Beauty of Jesus

There is a series on the Beauty of Jesus that I have always wanted to write down. I don't know how far I will get, but I would like to make this the first of that series.

1 December 2019

Dear Phyllis,

Last Thursday was American Thanks Giving Day. I probably should write something about thanks giving but I don't want to. We have tons to be thankful for and every day should be Thanks Giving day.

Jesus said, “If I be lifted up … I will draw all men to Me” (Jn. 12:32). Of course, He was referring to His Cross, but I believe the same thing applies to preaching. I weary of “Here's how” messages. No preacher ever made a man better by telling them they ought to be better. And telling me that I should pray more doesn't help me to be a man of prayer. I made a little sign on the pulpit at NLL saying “Sir, we would see Jesus” (Jn.12:21). I don't know how many preachers got the hint, but I have always thought if we held Jesus up a little more perhaps we might get further with our preaching.

Several years ago I was preaching once a month in Brother Kitchikun's Thai church. At that time, a home for ex-prostitutes was attending our church, and I had 20 ex-prostitutes to preach to. I said, “I want to tell you about the beauty of the Lord”. I knew the best place to find that was the description the Bride of Christ gave in response to the question, “What is your Beloved, more than another beloved, that you are so excited about?” (That is a Bill Cook translation S of S 5:9). We have that description of Jesus in S of S 5:10-16. I thought, “This has got to be the best series of preaching of my life”. It was awful. Those prostitutes didn't get a thing out of it. But I sure did.

If I attempt to expositorially write a series on the beauty of Christ, as narrated in S of S 5:10-16; there are 12 specific attributes mentioned in that passage. I tried to go over them one at a time with the ex-prostitutes but it didn't work out too good. Expositorially holding them up may be informative, but it didn't speak to the girls, and I am not sure what impact this might have on you now. Revelation is spiritual, information is soulish. I would rather share something with you that impacts your spirit than increases your knowledge. And this may come out more like a jar of beans poured out on a table than a string of pearls perfectly aligned on a string. If we list the 12 different features of the beauty of Jesus we see here numerically 1 to 12, His eyes would be number 5.

But I wonder if His eyes aren't the most significant item that tells us more about His heart than anything else. It has been correctly said that the eyes are the window of the soul. More than any other physical feature of a person. the eyes tell us more about what is going on inside. There is a silent communication expressed by the eyes that defies explanation, but you know it when you see it. If someone is angry, you know that right now. If someone is sad, that is obvious. You can usually tell a great deal about a persons character by their eyes. There is a radical difference between of the eyes of carnivorous animals or birds and herbivorous. The difference between the eyes of a hawk or eagle and the eyes of a dove is radical. The difference of the eyes of a cow or a horse and a fox or cat is radical. There are two snakes in Japan that look very similar – a mamushi and kamakakashi. They both look like garder snakes. A mamushi is deadly poisoness and a yamakakashi is harmless. I was talking to a friend about them one day, and he asked, “How can you tell them apart?” I told him, “If you ever see a mamushi you will know. The eyes are slam different.” A year later he told me, “I killed a mamushi the other day. You were right. When I saw those eyes I knew right away that was a mamushi.”

In the description that we have of Christ in Song of Sol, the Bride tells us, “He has the eyes doves” (S of S 5:12). There is much we could say about that description; most of which is self-explanatory. Among birds there is nothing more harmless than a dove. And there is nothing more threatening than the eyes of an eagle. There is much that could be said about doves eyes. It tells so much about their character. I have written and spoken much about doves eyes, but this morning the Lord gave me an entirely new view.

I was thinking about the experience of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. We all know that story. The Pharisees were trying to get Jesus in a trap and they got Him in a set up. I have no doubt that was planed. They dragged the woman to Jesus asking Him, “What are we supposed to do? Stone her or what?” Jesus' response was a classic. He said, “He that is without sin let him cast the first stone”. The Bible tells us that the eldest in the crowd were the first to suddenly remember there was something important to do at home right away. And soon they were all gone. She was saved. And when the crowd was gone she was left alone with Jesus. This morning I was reliving the experiencing of that woman. It would have been horrific. Oh, my goodness, caught in the very act, and being dragged out into the street. There were hostile glaring eyes of the mob pointing at her and asking Jesus what they should. In some places today that would have been answered by a shower of stones. It was miraculous that she was saved, but after the crowd melted away, and she was left alone with Jesus, she looked up to look in His eyes. What did she see? I know what she saw. I saw it this morning. What do you see? It's hard to describe. I saw compassion. I saw tenderness. I saw forgiveness. Oh this is better imagined than described. That is what the eyes of Jesus look like. If the Holy Spirit reveals this to you, anything more that I could say would just a detraction. I don't know about you, but this brings me to tears.

To be honest, the Bible tells much about the eyes of Jesus in several other places, and it doesn't say eyes of doves. In the Book of Revelation, three times John describes the eyes of Christ, and in each case he says, “His eyes were as a flame of fire”. That doesn't sound much like doves eyes to me. How can you explain the difference? It all depends who He is looking at; or who is looking at Him. To a guilty criminal in a court room the eyes of an enraged judge might look like a flame of fire. We all know what that looks like when someone is so angry fire is coming out of their eyes. But to his daughter or young son, the eyes of that same judge might look like doves eyes when he comes home to pick them up in his arms. It all depends who he is dealing with. There is nothing I can imagine more terrifying for a Christ-hating, Christ-defying progressive than to have to stand before Christ at the Great White Throne Judgment and have to look into those eyes. After looking into those eyes, hell would be a refuge.

But to the Bride of Christ and to guilty, undone, no-hope sinners, like that poor woman in John 8, to look into the eyes of Jesus and seeing the compassion, understanding, tenderness, forgiveness – you fill in the rest – oh, my goodness, how can you describe it? Oh, the eyes of Jesus.! The Bible has done its best to tell us that the eyes of Jesus are like doves eyes, but when you know you are dead meat and look into those eyes they are a whole lot more.

I hope you got something out of this. It has been a blessing to me even to inadequately share with you what I saw this morning.

Arigato gozaimasu, bill