The ‘Looks’ of the Lord Jesus – Part 1

[All quotations are from the New King James Bible unless otherwise stated]

Introduction

The Gospels have much to say about the occasions when Jesus saw and looked at people. It was enough for the Lord to see them and their need. This was sufficient in itself to draw out His feelings of compassion and love.

Sometimes, this was true of large multitudes, concerning both their (i) physical and (ii) spiritual needs.

Both Matthew and Mark introduce their accounts of the feeding of the five thousand men¹ with the similar expression: ‘Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion on them’.² But there the Gospel writers part company:

(i) For his part, Matthew then adds, ‘and healed the sick’.³

(ii) For his part, Mark then adds, ‘because they were as sheep having no shepherd, He began to teach them many things’.⁴

But though we read of our Lord looking with considerate eyes on vast crowds, more often we read about His reaction to individuals or small groups, when the needs which He saw (a) stirred His emotions and (b) triggered various words and/or actions.

Six ways in which individuals or small groups benefitted from Jesus’ looks

1. Some received the benefit of His power

Consider three individuals who Jesus ‘saw’; (i) one at a city gate, (ii) one in a synagogue, and (iii) one by a pool in Jerusalem.

(i) At the city gate of Nain, Luke 7. A dead man was being carried out for burial; he was ‘the only son of his mother, and she was a widow’.⁵ In one sense all the widow had in the world was in the open coffin.⁶

There were a lot of people present - ‘a great crowd . . . with him’ and ‘a considerable crowd . . . with her’. But ‘when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep”’.

His great heart throbbed with compassion for the bereaved lady and, therefore, He touched the bier to stop the bearers. He then said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise’. And, when the young man sat up and spoke, Jesus gave ‘him to his mother’⁷ and ‘all . . . glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen up among us”; and, “God has visited His people”’.⁸

(ii) In the synagogue, Luke 13. A woman was there with a ‘spirit of infirmity’, bent double for eighteen years, completely unable to straighten herself.⁹ Doubtless, the dear lady had shuffled her way that day to the synagogue to take her place in the women’s section there.¹⁰

‘When Jesus saw her He called her to Him and said . . . “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” . . . He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight,¹¹and glorified God’.¹²

But the ruler of the synagogue did not ‘glorify God’! He was indignant!¹³ It was the Sabbath! He did not address Jesus directly but preached a sermon to the synagogue congregation, ‘There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day’.¹⁴

The Lord responded, ‘Hypocrites [in the plural because, clearly, the synagogue ruler was representative of others and spoke for them], does not each of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it away to give it drink? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham [indicating her faith in God and her genuine piety], whom Satan has bound, lo, these eighteen years be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?’¹⁵

(iii) By the pool of Bethesda, John chapter 5. It was another Sabbath. Lying by the pool was a man who had been sick¹⁶ for thirty-eight years. ‘When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been in that condition for a long time . . . said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”’¹⁷

The Lord knew that it was, indeed, ‘a long time’ that the man ‘had been in that condition’; for, when the man had been taken ill, He (the Lord) had been still in heaven!¹⁸

On the face of it, His question may sound rather odd to us. We may feel like saying, ‘Of course, the man would have wanted to be healed’. But the man can hardly have been blamed if, by now, he had given up all hope of ever being well again; he had suffered countless disappointments, ‘I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me’.¹⁹Our Lord’s very question conveyed a promise of help.

Yes, Jesus knew all about the man . . . but the man knew nothing about Jesus. When the Jews objected, ‘It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your bed [mattress] . . . who said to you to take up your bed [mattress]?’²⁰ the man responded that he did not even know His name!²¹Had he lived today, the man who that day experienced the healing power of Jesus could have sung with truth and great depth of meaning the closing lines of the first verse of Bryn and Sally Haworth’s hymn, ‘What kind of love is this?’:

‘What kind of love is this,
A love I’ve never known;
I didn’t even know His name.
What kind of love is this?’

The fact that the man was unaware of the identity of his gracious and powerful benefactor is evidence that it was not the man’s faith which had brought about his healing.

Following the sign-miracle, our Lord quietly slipped away and blended into the crowd.²² Apart from His likely desire to avoid unnecessary and premature confrontation with the Jews, it was ‘just like Him’²³ to meet a need and then to move on, not waiting for any credit, praise, or recognition.

As the prophet Isaiah foretold of God’s perfect Servant, ‘He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street’.²⁴ Free from any self-advertisement or craving for the limelight, the Lord Jesus ever sought to avoid the publicity which His healings naturally attracted.

2. Some received the benefit of His sympathy

Think of Mary of Bethany. ‘When Jesus saw her weeping’, we read, ‘and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned [“was deeply moved”, possibly in anger]²⁵ in the spirit and was troubled’.²⁶ Many Jews had come to comfort and console Mary and her sister²⁷ and had followed Mary when Martha had summoned her privately (‘The Teacher has come and is calling for you’) because they thought she had gone to the tomb to weep.²⁸

Falling at Jesus’ feet,²⁹ Mary exclaimed, ‘If You had been here, my brother would not have died’.³⁰ Personally, I do not understand her words (or the identical words spoken by her sister, Martha)³¹ to imply any criticism of the Saviour for His earlier absence. Mary must have realized that, even if Jesus had left immediately when He received the message, ‘Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick’,³²from her and her sister, He could not have reached Bethany before their brother’s death. He would, inevitably, have arrived two days too late to prevent Lazarus from dying by His bodily presence!

If, therefore, Mary was expressing any recrimination with her exclamation, she must have been directing that recrimination, not at the Lord, but at herself and at Martha for not notifying Him earlier! They were certainly not voicing any criticism or rebuke of Jesus, as if they were saying, ‘Why ever did you dawdle for those two days!’ For my part, I read Mary’s words simply as a general expression of regret and sadness.³³

However we interpret Mary’s words, there is no mistaking the significance of our Lord’s action. Although He knew (i) Himself to be ‘the resurrection and the life’³⁴and (ii) that He was shortly to raise Mary’s brother from the dead, He shed tears³⁵ - tears which led the Jews then present to acknowledge, ‘See how He loved him [Lazarus]’.³⁶Yet His tears tell us that He loved, not only Lazarus, but Mary and the Jews also; He shared their grief and sorrow.