Christ calls us to look to his face, to hear his word, and to listen to his people to understand who we are in him. And as we hear what he speaks over us, mere human faces lose their hold on us. We speak truthfully and love freely because we, like Christ, are not receiving glory from men.
“Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?”
Cassius, one of the villains in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, is ambitious. He sees Julius Caesar ascending to power, and Cassius hates it. Yet he knows, like Scar in The Lion King, that if he wants to take down Caesar, he must gain powerful allies. Brutus, a noble war hero, is such a man.
Cassius slithers up to Brutus while Brutus is in some untold conflict with himself (perhaps fighting a similar concern with Caesar’s rise). Listen again to his question,
Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?” (1.2.51)
Cassius asks Brutus if he can see himself. In other words, Cassius asks if he can properly know himself — see Brutus as Brutus is — without the help of another.
No, Cassius,” Brutus responds, “for the eye sees not itself, but by reflection, by some other things.” (1.2.52–53)
As the eye cannot see its own face, Brutus responds, neither can he know himself alone. He must see his reflection by some mirror. Cassius, to recruit this needed Knight to checkmate the potential King, offers to be that mirror for Brutus. Flatteringly, he reflects a majestic Brutus. A regal Brutus. A Brutus that is as great, if not greater, than Caesar — a Brutus the people would wish was in charge.
Who Shows You Your Face?
Shakespeare gives us the perceptive question that I turn now to you.
Tell me, good reader, can you see your face?”
Who do you look at to see yourself? Whose opinion of you forms your identity? If you have been like me, perhaps you rely on many mirrors. Does this group think I am fun to be around? Does my wife find me desirable? Does this pastor or small group respect me? Do these people think I am smart, or those people, funny? Does this group like my writing; does he think I talk too much?
I see myself, if I am not careful, reflected in a carnival of mirrors. In this one, I’m short and chubby. In that one, I am tall and skinny. In this one, I have an inflated head. In that one, massive feet. In the one over there, I am “too Christian.” In this one here, I am just right — at least for the moment. We too often live from mirror to mirror, always looking into others’ faces to see our own. We live and move and have our being looking for certain people to approve of us.
Isn’t it a wonder, then, that there was one who walked among us who cared not for human mirrors, one of whom even his enemies had to admit, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you [do not look at the faces of men]” (Matthew 22:16)?
Nothing but the Truth
The Pharisees, in the spirit of Cassius, said this to manipulate Jesus. They meant to entangle him. They wanted him out of the way, so they held a meeting to discuss how to trap him in his words. This introduction, which flattered Jesus for not regarding faces, was bait.
For their plan to work, they needed him to continue to do what he had been doing: speak truthfully regardless of the consequences. He couldn’t back down now, or the web wouldn’t stick. They need him to answer; they think they’ve asked a question Jesus cannot answer without his harm. So they say in effect,