Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

The contemplative gaze

Monday, April 7, 2014

John 8:7
Jesus straightened up and said to them ... Jesus straightened up and said to her ...

And then, I think, he looked into their eyes. As he did with the rich young man: "Jesus looked at him and loved him" (Mark 10:21).

Jesus does not bend over wondering what to say or wondering who he is. Jesus knows his Father and therefore knows himself. He lives in another kind of wonder, the continual rebirth of joy and love and faith and hope, the virtues of God come to rest in Jesus the man.

The look of this man Jesus brings peace to the broken but confusion to those who think they hold their own lives together. No one - elder or scribe, Pharisee or prostitute - can look inside themselves and see no sin. Jesus bends over and writes in the dirt, giving his listeners a chance to listen to their own words, to look in at what he already sees.

He gives them, and me, time. And then he straightens up. Jesus is courteous, but he never lets go. Every day he straightens up and looks at me and asks me what I see inside.

Here's an acronym close to my heart: NANCY. He asks me to:

N otice my sin (contradiction, noisiness or nosiness, turning away, disobedience), and then

A cknowledge it (admit, admit, admit, and face the fear),

N ame it (words at first in silence, then out LOUD),

C onfess it (speak to God and someone else - we all sin, we all need to say it and hear it said), and

Y ell (with joy AND anguish, because though we know God's presence we change so slowly).

But none of this is my doing. Even my awareness relies on the presence of Jesus, as he looks at me and loves me. God knows my words before I speak them.

In fact, I don't even know my own words until I look back at him. What I've been avoiding settles into the foreground; what rushing around I've done to hide from myself, slows. I see that I'm not afraid of Jesus' eyes; they hold me to what I know is true, and it feels good and beautiful. I notice that I am thinking of Jesus instead of myself. There's a joining here that is mysterious, solid, real.

Martin Laird quotes old Dutch mystic John Ruysbroeck who writes of the Eucharist from God's point of view, using an alarming word picture: "God swoops down upon us like a bird of prey to consume our whole life, that he may change it into His."

That this image is not terrifying has to do with God's love, and his patience with me while I realize it. Any other idea about it is a lie. Laird says about a lie, "Meet it with silence. Like most distracting thoughts, it will not survive the direct meeting of a steady, silent gaze."

Jesus, your eyes. Looking into them I lose track of everything but you, as you show me who I am.

Devotions Archive

The contemplative gaze

Monday, April 7, 2014