On Argonne Street, north of Broadway, close to Starbucks, there is a huge bilboard sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. I have only glanced at it in passing, so some of my details might be slightly off. It is illustrated by one of those Renaissance paintings of the nativity, with Mary in the middle and a tiny baby. The caption reads, “Keep Christ in Christmas.” Despite what readers may put into it from their own hearts, the sign is wrong on many levels. The Knights of Columbus is a Roman Catholic organization, and it was they who put Christ in the mass in the first place. Sure, they want to keep Him there. But we have no instruction to magnify the birth of Christ. And the Catholic celebration of the mass is as unscriptural as snow storms on the Lake of Fire..
But that is not my theme for this evening. I’m thinking about that infant as He might look today. What did the baby Jesus look like? Saturday night, Judy and I went to a reunion concert of a choir that our daughter was in twenty years ago. It was not a black tie event – and there were hundreds of children with many babies. I saw two almost new borns that night – one was as perfect and pretty as humanly possible. The other was so ugly, even I thought she was cute. What did the baby Jesus look like? Was He like either of those two?
Two weeks ago I preached from Revelation 21 and 22, and I want to return to it this evening. That message was on the Bride of Christ, and of course it related to heaven. And if you’ll remember it was delivered with a little disclaimer – A preacher might even use the Bible in his disclaimers when it comes to Heaven. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” In any message about Heaven, it is easy to slip into talking about almost useless details. Things like gates of pearl, streets of gold and mansions versus penthouses or mere dwelling-places. But it doesn’t matter what the house is made of, if it is warm, and dry, and not infested with spiders. It doesn’t matter what the house is like, if it is occupied by the people whom you love.
The real point of Heaven – the thing that makes heaven so different from where we live today…. And the thing which makes talk about heaven so strange coming from some people’s lips…. The real point of Heaven is the residents’ enjoyment of Christ Jesus. It is difficult to understand how someone who has no time, or love, or concern for Christ today will be filled with love and interest in Christ when he gets to heaven. For eternity our occupation, preoccupation, vocation and vacation will be the Lord Jesus. And for someone today to live and die ignoring Christ, but then to instantly begin to ENJOY the Lord for the rest of eternity, is beyond the miraculous. Despite the fact that “we shall be like him” when “we shall see him as he is,” there is a sense in which if we are not somewhat like Christ today, we will never be like Him on the other side of the grave. Heaven is not about gold, peace and leisure; it is about Christ. And the words used in Revelation 22 simply describe Heaven by saying, “And we shall see his face.” Are you ready to see the Saviour’s face?
What does the face of our Saviour look like?
What does the Bible tell us about the PHYSICAL FACE of the Saviour?
Unfortunately – or probably more fortunately – no photographer has ever captured an image of Christ. We have no authoritative police sketch, no surveillance video or chiseled stone-carving of the Lord Jesus. Except, of course, the one that we have in the Shroud of Turin. That supposed burial cloth of Christ, is claimed to be the most important relic in history of Christianity. It has been unrivaled in importance until the discovery of the Ossuary of James. Do you remember the Ossuary of James? An ossuary is a box, similar to an urn, used in some cultures store the bones of the dead. Where tombs are used for burial places, they can get full, leaving no more room for new occupants. So the bones of people long dead are often moved into small ossuaries. A dozen years ago a man in Tel Aviv showed an archeologist a box with some ancient writing on it. It said, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus.” Immediately it was considered genuine and proof of some of the statements of the Bible. Unfortunately, subsequently, experts began saying it was another of the many hoaxes about Christ. It may be an old ossuary, but the inscription is believed to have been applied more recently. Unlike that ossuary, the Shroud of Turin is a relic that just won’t go away. And that is despite the fact that there are over forty rivals to the supposed burial clothes of Christ. A man named Geoffrey Charney first displayed the Shroud of Turin in 1357. By 1449 his great granddaughter was selling admission tickets to see it, making a small fortune. Then she gave it to the Duke of Savoy in exchange for two nice, big castles. However, French Pope Clement VII, had already published a letter exposing the shroud as a fake. Yet despite that early testimony and all of the proof since, many people think that somehow, miraculously painted on some ancient cloth is an image of the face of Lord Jesus when He was buried. There isn’t a shred of evidence to Shroud of Turin story – there isn’t a “shroud of evidence.” We simply have no accurate pictures of Christ from those who actually saw Him. So once again, we are stuck with ONLY the inspired Word of God.
And what does the Bible say? For example, does it say that Jesus had LONG HAIR? Once again there isn’t a single shred of evidence that He did have long hair. I Corinthians 11:14 says: “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? Now, we have to be honest here: In our zealousness to defend ourselves, we sometimes apply the Bible incorrectly. I Corinthians 11:14 does not “prove” that Jesus couldn’t have had long hair. God sometimes commissioned special men not to cut their hair, making it long after a while. It was indeed a shame for men to have long hair, and I think that it still is, but sometimes people in the Bible were commissioned by God to endured that shame in order to make a point for the Lord. It is conceivable that the God the Father COULD have ordained that Christ also wear this kind of shame, in addition to the shame of the cross and other things. I Corinthians 11:14 doesn’t prove that Jesus didn’t have long hair. What it does proves that no Christian man should have long, feminine-looking hair. It doesn’t prove that He who became sin for us, couldn’t have had long hair. But, it does lend strong support to the argument that Jesus did cut his hair like most of the people in His day.
But then some people say that Jesus had long hair because he was a Nazarite. Nazarites were people who made promises to God in regard to a variety of things, which usually involved a special separation from the world and dedication to the Lord. And indeed Nazarites, as a part of their separation, were not to cut their hair until their vow expired. Usually that separation was of a relatively short duration. But there were two notable exceptions of people who were Nazarites for life: Samson and Samuel. Unfortunately for the people who accept this argument, the Bible never says Jesus was a Nazarite. I think that if He had been the scriptures would have clearly said so. Christ was a “Nazarene,” because he lived in Nazareth, but he was no uncut, unkempt Nazarite. History certainly doesn’t support the idea that Jesus had long hair. And despite the numbers of mediaeval painters who depicted Christ with long hair, notable exceptions include da Vinci and Michelangelo who both painted Him with short hair. There simply is not a strand, or hair, of evidence that Christ ever had long hair. And in the light of I Corinthians 11:14 the burden of proof is on those who say that He did.
But did Christ have a BEARD? Ah, there is a question of an entirely different nature. We learned in our Bible trivia classes that the word “beard” cannot be found in the New Testament. In other words, there aren’t any New Testament clues to help us answer our question. But there may be one Old Testament passage which might shed light on the question: Isaiah 50:4-6 – “The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.” Of whom speaketh the prophet this? Of himself, or of some other man? I went to my trusty computer and asked it about this verse – “Does Isaiah 50:6 speak of Christ?” All my references in there said “Yes.” So I turned to my library – there wasn’t a single reference that said it didn’t speak of the Lord Jesus. There were theology books like Louis Sperry Chafer and A.H. Strong. There were commentaries like Matthew Poole, Matthew Henry, Delitzsche and Pulpit Commentary. And even all the sermons that I could find on this verse said the same thing. And then according to Ezra 9:3 and II Samuel 10:4, to shave one’s beard was a shameful act. So does that mean that Jesus had a long and scraggly beard? No, it was probably short and well trimmed; but I don’t have any pictures to prove it.
Well then what color was that hair and beard? Was it dark and thick, as we might picture someone whose family lived in Israel for a few centuries? Or was it more on the reddish side like His grandfather David’s skin and hair color was? Certainly, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, looked Jewish, not European or American. His skin was on the dark side and leathery from the sun. His nose was probably larger than yours. He looked Hebrew, and many people today might not be able to tell the difference between Him and an Arab or a Palestinian. What is the point of all this? Not a whole lot. So let’s move on to a different kind of glimpse at Jesus’ face.
For the Christian, I think we can conclude that Jesus’ will be THE MOST LOVELY FACE in world.
Two weeks ago, I made reference to Psalm 45, and I’ll do so again. Psalm 45 is generally considered to be a prophesy and description of the Lord Jesus. “My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; whereby the people fall under thee. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad. Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir.” This Psalm describes Christ as “fairer than all the children of men.” By some sort of divine criteria, to which all the saints will some day agree – our Saviour was, is and will be the most handsome individual we will ever see.
How can these verses be blended with those of Isaiah 52 and 53? “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men: Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.”
How can Christ be both beautiful and so marred that there is no beauty that we should desire him? The beauty of the face of Christ includes the scars which He received in redeeming us. The ugly wounds in His hands remind us of the nails which in a sense held Him to the cross. The scars on His forehead were created by the sharp thorns which were driven into His scalp. And although the swelling in His face has undoubtedly diminished, I’m sure that there are scars there as well. But all they do is highlight and amplify the love and beauty in His eyes, when He looks upon His saints. Why should He love me so? How should He love me so?
When WE finally reach Revelation 22 – when the saints are glorified and blessed, we shall see our Saviour’s His face. That is what Heaven is all about.