Week Twelve-Day One: The Face of Love

Let’s wrap up our discussion of the love of God today. Last week we said that God’s love is uninfluenced, it is tenacious and it is tender. Nice concept, but … sometimes I don’t really feel His love. That’s why it’s important for me to remember that love has a face.

That’s right – I said it. Love has a face.

And it’s not the face of the latest super-model. To get a glimpse at the face of love, look at Luke 7:11-17 with me.

¹¹ Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. ¹² As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out—the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. ¹³ When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, “Don’t cry.”

¹⁴ Then he went up and touched the bier they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still. He said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!” ¹⁵ The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

¹⁶ They were all filled with awe and praised God. “A great prophet has appeared among us,” they said. “God has come to help his people.” ¹⁷ This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.

If we put ourselves in the place of his first followers, it’s hard to figure out exactly what Jesus is at this point in his life. He’s a rabbi certainly. And many people have started calling him teacher. But there’s all kinds of activity surrounding him that is … let’s say beyond the category of rabbi. He’s a healer; he’s a traveling orator; he’s a holy man … I guess.

Also, rumors that Jesus is the Messiah had surfaced well before the incident described in Luke 7. In their minds, this would have meant that he is the Promised One who will restore the Jews to their former glory. To them, this probably suggested material wealth and security and independence from Roman rule.

But he doesn’t fit any of those descriptions really. He doesn’t act like a typical rabbi or holy man. He certainly doesn’t act like a typical military leader. So what is he?

In the Luke 7 incident, Jesus is traveling with a company of his followers described here as “a large crowd.” Upon entering the village of Nain, they encounter what may have been a larger crowd. The larger crowd is led by wailers and mourners. The whole larger crowd is sober to say the least. The only son of a widow has died. His coffin is being carried to his final resting place. You don’t have to be a social scientist to know this woman is experiencing a profound grief which will echo in her for the rest of her life. You also don’t need to be a social scientist to know that her prospects are not good. She has no husband, she has no son and she lives in the Ancient Near East. These are not friendly times to a childless widow.

Her despair must have reverberated to the very edge of the crowd from Nain. Those closest in, her relatives and closest friends would have felt it most severely. But the whole village would have understood and empathized to varying degrees. This was a crowd in mourning.

The progress of Jesus’ group is necessarily interrupted. There is an awkward encounter as the two crowds move toward one another. Then someone in Jesus’ crowd must have observed the nature of the crowd from the village. They see the familiar sights and sounds of mourning. (Read carefully. I’m setting you up.) They see the dead body held by the bearers. They see head and face coverings and black attire. They may have seen sackcloth and ashes. They’ve seen this before. Sensitively, they move aside to allow the mourners to pass.

But Jesus sees something different … he sees the mother and his heart went out to her.

What did this look like?

Remember, Luke is writing based on other people’s accounts. He told us at the very first of his biography that he had “carefully investigated everything from the beginning.” He has evidently spent time talking with “eyewitnesses.”[1] He must have talked to some of the disciples. Was he able to talk to this widow? Did he talk to others who had talked with her after the resurrection of her son? Did he talk to the son? Did an account of this incident first appear as a separate report coming out of the first disciples? Or did it come out of the region of Nain itself?

So what did they say? When Jesus saw the mother, what could you read on his face? I want to know. Obviously, I want what I can’t have. I want a video – at least a picture – because I believe THAT was the face of love. Jesus saw the mother and what he did because he saw the mother was utterly amazing. But I bet those closest to Jesus saw something even more amazing: they saw the face of love.

Jesus stops the procession. Awkward. He tells the woman, “Don’t cry.” More awkward, in fact, downright insensitive. He goes up to the coffin, touches it and commands the boy – the dead boy – to get up. Uber-awkward.

But when love acts under the impulse of absolute power stuff happens.

This is why we speak about Jesus the way we do. This is why we study his life and worship him and make it our aim to follow his way. His is the face of love.

On day two of last week we described love as the key impulse governing God’s relationship with us. Awesome, but sometimes we lose our grip on what that means don’t we? When we want to know what it means, when we want to know what that looks like, when we lose sight of it and lose our grip on it, we can bring it back into partial focus by investigating Jesus. We can look at Jesus because love had a face and it walked among us. Love’s face is the face of Jesus.[2]

Those first followers might have had a better idea about what Jesus was when he was among them if they’d simply dispensed with all their categories and recognized that he was love squeezed into human skin.

BEFORE YOU START YOUR DAY

1. God loves you.The implications of this are profound.Think about that as you read this hymn by David Crowder.

The day is brighter here with You
The night is lighter than its hue
Would lead me to believe, which leads me to believe

You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
Yeah, You make everything glorious
And I am Yours, what does that make me?

My eyes are small but they have seen
The beauty of enormous things
Which leads me to believe there’s light enough to see, that (chorus) 

We have painted a picture of the scene surrounding Jesus’ miracle hoping that that will help us keep it more firmly in mind today.Read through the passage one more time and ask God to help you see with the eyes of love today.