Looking at Jesus and being seen

The Presentation of the Christ-child in the Temple

Within the Christian tradition we do a lot of looking – we look at Jesus all the time – we tell the stories about his life, we enact out the dramas of his birth, adult ministry, death and resurrection; and today’s story is about Jesus being looked at again – presented in the temple, taken, blessed and recognised as the light of the world. Looking at Jesus is a vital part of Christian life – we learn everything from him, but the gaze is not one way – Jesus also looks back at us.

Timothy Radcliffe writes that Joy begins by letting ourselves be looked at by Jesus (What’s the point of being a Christian?)

Jesus knows intimately about the ways in which humans look at one another – being a part of our world he was exposed to the range of human emotions – he was looked at with love, with gratitude, with fear, with hope, with mercy, with compassion, with hatred, with judgment and with condemnation. On the Cross he was naked and exposed, the shame would have been overwhelming, the shame and pain of crucifixion and of others looking at him – berating, taunting and mocking. Today we remember that Simeon and Anna took him in their arms and looked at him and saw there great hope, expectation and consolation – his presence granted Simeon peace and the chance to die in peace; from expectation and hope to death and resurrection.

Jesus’ action on the Cross redraws for us the whole way that we experience God’s regard of us. The Garden of Eden story describes the way in which humanity came to fear God’s gaze – the shame of disobedience - and it therefore narrates our alienation from the loving gaze of God.

Our redemption is found in Jesus’ death through which he shows us that our sin does not alienate us from God’s loving gaze. On the cross Jesus looks at the penitent thief and tells him that he will be in paradise. Similarly, when Jesus returns from the dead his look is a look of forgiveness, peace, mercy and hope. He literally takes us by the hand and says – do not be ashamed, look here, look at my face, look at my scars, feel them, they are here, present, real, I suffered, I was hurt, humanity murdered me but I’m back, I’ve survived and I come to you now not in vengeance and anger but in forgiveness and peace! Nothing you do can separate you from the love of God in me!

Shame and fear make us turn away from Jesus (and from one another) – joy begins by letting ourselves be looked at by Jesus. We do not know how that look will transform us. In this moment, can each of us dare to see Jesus’ face, to invite him to look at us, to encourage our eyes to meet his, to turn and be saved?

The thing about people that have beheld the loving gaze of Jesus is that the transformation it makes in them leads them to look at others as Jesus looked at them. That’s how the joy becomes infectious – see how they love one another! – redeemed people shining with the glory of the face of Jesus Christ – beholding one another, looking at one another not with fear, judgment and condemnation, but with eyes of mercy, understanding, forgiveness and love.

Christian worship that would reflect that would inhabit a very different space from Victorian hierarchical churches – where the choir can only see each other and the congregation are all facing one direction looking at the priest – with the children elsewhere in Sunday School– but Jesus is here among us – in each face that blesses through a regard of true love – love that heals, that binds, that reunites, that hopes, that transforms.

Today we are receiving Adrian into the Anglican Communion – but we welcome him not only formally with prayers and liturgy, but more importantly by seeing him and his family – by not just noticing them, but in our welcome, in our attentiveness to them, in our ability to look at them and love them. And in their turn Adrian and his family become one of us here by returning that gaze, by looking back at us in Christ and seeing us as Christ sees us – not a perfect Christian community, but one that not only looks to Jesus but which rejoices in being able to receive his gaze – a community open to that all-redeeming love of God. Which is not without its challenges, remember the young man who asked Jesus what he must to do gain eternal life, Jesus looked at him and loved him and told him to go sell his possessions and give all the money to the poor. We cannot know what Jesus will ask of us who are made free by his attentiveness, but we hope and expect that what Jesus asks is for our further joy and peace and that in learning more about his face we might bless one another, recalling and repeating the Abrahamic blessing:

The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord make his face to shine upon you
and be gracious to you
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you
and give you peace.

Numbers 6.24-26