Face to Face

It is my custom to study a chapter of the Bible every week and I am making my way ever so slowly through the book of II Kings. This week, in chapter 14, as I learned how King Amaziah of Judah challenged King Joash of Israel to battle, I was struck by a particular phrase. "Come meet me face to face."

For Amaziah it was a great dare to Joash. Come meet me face to face, if you dare. It was to flaunt his recent victories before his enemy and to hint to him that he would handily defeat him should they face off.

I began to think about the things with which we come face to face. There are our enemies but we have our military defenders to thank that we don't have to run the risk personally of such confrontation. There are fears of all sorts--some we allow to rule our lives and some we are willing to face. Of course, we have our personal enemies but those are really unnecessary if we figure ourselves true Christians.

And yet, I have to think that really being a true Christian must be a rare thing for it would have to mean that we are willing to be face to face with God. If we are face to face with God there has to be nothing that we hide from God. We have to be willing to seek God in every moment of joy and every moment of deepest sorrow or failure. We are skilled at seeking God in the difficult moments but equally as skilled at self-reliance in the easy times. It would mean that we would have to receive the fullness of God's love and that we would live with such peace and joy that it would astound us.

I wonder if the true test of our vulnerability to God is not seen in how we relate to others. Some of us and maybe even many of us hide parts of ourselves from others. I have a friend who has done this since she was in middle school. She never fully lets anyone into her life--not her friends, not her family and yet in some ways she seems to be an open book with those she wouldn't consider close. She waves people close with one hand and pushes them away with the other. She leaves them confused. She has so many friends they are innumerable and yet she feels as if she has no one. She longs to be loved and yet she cannot allow herself to accept the love that swirls about her from others. She leaves herself confused. She cannot come face to face with others, with God or even with herself.

In the hearing of King Amaziah's words, King Joash refused to face Amaziah. Instead he sent back a riddle of sorts. I think my friend did just that--refused to face herself and told herself her own riddle. I think we must do the same thing to God. God offers us simple words, "Come meet me face to face." We take it as a challenge and respond as Joash--with resistance and cryptic responses. If we heard rightly, though, we would realize that the words aren't the challenge of an enemy but the invitation of a lover.

They are an invitation to allow ourselves to be seen and to see God truly. They are an invitation to see the depth of color in another's eyes and look deeply and unselfishly into that soul. They are an invitation to come face to face with the intimate lines of another life.

In those words, come meet me face to face, is not challenge but an invitation to live and give love but also to trustingly receive it. Being face to face in love must be the test of a true Christian, so may we this day seek to live and be face to face with God and with each other. Amen.