Staring into the Universe
By Mourin Youssef
Salome must have been one lucky woman. Imagine being able to witness the birth of Christ. She, sometimes interpreted as the midwife of St Mary, would have seen a sight to dream of. A beautiful, sweet baby swaddled and nestled, peaceful and undisturbed. Even if she was standing across the room, the mere opening of His ethereal eyes could have penetrated the entire atmosphere and melted her heart.
A physical description of the eyes of our Lord can only really be found in the book of Revelation. You know… that book that people often fall asleep to during the apocalypse night prayers. It describes the eyes of the son of God in “His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire.” (Revelation 1:14) A “flame of fire” St John the beloved wrote. How amazing must it be to even catch a glimpse of these glorious eyes that can set our spirits and souls ablaze with a heavenly fire!
The eyes of God are mentioned much more frequently in the Bible in a spiritual sense. One of the most comforting and beautiful qualities of God is that He does not view the exterior of a man, “…For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) We are often told to not ‘judge a book by its cover’ and to always make excuses for people, but how often do we really do this? How often has someone wronged us and we still view them with the same softness and love as Christ?
Just as He looks to that person with love, we must also try to do the same, otherwise, how can we possibly expect to be treated with the same mercy? In the same manner that God views someone else’s heart, He views ours. It aches Him when He sees that we are holding a worthless grudge that weighs us down and diminishes that fire He sets in us.
So, why is it important for us to view others with the same eyes as God? “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10) We were not formed to do the bare minimum… forgiving someone on the outside but harbouring feelings of resentment. Conversely, we were created to not only forgive but to take extreme measure to ensure the person we forgave feels loved. Otherwise, we cannot expect, nor can we experience or feel the love of Christ in a similar manner.
Seeing others through the loving eyes of Christ will give us countless daily opportunities to be more like Him. To be Him is to feel Him. In this manner, when our time of judgement comes, we will not feel estranged or bewildered by the beauty that we will behold. Life in the eternal kingdom will be an extension of the life we create for ourselves on Earth if we maintain this effort to be as much like Christ as possible.
So, what if someone doesn’t live through the eyes of Christ? There is a greater and deeper displeasure for the one that views the world with hate as they will become a product of their own internal hatred. “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7) If we go about our days with a thick darkness clouding our eyes, we will never experience God’s magnificence in our lives. A lot of the time we overlook it and can even refuse its presence. How often during our day does the Lord try to communicate with us? How often does His heart yearn for our attention? And yet, we are the ones that reject Him.
Another issue arises when we do less than the bare minimum. “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him…” (2 Chronicles 16:9) We are always under His observation. This might be a scary thing to think of. He sees our wickedness and all our flaws. He sees what others don’t see. But this is not only a point of warning, our Lord cannot help but love us. He sees our sorrows and the desires of our heart and grants them to us if we pray fervently and with humility. “The preparations of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirits. Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.” (Proverbs 16:1-3)
How wonderful would it be to witness and experience the eyes of God? To witness them is to stare into the universe and to experience them is to be a mirror image of His love.
“But above all things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.” (Colossians 3:14)