The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ

 Reflection at Morning Worship with the Community of Brendan the Navigator on Tuesday 9th June 2026

1898 negative of the image on the Shroud of Turin, by Secundo Pia

It is unlikely that St Paul ever saw Jesus in the flesh, face to face.

But he tells the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 4:5-10), ‘It is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’.

In Acts we read that Paul, then called Saul, had a blinding vision of light on the road to Damascus. He heard a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 9:4-5). This encounter with the risen Christ changed everything for him. He became the Apostle Paul. He worked unstintingly to bring others to the knowledge of Christ. For Paul, I am sure, to see the face of Jesus is to feel the presence of the risen Christ in the most intimate way.

Like Paul, we have not seen the face of Jesus in the flesh. But we too meet the risen Christ in scripture, and in the sacraments. We have come to understand that ‘God… has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’. And we have heard Jesus declare ‘Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20).

Paul is clear that he is the slave of those he writes to, for Jesus’s sake. It is his ‘knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’ which drives him to work for others, to be a slave for Jesus’s sake. And the same must be true for us.

But we are frail human beings. In Paul’s words, we are clay jars. The power to work for others is not our own. It ‘belongs to God and does not come from us’.

Paul goes on to acknowledge the trials the Corinthians are experiencing, and encourages them, saying, ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed’. He tells them it is because he and they are ‘always carrying in the body the death of Jesus …that the life of Jesus’ may be revealed to others through them.

Like Paul and the Corinthians, we must feel in our innermost being, in our guts, the self-sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Then we can see ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’. Then we need not fear anything, not affliction, not perplexity, not persecution, nor being struck down. Then we can live up to our calling, which is to show God’s love to others in the way we live our lives.