The Face

With thanks to https://pixabay.com/en/birth-child-baby-newborn-hand-466140/

I remember, from a couple of years ago, watching a very interesting documentary that attempted to explain, among other things, the development of the face of the growing human embryo.

The perfectly pleasant presenter was predictably flannelling on about how various parts of our head and neck were vestigial remains of erstwhile gills (sadly, even in this day and age, too many scientists still unswervingly believe this utterly illogical explanation!), but he did highlight something fascinating: that the face develops from three different parts: the left hemisphere of the face, covering that side's forehead, eye socket, nose, cheek, etc. (or maxilla), the right hemisphere, and the jaw (or mandible).

These three parts, he went on, gradually grow towards each other and fuse together, leaving only the mouth. The last part to fuse, he explained, was the philtrum - the groove running vertically from the bottom of the nose to the middle of the upper lip.

That got me thinking. Why did God do it that way?

ALL of creation points to Jesus in some way - that's the great glory of all creation, that it proclaims truths about Christ to itself and to the rest of creation. So what does this tell us about the way of things?

Whenever I see three of anything, my first thoughts, clearly, are going to be about the trinity of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Here we have three parts of the face.

Speaking of the face itself, this is about intimacy: we, as God's children, are encouraged to 'seek his face'; on the other hand, the thought of God 'turning his face away' or 'hiding his face' is frightful to the writers of the Chronicles and Psalms; yet it is a great blessing to have God's face 'shine upon you'.

The thought of these three parts of the face coming together, yet leaving space for the mouth, makes me think of the tabernacle … bear with me!

The tabernacle was to be set up with the veiled mercy seat that kept the law and testimony in the west, the altar bearing the twelve loaves of bread in the north, the seven-branched, olive oil-burning, eternally-alight lamp in the south, and the bowl of incense in the middle of these three.

Symbolically (and this is all purely from hunting around the Bible - nowhere else), the “mercy seat” hidden behind the ‘veil’ represents the Father, the ‘table of shewbread’ represents the Son, the ‘menorah’ represents the Spirit, and the bowl of incense represents the prayers of the saints (that is, all of God's people) ... check out the table below.

	Tabernacle pattern	Cosmic reality
The Holiest Place (representing the Father)	Hidden from sight by a veil	“No-one has ever seen the Father …” (John 1:18)
	The veil is embroidered with cherubim	Cherubim stand guard over the way back to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24), where the Father is (Revelation 22:1-2)
	The veil is torn when Jesus “gives up the ghost”	Jesus granted us access to the Father when he died on the cross
The Table of Shewbread (representing the Son)	The table (bearing the bread) is made of wood, but the eye only sees the gold covering	The cross (bearing Jesus) is made of wood, but the eye reads the sign: “King of the Jews” (gold represents kingship)
	On the table are 12 loaves of bread	12 represents ‘governance’ (tribes / disciples in Israel, hours in day / night, months in year, etc.); … and there is much on bread representing Jesus, from “Bethlehem” meaning “home / house of bread” to Jesus’ words when he broke bread: “This is my body…”
	When transported, the table and its contents were cloaked in scarlet (representing ‘sin’) and ‘skin’	At the cross, Jesus – the one who ‘became flesh’ (Job 1:14) – “was made sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
The Menorah (representing the Spirit)	A seven-branched candle…	The sevenfold spirit (Revelation 1:4, 3:1, 4:5, 5:6)
	… burning olive oil …	Olive oil is used for ‘anointing’, representing anointing by the Spirit; fire represents ‘purification’, another work of the Spirit (our words ‘pure’ and ‘pyrotechnic’ have the same Greek root)
	… to give light to the whole room	God is Spirit (John 4:24) and light (1 John 1:5), as well as love (1 John 4:7), which ‘shines out’
The bowls of incense (representing the prayers of the saints	Rising up, a pleasing aroma to the Lord	Revelation 5:8 … ‘nuff said!

... And then check out the diagram below … symbolically, this reassures us that our prayers reach to, and lie at, the very heart of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!

Composite from http://www.bible-history.com/tabernacle/TAB4The_Ark_of_the_Covenant.htm, http://www.rawganique.com/Images/Swatches/HC1-040811-56.jpg, http://bibleabc.net/l_rev/images/bowl-70118.jpg, http://truthinmotion.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/bowl-of-incense-smaller.jpg, http://trivialdevotion.blogspot.co.uk/2011_06_26_archive.html, and http://www.thegalileeexperience.com/store/menorahs-candelabras-/menorah-tiberias-style-brass-regular-5-8-39-39-/prod_80.html - with thanks!

And so, just briefly back to the face again: what do the three parts fuse around?  The mouth.

And what does the mouth do?  Speak, converse, talk, chat, communicate, ...

And what is prayer?  Speaking, conversing, talking, chatting, communicating with God!

... Awesome!