Does God have a face?

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

I wrote:

> Today is the birthday of XXXX:  behold how much God's face 
> shines through his!

A friend replied:

> I was sorely perplexed at this, as it does not normally occur in my
> thinking that God has a face. I presume that God the Son has a face; is
> that what the expression means?


Thanks for sharing your reaction.  
 
My comment is a slight variation on the common benediction, "The Lord
make his face to shine upon you" (Numbers 6:25). Scripture says at
one place that no one may see God, but after Moses was in God's
presence Moses wore a veil so that his face would not blind those who
saw him.
 
I believe that God chooses to have no face, hands or feet except the
face, hands and feet of those of us who love God.  
 
The story is told of a monastery that had fallen on hard times
spiritually.   The monks had lost the vitality of their faith and
were at serious odds with one another.   They invited a monk from
another order to spend time with them observing, and then to advise. 
At the end of his visit he said, "God has come to this monastery
disguised as one of you."   Thereafter the monastery flourished as
each interacted with the other thinking, "Is he the one?"
 
Our expectations affect greatly what we experience.   Classes who
expect the teacher to be brilliant and challenging have a far better
chance to get the best even from someone not altogether stellar than
do classes filled with students who want to get their grade and get
out of there.   
 
In 1958 while a senior at Baylor, I once had the privilege of driving
Frank Lloyd Wright from the small airport in Waco, Texas to the
Baylor campus, where he was to meet with head of the Theater
Department, Paul Baker, for whom Wright was building the Kalita
Humphreys Theater in Dallas, Texas.   
 
Wright had me stop the car at least six times to fetch for him
handfuls of the Texas Bluebonnets that were riotously in bloom.   At
one point he pointed to one of the blossoms and explained that he had
weighed dozens of these in the past.  "That stem holds a flower that
is X times [I have forgotten the value here] its own weight.   I
would give anything to find a way to make an arch like that!"  Wright
exclaimed.   He was 90 at the time.  The theater in Dallas was his
last project he completed. 
 
As we neared the campus, Wright said to me, "Young man, knowledge is
like your hand.  If you hold it up like this [he made a fist], no one
can put anything into it, but if you hold it like this [he held his
hand open, palm up], be very careful what you let someone put into
it."
 
Through the years I have learned to trust XXXXX and to wait with
great expectations about what he will put into my hand.
 
 
Louie Crew, 377 S. Harrison St., 12D, East Orange, NJ 07018.
973-395-1068
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~lcrew