There is a section in C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces that is captivating to me. The narrator is allowed to stand before the gods and give her complaint. It’s the Job-like moment that never was. The gist of her complaint isn’t what draws me in, it’s this statement:
The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered. Lightly men talk of saying what they mean. Often when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, “Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words.” A glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces? (Till We Have Faces, 138)
What the narrator is saying, if I’m reading correctly, is that there is something deep within us that is freeing to get out. It’s perhaps the core of our complaint. A word that needs to be dug out of us. And until we are able to articulate this truth we’re all just babbling about searching for words.
What I believe Lewis is getting at here is that moment when we stand before the Lord and we’re fully known and we see the Lord as He is. That moment will change us eternally. We’ll have a face on that day. (1 John 3:2).
For Lewis it was in this encounter with the Lord, naked as we really are, giving the core of our ache and our complaint, that we’re met with the deepest of grace. All of our questions, now profoundly articulated, melt away…
I ended my first book with the words no answer. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words. Long did I hate you, long did I fear you. I might — (144)
I was thinking of Lewis’ while reflecting upon John 1. Jesus is full of grace and truth. What if these two, grace and truth, are far more tied together than we think? You’ve heard of folks who major on truth but are ungracious, or folks who spout grace and don’t have an ounce of the backbone of truth. I think you could argue that neither have a firm grasp on grace or truth.
But what if the reason Jesus wants us to walk in truth is because he wants to meet us there with grace? What if those things which you are hiding and covering and trying to escape are actually avenues of grace? What if the light is shining on all those painful and shameful areas because the Lord wants to shower them and heal them with His grace?
Will we believe Him enough to shine the light?
What if we’re not going to actually see things as they are until we put on gracious spectacles? What if you cannot walk in truth unless you have grace as your starting point? What if truth matters because grace matters?
Will we believe Him enough to dive into grace?
It’s pretty scary to be laid bare like this. But it’s what awaits us…if we’ll ever have faces we must shed our fake ones.
Hands came from behind me and tore off my veil — after it, every rag I had on. The old crone with her Ungit face stood naked before those countless gazers. No thread to cover me, no bowl in my hand to hold the water of death; only my book. (136)
Thankfully this is only the means to our being clothed in the righteousness of Christ:
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. (Isaiah 61:10)
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