Sometimes unbelievers grasp the power of imagination and Spirit more freely than cautious believers. In his play Joan of Arc, George Bernard Shaw–an infamous critic of Christianity–depicts a scene where Joan is questioned by church authorities for the heresy of hearing God’s voice. Her critics tell her the voice comes from her imagination, and Joan replies simply, “Of course. That is how the messages of God come to us.”
Joan would still be considered a heretic today, burned at the modern stake of the social media. True, the Bible is our anchor. In the happy phrase of the King James translation it is our “more sure word of prophecy,” yet that implies there are other means of hearing his voice. I believe we were meant to engage the scripture in all the particulars–even the ones not mentioned, right down to the color of his eyes. It does not matter that we get the answer “right.” It matters that we enter into the real world of the scripture. As William Sampson says, “We do not know the particulars of his life, but we know it was filled with particulars . . . Jesus lived out his life as we do–from one concrete setting to another, one choice to another.” That’s why we should meditate on the color of Jesus’s eyes.
To imagine Jesus in this way is to position ourselves to live from one concrete choice to another with a chance of making the choices Jesus would have us make. For this week’s meditation, can you imagine the color of his eyes? Why not spend some time alone with him and gaze upon his face?
This article on the color of Jesus’s eyes originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
