"MY FACE YOU CANNOT SEE."

Homily for Sept. 6^th, 2019: Colossians 1:15-20.

          “Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God,” we heard in our first reading. The longing to see God is as old as the human heart. The Old Testament book Exodus says that God “used to speak to Moses, face to face, as one man speaks to another” (Ex. 33:11). In one of those conversations Moses said to God: “Do let me see your glory.” To which the Lord God responds: “I will let my beauty pass before you … But my face you cannot see, for no man sees me and still lives.” So God makes Moses stand in the hollow of a rock, telling him: “When my glory passes I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand, so that you may see my back; but my face you cannot see.”

          Things remained thus until the birth of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. In him we can see God, in human form. Our first reading calls Jesus “the image of the invisible God.” The opening of the Letter to the Hebrews says the same. There we read that God’s Son, Jesus, is “the refulgence” [which means the shining forth] or “reflection of the Father’s glory, the exact representation of the Father’s being.” (Heb.1:3). 

          What do we see when we look at Jesus? We see someone who preferred simple, ordinary people. In his youth he worked with his hands, in the carpenter’s shop. Later he would speak of simple things: birds, flowers, the vine, the lost sheep, the woman searching for her lost coin, the thief breaking in at night. He told stories so simple that children can understand them; yet so profound that scholars still study them.

          In Jesus we see someone who never turned his back on anyone in need; who had a special welcome for those whom others rejected; whose acceptance of suffering was so complete that no one has ever dared to pity him; and who manifested a joy that he longs to share with us. That is the gospel. That is the good news. And the Letter to the Hebrews gives us the best news of all: “Jesus Christ is the same: yesterday, today, yes, and forever” (13:8).