They shall see His face
Face to face
There is a longing that hides underneath every other longing, the one that even reunion with the people we love most can only partly answer. You feel it at the edge of the best moments, a homesickness with no clear address. It is the ache to see, fully and without distance, the face we were made for. Paul is honest about how it stands now. We see, he says, as in a mirror, dimly, the kind of polished bronze the ancient world used, a dark and warped reflection that gives you the shape of a face but never the face itself. We know only in part. And then, into all that partial knowing, he sets the promise that ends it: but then, face to face. John names the same thing as the final gift of the unshakable city, the gift he saves for nearly last. They will see His face. Think back across this whole journey, every moment God felt near, every answered prayer, every page of comfort. All of it was the dim mirror. The deepest wound of the upheaval, underneath the loss of everything else, was distance from God Himself. And the story ends with that distance gone: His face, seen at last, clearly, and you standing in front of it fully known and fully welcome.
“They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.”
— John, in the Revelation — Revelation 22:4 (WEB)
“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.”
What Cannot Be Shaken means the deepest ache finally has an end. John saves it for the city's final gift, the one even Eden never gave: they will see His face. The longing under all your other longings, the one no reunion or answered prayer ever fully met, is satisfied not by an experience but by a Person, His unveiled face, seen clearly at last, with the distance gone for good.
Name the ache you may have carried wordlessly the whole way: not only to be comforted, not only to have the people back and the ground steady, but to see God Himself, the one face you were made for. For now you see dimly, as in a clouded mirror, knowing only in part, and that is no failure of faith, only the shape of now. But then, Paul says, face to face. Underneath every other longing of this journey was a deeper one you may never have named. Beneath wanting the pain to stop, wanting the people back, wanting the ground to hold, there was this: a hunger to see the face of God, the one face you were actually made for.
It is simply the nature of now. But now is not forever. A day is coming that ends all partial knowing, and Paul gives it in three of the most hope-soaked words in Scripture: but then, face to face. Every moment God felt close in this season was a foretaste, a glimpse in the dim glass, of that clear and final sight. The distance from God that made the upheaval ache so deeply does not last.
It ends in His unveiled face, seen plainly, and in the thing your heart has wanted without being able to say it, to be fully known and, knowing all of you, fully welcomed still.
The Church is always tempted to settle for knowing about God, trading the hope of seeing Him for facts concerning Him, mistaking information for the face it was made to behold. Paul names our present sight a dim mirror; John promises the unveiled face as the city's last and greatest gift, the one even Eden never gave. When the Body across history keeps that longing itself awake, refusing to let doctrine about God stand in for the hope of beholding Him, it lives toward the true end. As this cultural moment shakes the faith, all the partial knowing of Western and global Christianity is meant to make one people leaning forward, hungry to see His face and be fully known in return.
What cannot be shaken is that the distance ends. The dim mirror is not the last word about your knowing of God; His clear face is. The ache that ran under everything was never a wound that would fester forever. It was a homesickness with a homecoming, and the homecoming is His face, seen at last, with you fully known and welcomed in front of it.
- Underneath all the other things I have wanted through this, have I been aching to see God Himself?
- Where am I letting knowledge about God quietly stand in for the hope of one day seeing His face?
- What would it mean to live today as someone whose deepest longing is not a lost cause but a coming homecoming?
Lord, underneath everything else I lost and wanted, I think I have been aching to see Your face. For now I see dimly, as in a clouded mirror, knowing only in part, and I confess how much that distance has hurt. Thank You that it does not last, that the promise is face to face. Keep that longing awake in me. And on the day I see You clearly, let me find what I most need, fully known by You, and fully welcomed still. Amen.