Looking Deeply

NY Morning Thought: “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John‬ ‭1:29‬ ‭ESV‬‬). The other day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I came across Van Gogh’s Wheat Field with Cypresses. I’ve always wanted to see the original so I spent a long time looking at this masterpiece. I looked at it for so long that the guards began to get scared and stand beside me. Then they adjusted the ropes around it so that I would not get too close. I knew I’d be on the other side of the world in a few days and I wouldn’t get to see this painting again. I observed the colours, textures and brush strokes, as well as objects I never before saw in the painting. When John the Baptist exhorts us to behold the Lamb of God, he is calling us to a similar kind of seeing, an observing that is out of the ordinary. He doesn’t want us to be the usual bypasser, but one who looks deeper. This kind of seeing can only happen as you let the Holy Spirit open your eyes to behold the Son in the same way the Father sees him: spectacular, spotless and the one who takes away your sins and mine.