Love changes the eyes of the beholder.
In absolute standards of beauty, Jesus was not an attractive man. Isaiah 53 says that he “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). We hold no photos nor portraits of what he actually looked like. Rather we hold words that weave the story of the gospel and of His love.
And love makes beauty.
Jesus, a man with callused work roughened hands, feet dusty and sweaty from traversing the Galilean coast, smelling sometimes (often?) of sweat and fish and dust, was beautiful.
Our eyes are too often distracted by the temporary beauties of this world: youth, approval, comfort, pleasure. We must readjust our vision. Just as the old man looks on his elderly wife and sees beauty in the wrinkles and gray hair and stretched skin, so we must begin to see the beauty of spiritual things. It is the soul and not the physical appearance that glows with beauty. The Lord reminds Samuel of something similar:
For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. ~ 1 Samuel 16:7
Of course, Jesus is no longer limited by his humanity, nor his unassuming human appearance. He stands as the commander of the Lord’s armies:
Then I turned to see… one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire (Revelation 1:12-14).
And yet, it is his life as a man, giving up the splendor of heaven, the love he poured on those around him, his death, his resurrection, and how he lives now within us: these are all still beautiful, if only we have eyes to see it.
And with the glow of love, his beauty will only grow.
“How beautiful the hands that serve
the wine and the bread to the sons of the earth.
How beautiful the feet that walked
the long dusty road on the hill to the cross.
How beautiful… is the body of Christ” (Twila Paris)
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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