The Beauty of Jesus (6)

The Beauty of Jesus (6)

Dear Phyllis,

Moving along in our study of the Beauty of Jesus The next verse we come to is His eyes are as eyes of doves (S of S 5:12). We have already covered that in the first letter I wrote. There were two reasons why I wrote that first. One was because the Lord had spoken to me about that that morning, and it was very real. The second was that the eyes tell us more about what is inside a person than any other physical feature. If you want to review what I said about His eyes go back and re-read The Beauty of Jesus (1). The eyes are the window of the soul. Without reviewing that I would like to skip over that verse and go on to verse 13. There we see the Bride talking about the cheeks of Jesus – His cheeks are as beds of spics.

I have the joy of teaching little children English at the Nitrrahong kindergarten every morning. Recently I taught them the song “Be careful little eyes what you see”; and in doing that I taught them the verb that goes with the body part – eyes, see; ears, hear; feet, walk; etc. In Bible exegesis this is one of the basic rules – find the verb that goes with the noun. In the Bible the word cheek appears nine times, and eight out of nine times the verb that goes with it is smite. Jesus used it twice when He taught, “If your enemy smites you on the cheek turn the other one also” (Mt. 5:39).

The word “cheeks” appears four times and one is Isa. 50:6; “I gave My back to the smiters and My cheeks to them that plucked off my hair: I hid not my face from shame and spiting”. It doesn't require a deep Bible scholar to tell us what that verse is all about. That is as clearly messianic as you can get and is a graphic description of what Jesus endured at the trial. Of the four gospels Matthew and Mark give us a brief account of a portion of the trail. At one point Pilate turned Jesus over to be scourged. It was at that time the the prophecy of Isiah was fulfilled in Jesus being spit on, hit on the head, smitten on His cheeks, His beard plucked off, and a crown of thorns planted on His head (Mt. 26:67; Mk. 15:19). This is the only reference we have in the Bible of the cheeks of Jesus.

But if we drop back to the Song of Solomon and look at the rest of verse 13 we see that it says, “His cheeks are as beds of spices, as sweet flowers”. The only thing we can pick up there is there is a connection between cheeks and fragrance. Beds of spices and sweet flowers have only one meaning – FRAGRANCE. Is there a connection between Isa. 50:6 and S of S 5:13? I think there is.

Spiritual fragrance is one of my favorite topics to preach on. In the realm of the spirit there are the same five senses that exist in the physical world. Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling all exist in the spirit world. The Japanese are unique in being highly sensitive people. More than any other race they communicate more by unspoken means than by direct speech. There is a common Japanese expression that they use to describe a foreigner, “batakusai” - he smells like butter. They use that because the first foreigners who came to Japan smelled like the butter they ate, and butter was unknown in those days.

Of the five senses the sense of smell is the most sensitive. A friend of mine lived on a hill in Japan. He said he could always tell when the postman was coming – he smoked. Marvin would be outside and smell smoke. Then he would hear the postman coming. Next the postman would appear. And finally the postman would walk up to him and hand him a letter. But the first indication that the postman was coming was by what Marvin could smell. In the realm of the spirit there is something about people that you can sense, that you react to. This is pretty basic. This is the first stage of evangelism. If someone sense the fragrance of Christ about you, very often they are drawn to you, and eventually get saved.

But what is the law of fragrance? One word – loss. You can have a bottle of perfume, but you won't smell a thing until you take the cap off. When we preach about spiritual fragrance the basic text that we turn to is Mary's anointing of Jesus (Jn. 12:1-8). In that passage John tells us, “The house was filled with the odour of the ointment” (12:3). No one smelled a thing until Mary broke the bottle.

If we want to have something about the fragrance of Christ about us, there is a price to be paid. Self-protection is one of the most basic instincts in man. You can't blame anybody for protecting themselves.

Self-protection is basic to every form of life down to worms who squirm when you stick a fishhook in them. There are a number of illustrations of people doing amazing things of sacrificing themselves for the sake of others.

There was an incident during the 2^nd WW where a B-24 bomber was on a bombing mission in the Pacific. On their run they took a couple of pretty bad hits and lost two engines. Returning home over the ocean, the pilot told his crew that he couldn't maintain altitude, and the only chance they had was to lighten the plane as much as possible. They threw out every thing they had from their guns to their parachutes. There was a Christian bombardier who sat in the nose of the plane under the pilot. Fortunately, by getting rid of everything on board, they just made it home. It was a happy crew that got out of that plane until the bombardier. He wasn't there. He had jumped out to lighten the plane for others.

I have a friend Roger Wingle who is the strongest man I ever met. He is no body beautiful specimen, but he could lift an elephant with one hand. The only thing about Roger that is significant is ugly scars on his arms. When Roger was a young man he was returning from church one night taking a young lady home. As they went around a curve there was an accident in front of them blocking the road. There was no way Roger could stop in time and they impacted the road block. Their car exploded. Roger's car was engulfed in flames. Roger couldn't get his door opened and pulled a stunt that I still can't figure out. Somehow he swung his feet around and kicked out the window. Miraculously he was able to extricate himself without too many burns. But the girl was still trapped inside. Roger rushed back into that inferno, got the door open, and somehow was able to pull the girl out of the fire. Fortunately she was not injured that badly, but Roger suffered the worst with serious burns all over his arms. I have never met the girl, but I have often wondered, if she saw Roger today and looked at that scar tissue on his arms, what would that mean to her? She owed her life to those scars.

Self-preservation is a pretty strong instinct. What Jesus was suggesting in Matt. 5 about turning the other cheek takes a pretty high level of dedication. In the event of Mary's anointing Jesus, the Lord said, wherever the Gospel would be preached what she did would be mentioned with it. In commenting on this strange remark Watchman Nee suggested that this is what the Gospel is supposed to produce. Jesus went before us and showed us the way. His cheeks were smiten and bloodied, but oh the fragrance that produced. And for those who have followed Him, like Mary and her broken bottle, there has been a fragrance that has been given off that can be produced by no other way.

Oh, Lord, Your fragrance is wonderful. And the reason for that wonderful wonderful fragrance is due to that horrible beating that You took for us. You were spit on. Your cheeks took a horrible smiting And Your head was crowned with thorns. Lord Jesus, we had that coming. That should have been us. But You took the smiting in our place. Oh, Jesus, Your cheeks are like beds of spics and sweet flowers, Oh, Lord, thank You. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, You are beautiful.

bill

PS: When Jesus was at that trial taking that horrible scourging, with the soldiers spitting on Him and smiting His cheeks; there is no question but what He turned the other cheek. That has got to say something. His cheeks are like beds of spices and as sweet flowers. Beyond that I can say nothing.