Being the Face of Jesus

 During my first few weeks at General Seminary back in 2009, in the midst of serious transition and confusion, there was something I missed maybe more than anything:  breakfast.  I had not had a good breakfast since leaving home, and our refectory only provided lunch on weekdays, nothing more.  But there was a group, small but faithful, who helped put breakfast together for classmates.  It wasn't much—some cereals, juices, and fruits—but the gesture was lovely.  I was touched that fellow students would get up early to put together breakfast for those of us hurrying off to class after Morning Prayer.  The group was called the Saint Blandina Society.

I had never heard of Saint Blandina (whose feast day was June 2), and I imagine many of you have not, either.  Her story is not a particularly happy one. 

In the ancient region of Gaul, during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Christians were fiercely persecuted, especially in places with considerable Christian populations.  One such place was Lyons, where, in AD 177, Christians were prohibited from public life, from marketplaces and baths.  Slaves were taken into custody and forced to give up their Christian masters, telling officials that the Christians were involved in incest and cannibalism.  These actions roused the whole city to the point where a group was rounded up and taken to the public arena.  There they could either denounce their Christian faith or be put to death by wild beasts. 

Blandina, a slave, was among those rounded up, along with the Bishop of Lyons and his deacon.  As Blandina was being tortured, those gathered in the public arena saw in her visage the image of the crucified Jesus.  In this slave who was giving her life for her faith, those around her saw the image of their Lord.  And though Blandina was killed, along with her companions, her witness lives on.  It is the very witness of Jesus, of the One who said, “Father, forgive them.”  Like her Lord, Blandina never denounced her faith, never muttered a harsh word to the officials, and because of this the image of Jesus shown brightly out of her, even as she was being killed.

The Saint Blandina Society at General Seminary was aptly named.  They were the face of Jesus for their fellow classmates, offering hospitality and conversation, especially for those of us who were new in their midst.  This is our call.  Perhaps not to be publicly executed for our faith, but certainly to be the face of Jesus.  We sit now during the transitional space between the Ascension and Pentecost.  Jesus has gone back into heaven, and his words to the apostles before his going away are pretty clear:  you won’t see me, but others will see me in you through the power of the Holy Spirit.  She may have lived over a century after Jesus’ ascension, but Blandina heard these words and lived them.  And because she did, others saw Jesus in her. 

It is up to us, the inheritors of Blandina's witness and of Jesus' words to the apostles before the Ascension.  Jesus has returned to heaven, now what what will we do about it? If we don’t bear the face of Jesus to the world, who will??   All too often, because we live in a much different world from Blandina, we Christians become complacent, even lazy.  We go to church on Sunday and say hello to one another, but Jesus is the furthest thing from our minds when we exit our red doors.  The visitor in our midst longs to be welcomed, to be shown hospitality, to have conversation, to know that he or she is being cared for. But it is not just the visitor inside our walls that wants to see Jesus.  The world around us cries out for the kind of love that Jesus preached and lived—the kind of love that sets the captives free, that preaches truth to power, that sets the world on fire.  The world is poor, hungry, cold, and lonely.  The world is fractured and in pain.  The world is, perhaps, not all that different from Blandina’s time, after all.

Will you be the one to show the face of Jesus to the world?