“I gave my back to the smiters,
and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid not my face
from shame and spitting.”
Isaiah 50:6 (RSV)
The words above are sung as part of every Handel’s Messiah concert, but this scripture, minus the music, came to my mind while watching a scene from the “Passion of Christ”, last week.
After His arrest, Jesus stood before the Sanhedrin and proclaimed that He is the Messiah, who will sit at the right hand of God. (Matthew 26:64)
Those words provoked the Pharisees and High priest to intense anger, and they charged Jesus with blasphemy.
It led up to one scene in the movie that really stuck with me. It was when the Pharisees and High priest spat in His face, one by one. It was humiliating enough to be spat upon, but even worse when a person’s hands are tied. Jesus couldn’t even wipe the spit off of His own face.
It occurred to me during that heartbreaking scene, that Jesus offered His face first, long before He offered the rest of His body on the cross. It reminded me of the words of Isaiah, “I hid not My face from shame and spitting….”
Jesus resolved Himself to complete humility, as if to empty Himself of the divinity of who He really was. Some people claim that Jesus suffered because He was at the wrong place at the wrong time in history, but that ideology minimizes the greatness of His love, His incarnation, His purpose and the giving of His face and body for us.
On the contrary, Jesus was at the right place at exactly the right time, just like the ram that God sent and trapped in the thick bushes for Abraham to offer as a sacrifice, instead of his only son, Isaac.
By not hiding His face, Jesus submitted Himself to humiliation, taking our shame upon Himself, so that we never need to feel the shame of sin again. He never hid His face then and He doesn’t hide it from anyone today. The passion of Christ teaches us that whatever difficulties we have, His face should always be the first thing we seek.
The ancient Jewish temple had a designated place for sacred bread, known as the Bread of the Presence, which literally translates to Bread of the Face, meaning the face of God. (Paniym).
Jesus is the living Bread of the Presence. He is the face of God to the world, and yet the same face that men once spat upon. He never hid His face then and He will never hide His face from us now, but He earnestly desires to reveal Himself to all who seek Him. It’s hard to believe that God could love us this much, but He did then and He still does today.
Lord, thank you for first offering your holy face, so that we may always remember to seek your face first, in difficult times, knowing you gave yourself up for us as an act of divine love. Amen
