As we shelter quietly in our respective dwelling places this Mother’s Day weekend, Jesus’ words are comforting. Our hearts may well be troubled, but Jesus assures us there is a better place being prepared for us.
Jesus is being very motherly, don’t you think? Love and comfort are the traditional roles of motherhood. Count yourself blessed if your mother is still here to fold you – physically or, perhaps, virtually – into her loving arms.
But also count yourself blessed if you have memories of a comforting mother. My mother died 37 years ago this month and in times of trouble I can still hear her soothing voice.
Once, at a funeral for a young colleague, I watched as the widow, tears streaming down her cheeks, gathered her weeping children into her arms. The pastor who presided over the funeral paused and said, “Look at this woman and don’t forget it. God weeps when we are heartbroken and embraces us with love and reassurance. This woman is showing us God.”
We are richly blessed if we have – or had – mothers who showed us God.
And that is why Jesus seems to be acting motherly in this passage from John. Earlier, he told his flock that he would be with them “only a little longer” (John 13:33a), but in the end all would be well.
Jesus is trying to show his disciples God’s love but but they are slow to understand his words.
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:8-9)
What is Jesus saying? That one can find God by looking at Jesus’ human face?
That may not be as preposterous as it seems, especially for those who believe humans were made in God’s image.
You may have read recently about Ohio Representative Nino Vitale who refused to comply with the state’s requirement to wear a facemask to protect against the Covid 19 virus.
“This is the greatest nation on earth founded on Judeo-Christian Principles,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “One of those principles is that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. That image is seen the most by our face. I will not wear a mask.”
Now there’s a guy who takes a literal interpretation of scripture to extremes. I wonder if he thinks the prettier we are, the more vividly we show God’s image. And if so, do homely or tragically disfigured persons preach the same message?
When I was a teenager I loved to attend the Madison County fair in Central New York. That was back when side shows were still a cultural phenomenon and barkers would stand outside the tent urging you to spend a quarter so you could go inside and see astounding sights.
My buddy John and I could never resist that kind of temptation and we’d drop two bits into the basket so we could see exotic marvels like a five-legged calf or Lydia the Tattooed Lady.
One of the exotic exhibits was a middle-aged man named Billy* who was born with a cleft palate so severe that he had a deep gash in his head from his upper lip to his hairline. A human eye had been crudely painted in the hollow of his forehead so it looked like he had three eyes. Billy was billed – paradoxically – as “Cyclops Man.”
As the crowd gathered around him, Billy began to speak with a deep southern accent.
“Thank you for coming,” he drawled. “I give thanks to my Lord Jesus Christ for my many blessings. If Jesus loves ugly me, he loves you, too. Believe on the Lord and you shall be saved.”
The crowd shuffled out of the tent in silence. We Central New Yorkers weren’t accustomed to public Christian witness but I never forgot Billy. I was stunned by the fact that a man born so disfigured, a man who might have been justified in cursing God, could instead praise God for his blessings. I must have been stunned, because I’ve remembered his testimony word-for-word for 60 years.
Billy knew a great truth that eludes so many: that because humans are made in the image of God, it does not mean God has human form. It does not mean that human beauty has anything to do with godliness, or that human ugliness is a sign of God’s wrath.
And, as Jesus tried to convey to Philip and the other disciples, it is not Jesus’ human form that enables us to see God, but the love of God that was incarnate in Jesus.
Jesus’ ministry on earth showed God’s unconditional and enduring love for all human kind.
Jesus’ ministry on earth revealed God’s singular love for the poor, the disabled, the despised, and especially for sinners.
Jesus’ ministry on earth was one of servitude, grace, and, at its climax, self-sacrifice on the cross.
Jesus’ ministry on earth was as clear a lens as we will ever get of God’s love for each of us, and for all God’s creation.
“Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” Jesus asks Philip. “The words that I say to you I do not speak in my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”
Billy the Cyclops, exploited, disfigured, mocked gawked at, knew a great truth. God loved him categorically. And it was not his face that God loved but his beautiful, loving soul, created in the image of God.
There is great comfort in this truth. And on this Mother’s Day Sunday 2020, when we are physically separated, fretful, and anxious about the future, we have God’s motherly assurance.
God has lovingly prepared a place for us. So be not afraid. In the end, all will be well.
___
* Outside of Madison County, William Durks (1913-1975) was billed as “The Three Eyed Man” or “The Two Faced Man.” Durks was born in Jaspar, Ala., with frontonasal dysplasia, a rare developmental defect caused when two halves of an embryo’s face fail to knit together. “Billy” began traveling with carnival circuits at 14 and continued working until his death, making an average of $100 a week. He was happily married to a fellow carnival worker, Mildred Lasher, “Milly the alligator skinned woman,” until her death in 1968.
No comments:
Post a Comment