It’s easy to forget what someone’s face looks like, especially in our globalized world. Telephones, email, even letters can’t reproduce for us the sensation of looking a loved one in the eye as we talk to them. It’s as though we lack the fullness of relationship when we can't see the person to whom we’re relating.

So it is with God’s face. It is a profound act of faithfulness to ask God for the light of the divine countenance. Doing so, we admit that our lives, our very existences, are incomplete without the presence of our creator, our redeemer, our sustainer.

And yet, even as we are faithful to ask for a glimpse of God’s countenance, are we ready for what it will illumine? Are we willing to see God coming to us in the poor and oppressed of our world, of our community? Are we willing to see God’s countenance in those whom our well-to-do lifestyle has relegated to a second-class existence? Let us indeed call out for God to show us the light of the divine countenance; but shown it, let us not recoil but rather turn around from our sin and embrace God as we see God in our neighbors.

Suffering God, we ask for you to sustain us, that we might love and serve you through our neighbors. Amen.