Gazing Into the Eyes of Christ
A Sermon Preached at Pohick Episcopal Church
August 17, 2003

The Reverend Donald D. Binder, PhD
Rector, Pohick Church

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of viewing one of the oldest and most sacred Icons in the world. Some of you have heard me speak of it before. Painted fifteen hundred years ago, the Icon is displayed inside St. Catherine’s monastery in the middle of the Sinai Desert.

It is an image of Christ, holding a Bible in his left hand and making a sign of blessing with his right. When I first saw it, I was struck at the peculiar rendering of Christ’s eyes and face. It was as if two different emotions, two different attitudes were reflected in his expression.

I asked one of the monks about this, and he explained that a very great master had painted this Icon to help worshipers deepen their holiness. They did this by gazing into Christ’s eyes and reflecting upon their inner self.

The eye on the left expressed Christ’s anger at sin and called the worshiper to repentance. The eye on the right depicted Christ’s compassion and eagerness to bestow forgiveness. The monk encouraged me to spend some time first gazing at one eye and then the other.

And so I did.

I began with the left eye, the angry one, the one that shot piercing arrows into the depths of my soul. As I did, I became aware of my own fallenness, of the sins I had committed, the people I had harmed, the promises I had betrayed. The eye glared at these iniquities with blazing hot judgment, so terrifying in its intensity as to make my knees buckle at the horror of my past.

At that point, I could no longer contain myself. I could no longer keep these transgressions hidden away in the recesses of my soul. I had to confess them to God in sorrow.

And so I did.

In doing so, it was as if a darkness had been lifted from my spirit. The Lord had borne my sins away.

I then turned my gaze to the right eye, the compassionate one, the one that poured light and healing balm into my chastened heart. There was the look that bore my sins away, there was the love that revived my soul.

I left there that morning feeling both cleansed and blessed. I left there feeling closer to my savior, knowing him more intimately—and as a result, knowing myself more honestly.

Now, I share this with you this morning, because last week my remarks focused on the angry eye, and even then only on what I prayerfully perceived to be a narrow glint flashing forth from that eye.

Moreover, I felt compelled to let those words stand on their own, reverberating for a week.

And I stick by them.

But like hearing the first movement within a larger symphony, the music has not yet ended. The symphony is not yet complete.

There are two other movements yet to be played before we reach the crescendo and the resounding final chord.

The second movement expands the theme trumpeted in the first: We are all sinners standing before a holy God. We all must face the angry eye of judgment upon our sins, known and unknown, things done and left undone. We all must feel our knees buckle beneath us under the crushing weight of our iniquities.

This is the side of our Savior we often overlook. This is the part of his face we seek to avoid. For ourselves at least, we would prefer to gaze ever at his right eye, pretending that he looks with approval upon all that we say or do, upon all that we harbor in our hearts.

Yet we are only fooling ourselves when we do this—creating a false and convenient image of our Lord, one that is not true to the nature he has revealed.

The Jesus who did not condemn to death the woman caught in adultery was the same Jesus who dismissed her with the words, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:3- 11).

The Jesus who said, “Judge not lest you be judged” (Matthew 7:1) was the same Jesus who said to his disciples, “If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive” (Luke 17:3).

The Jesus who brought healing and forgiveness to repentant sinners was the same Jesus who railed against hypocrites who could not acknowledge their sins, and threw out of the Temple those who profaned the house of God.

This other side of Jesus is the one none of us truly wants to face. For the other fellow, perhaps, but not for ourselves. Not only does that side of him frighten us, but it confounds us that anger and love could be so bound up in our Lord’s character.

But if we think about it, that combination makes perfect sense. I love my children, and I always will, no matter what. Yet when they do wrong, I become angry and reprove them.

That anger is part of my love for them. If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t bother to do anything because I wouldn’t care. I would be apathetic, a state often referred to as the opposite of love.

So also with Jesus. Even in his earthly life, he clearly expressed his compassion for his disciples. At the same time—in nearly every other paragraph it seems—he is seen rebuking them. Obedience to a way of life is clearly a part of Christian discipleship.

This finds expression in Jesus’ very last words to his apostles, where he commands them to make disciples of all nations, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19).

So there are two parts to discipleship: baptism, with its bestowal of the grace of the Holy Spirit, and learning obedience to all that Christ has taught, both by word and deed.

These tasks would be impossible without the continuing presence of Christ. And so after issuing this commandment, he promises his disciples, “Lo I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This leads us to the final and most glorious movement of our symphony, where we turn our eyes to behold the right side of Christ’s face, bathing ourselves in his compassionate expression of love.

But it is more than an expression. It is a love so expansive that it surrounds and embraces all of God’s children, no matter what their state. As St. Paul writes, it is an everlasting love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Not passive or sentimental, Christ’s love is an active, sacrificial love, a love that suffers on our behalf, a love that has opened the door to the possibility of our repentance and transformation. It is a love that brings triumph out of tragedy, healing out of injury, hope out of despair.

It is a forbearing love that never ceases trying, a love that hates sin, but seeks to woo the sinner away from the bondage of selfishness and into the freedom of love itself.

This is the challenging, redeeming love that I experienced those years ago in Sinai. While special in my own spiritual journey, it is by no means confined to any person, place or time. Christians have been experiencing this same encounter, hearing this same symphony for centuries, with variations across time, down to our present day.

Where ever we may be in our spiritual pilgrimage, where ever we may be with the struggles going on in our Church, the Spirit of Christ stands before us, bidding us each to look him in the eyes, gazing back and forth between the two. Only in this way will our own discipleship deepen. Only in this way will we be able to take out any beams from our own eyes in order to see clearly enough to remove the speck from our neighbor’s.

And so as we face the challenges of the days ahead, I call us each to a period of prayer and self-reflection before our Lord, mindful of the state of our own souls. In doing so, may our hearts ever be humble and our intentions always be pure.

Let us pray:

Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.