“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light” (Matthew 6:22)
The faith-filled Christian is ever aware of being watched by the all-seeing eye of the Lord. We understand that to refer to the Holy Trinity. We realize also that the above passage from the Sermon on the Mount referring to a healthy eye filled with light was embodied in the Son of Man, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ. How blessed are His eyes that look upon us with patience, tolerance, understanding, compassion, forgiveness and love. Put poignantly by the English poet, Lancelot Andrewes:
“Look on me with eyes that looked upon the weeping woman, Peter in the courtyard, and the thief on the cross.”
Which weeping woman? He showed such empathy for women in general, for those in His time on earth such as the widow burying her only son that day when He approached her village of Canaan in Galilee filled with grief. Or was it for the Syro-Phoenician woman making herself a spectacle by pursuing Him relentlessly, pleading on behalf of her sick daughter? Consider Photina, the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Maybe the verse refers to the one whom the evangelist John identifies as Mary, the sister of Lazarus, bathing His feet in her copious tears. His eye filled with light perceived what other men ignored, dismissed or never noticed. First, sympathy. Some people in deep grief don’t expect help from others, but simple understanding of their plight is itself a blessing. He offered compassion, and for that they were grateful. More, they felt His empathy. He felt their emotions as though they were His own, because they were His. Beyond that He took their burdens upon Himself and set them free from their misery.
But most likely Andrewes had in mind Mary Magdalene, and the poignant scene in the garden that day of the Resurrection, when she was looking through her tears and could not focus in on the One she had gazed upon so many times as he spoke to large and tiny crowds, and she imbibed it all. His attitude to Magdalene was so filled with love that ordinary men often rush to identify it as mere human ardor of a man for a woman.
The gaze He gave to St. Peter surpassed that look He gave to the woman. Was there a moment in the trauma of that night of His arrest when the Rock cracked within himself, breaking his vow of absolute allegiance to his Master, and our loving Lord let him know with a glance that He understood and forgave him? “I know,” He is conveying with His eyes, “all creatures react instinctively—fight or flight—and you measured the odds against us. You meant well, but human nature seized and possessed you.” He forgot the miracles, the healings, the raising of Lazarus, and even the transcendent mountaintop event. We can only imagine the strain within the apostle. How easy for us to charge him with betrayal. So simple to play the Pharisee and brand St. Peter with cowardice, and when we do, we are not demonstrating the truth of our loving Lord’s admonition—our eyes are not totally filled with light. We don’t see things clearly, therefore we judge not with the love and mercy of God, but with the limited viewpoint of fallen natural humanity.
If we were able to see with the eye of our Lord, we would celebrate the joy of the thief on the cross who made a last hour confession of his entire lifetime of sinfulness. Who was happier at the moment—the one forgiven, or the Great Forgiver? Can you consider how our loving Lord Jesus must have felt to be able to take with Him to Paradise somebody considered worthless by human standards? Two men undergoing the excruciating anguish of such a horrible death bonded in an emotional farewell to the present world, one experiencing a hope he never dreamed possible or even considered, the other blessing, forgiving, loving and welcoming the sinner into His Father’s Kingdom. Here now is another evidence for His triumphant proclamation: “It is accomplished.”