVELATION

We all know that that is the real winsomeness. We can recall men and women, some of them passed on, who held the Real Presence in their eyes. We did not need telling they were Christian. They did not talk much about religion, they lived it. Everything about them was gracious, attractive, heavenly. Do not be content to admire and praise them, emulate them. “Let your light so shine before men,” and “seeing your good works” they will think of God and glorify the father.

Deliberately I finish with an abrupt question. About most of us, men see a good deal that is human and sometimes something that is devilish. We are continually attributing animal qualities to one another. We say, “He is as cunning as a fox, as cross as a bear, as stubborn as a donkey, as silly as a sheep.” Does any man ever say to you or think of you, “I have seen thy face as though I had seen the face of God”?

5. This book was first published in 1925. Barrie was best known for creating the character Peter Pan.