You are back! Love stories appeal to everyone. And more than any other, “God’s Love Story” holds a special grip on our attention.
March 2, 1941…[to his brother David, continued] My father wrote, “Of course we can’t get married until after I graduate in a year from this June, but we aren’t in any terrific rush because we have a whole life ahead of us. I think Mother and Father…must have just collapsed when I wrote to them, but they seem very happy about it because she really is a marvelous girl – tall (about 5’10”), dark, brown eyes, and a lovely complexion – and plenty of brains and heaps of fun.”
My father is already thinking of a whole life together, but he’s not so spiritual that he doesn’t also notice this woman’s physical beauty, like the bride in Song of Solomon!
Have you noticed that we have very few portraits in scripture? We know Saul was head and shoulders above other men, David was handsome and had a ruddy complexion, Elisha was bald, and that St. Paul was near-sighted. But we have no such portrait of Jesus, the most important character of all! The closest we come is in Is. 53:2-3 where it says, “He had no beauty, nothing in his appearance to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected…We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised and we did not care.”
My father was enchanted by my mother’s beauty, but Jesus had nothing in his appearance to attract us. Or perhaps, to say it another way, nothing in his appearance to distract us! We have no idea whether Jesus’ eyes were blue, his hair brown, his nose noble. Was he handsome? Those human descriptions were of little consequence. His true beauty lay in the unchanging qualities of his mercy and love.
As you go about this day, take a moment to look at others who cross your path. Don’t look on them as humans do but see them through God’s eyes and seek out their inner unchanging beauty.
