The Face of God

After a three-year closure, and a refit costing £35m, the National Portrait Gallery re-opens its doors next week.

London is fortunate in having so many free entrance galleries and this is one of my favourites.

It was originally set up in 1856 and its first portrait was an image of Shakespeare.  It had various homes before permanently moving to the site of St Martin’s Workhouse, next to the National Gallery and opposite Trafalgar Square in 1886.

In the First World War the portraits were taken down and sent to Wales, in the second they ended up at Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire.

So, I’m looking forward to visiting this newly redesigned space which, since 1969, has portraits of people still alive.

Now, to a confession – I once had my portrait done by one of those caricature artists who look for your best feature and emphasise it!  Mine was done on a visit to Florence and now hangs proudly in our downstairs loo!

I suppose much of our reading of scripture has the intention of trying to put together a ‘portrait’ of God in our mind’s eye. 

There are a number of bible verses that lament times when God ‘turns away his face’ away from us.  These are thought of as bleak times when we lack hope or direction.  Moses was told by God that he couldn’t look upon the face of the divine and live. Yet again, and again the psalmist encourages us to ‘seek His face’ continually. And, of course, for Christians there is the idea that we see God in a way we truly can understand and appreciate in ‘the face of Jesus Christ’. 

One of the loveliest of prayers in the bible, found in Numbers 6, has a line that we sometimes recite at really important times in our lives, a line that says: May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.

So, next week as I take that first peep into the newly refurbished National Portrait Gallery, I’ll give thanks that in the face of Jesus we see something of God’s character, and pray that Lord’s face will continue to shine upon our world, bringing us all his blessing of hope and love.