Behold the MAN
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Eyes |
© 1997 Kenneth R. Wade. All rights reserved |
A thousand, leering, lusting eyes followed the form. Word spread quickly around the temple environs. Men who had been haggling over the price of a donkey, eyeing its teeth and the condition of its coat, found themselves on high alert. Could it possibly be true, what their eyes told them they were seeing?
Quickly they left their tasks and ran to join the mob, to get a closer look.
Beggars and businessmen alike lost their concentration on their daily tasks. Soldiers assigned to keep the peace at this volatile vortex of religious fervor nudged each other and declared that they too, had better move in and see what was going on.
A woman, a naked woman--and a beautiful one at that--was being dragged through the center of the city, fighting and struggling all the way, trying in vain to cover herself. And men were pointing, gawking, laughing, and slapping each other on the back as the parade passed by. What a show! Whatever else might have occupied them before, this was too good to pass up. Everything else could wait.
Beggars, slaves, and laborers, who had watched this woman plying her trade among the wealthy ruling class, had dreamed of seeing her like this. A thousand times they had mentally undressed her, wishing they could be among her clientele. And now, here she was. Naked, and out in the open for all to see!
Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians, who had purchased her favors, only to be taken to a darkened room where they could see only a shadowy form and had to content themselves with the feel of her flesh, now stared wide-eyed as her secret beauty was paraded before the world.
The mob continued to grow, and soon a thousand minds were running amok in lustful thoughts, and two thousand eyes were gazing, heads bobbing and waggling back and forth, trying to get a better view. And then her beautiful, white, supple, naked flesh found its intended mark: the only two eyes in the lot that looked right through her skin and down deep into her heart to see her true beauty, and her true need.
One Man did not gawk. He looked into her eyes. And then He looked down at the ground. Not in shame or embarrassment. He just looked at her in a way that was different from how any man had looked at her before, and then He looked down at the ground, and started writing something in the dust.
Perhaps while He was writing, one of His disciples, or some other kind soul, took off his outer garment and laid it on the woman to cover her nakedness, because the men who had leered so lustfully at her began to wander off, back to their business, in silence. The show here was obviously over. And even those who had caught and accused the woman began to slink away, unwilling to see a record of their hypocrisy scrawled in the sand.
The Man who was doing the writing was a healthy, strong, virile, testosterone-charged young man in the prime of His life. But He was different. Different in how He treated men and women. Stronger. More in control. Not subject to the whims of His flesh, He could look at a naked prostitute and think about her salvation rather than her body. He could stare a Roman soldier in the face, and wonder how to break down his internal hardness rather than wishing for an armor-piercing dagger.
This Man Jesus, the manliest Man in the place, now looked up from His writing and spoke tenderly to the woman who had moments before been a mere spectacle dragged into the worst nightmare of her life. He spoke to her, not as an object, but as a real human being with worth: Woman, he called her. Not You slut! "Woman, where are your accusers?" He asked.
In amazement she looked up and found herself alone in the throng. Alone with this Man. And as He looked at her, this one pure Man, she could sense that He wanted her. She would do anything for Him! Free tricks for the rest of His life if He desired. After all, He had saved her life. But somehow she knew that that was not what He wanted.
"Go and sin no more," He said.
We usually see this story through the eyes of the prostitute. But what was it to see it through the eyes of Jesus? How many men could look through that sensuous flesh and see the heart? Jesus was a real Man. And as we learn of Him, He will help us to be real people--men or women--as well.
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