It was the one place I never thought to look. In my imaginings of the miracles of Jesus, my eyes always followed the recipient of the miracle—the little girl raised, the mother-in-law healed, the banquet master tasting the best wine he’s ever known. My attention has always been on the woman who touched his robe, on the dead man walking out of the grave, or the fishermen overwhelmed with a miracle catch of fish. I saw their surprise, their excitement, their pure, unbridled, shameless, exuberant joy. And I bathed in that joy; I breathed it in vicariously, imagining all the while what it might feel like, might be like, if only . . .
Occasionally my gaze would wonder over to the witnesses—the wedding partiers, the dead girl’s parents, Mary and Martha and the mourners for hire—and I would imagine the looks on their faces, the shock and awe, the dawning respect, the mounting belief that this man really was different. I could almost see on their faces the internal dialogue as doubt and reason did battle with the evidence of their eyes. Maybe . . . Maybe this man really is, you know, the Promised One . . .
But I never, ever, looked at Jesus’s face in these daydream recreations. Until tonight. I happened to be watching a particularly well done series on the life of Christ, and the camera cut suddenly to Jesus’s face right as the wedding guests were getting their first taste of the “best wine they had ever had.” The actor portraying Jesus so perfectly conveyed the joy and happiness Jesus must have felt as he watched his miracle play out amongst the revelers. He had a slight, but open, smile on his face, amused and pleased all at the same time. So wonderfully human in his expression, yet at the same time so perfectly divine. I fell in love with him all over again.
The idea of Jesus enjoying the results of his miracles, the reactions of his friends, appeals to me on so many levels. It humanizes the Son of God in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I have been guilty in times past, whenever God intervened on my behalf in some difficulty or struggle, of looking at the struggle as it dissipated or gazing with excitement at my new, redeemed, situation. I’ve missed the chance to get a peek at Jesus and see his own pleasure at pleasing me. I’m afraid I’ve been one of the nine healed lepers, going away with my health restored, oblivious in the moment to the presence of the Restorer. I’ve not been the single leper who returned to look Jesus full in his wonderful face, fall on my knees in front of him, and thank him. I feel like maybe it’s time for that to change.
Peace.
