The reemergence of the Celtic tradition during the last century has given rise to expressions of Celtic Spirituality in such places as Lindisfarne and Iona. One of todays prolific hymn writers is John Bell of Iona. He has written “All through the bible you see how God waits until people think they’ve got their image of God right, and then God changes the image.”
There is a fairy tale story about a rich merchant, loaded with riches but unhappy. He asked around, "How can I find happiness?" A wise man tells him, "Look for a happy man, and ask him to sell you his shirt."
The merchant searched for a long time until at last he found a happy man. "I want to be as happy as you. Sell me your shirt. I can pay for it."
The happy man started to laugh. He hadn’t got a shirt! He is so poor he goes around without a shirt.
Then the merchant understood. Happiness cannot be found in possessions.
J B Phillips paraphrases 2 Corinthians 4 as “The spirit of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe, and prevents the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, the image of God, from shining on them. For it is Christ Jesus the Lord whom we preach, not ourselves; we are your servants for his sake. God, who first ordered ‘light to shine in darkness’, has flooded our hearts with his light. We now can enlighten men only because we can give them knowledge of the glory of God, as we see it in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Perhaps, for today’s Christian, there are often layers of filters that obscure the image of Jesus to the extent that we fail to see the beauty of the Christ who walks our Emmaus road. Well might we pray:-
Open our eyes Lord
We want to see Jesus
To reach out and touch Him
And say that we love Him
Open our ears Lord
And Help us to listen
Open our eyes Lord
We want to see Jesus. Amen
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