When I was growing up, pulling-a-face was challenged with the warning: “If the wind changes, you’ll be stuck looking like that!” I dare say it was one of those threats employed by all parents everywhere, to deter their young charges from annoying their siblings and dampening the mood. (Though for some people, who seem to wear a permanent scowl, I do wonder if they had been caught as children by a sudden change of weather.)

I wonder what the ‘default-face’ was for Jesus? I can’t imagine that it was a scowl. Not him, of whom it was said, “A bruised reed, he will not break”. Not him who from the Cross said, “Father, forgive them”. Nor do I see him with one of those supercilious expressions, full of levity and ready to laugh at the slightest joke. Not him who said to Pharisees, “Vipers! Hypocrites!” Not him who looked at death and said, “Young man, I say to you, get up!”

Shall we ever know? Won’t his face, in his glory, be shining like the sun, and therefore inscrutable? Did not John see him in the Revelation, with the appearance of a lamb, looking as if it had been slain? At his coming, will he not be leading his army into battle, and therefore at the front, and his face obscured? “They will see his face,” says the Book that does not lie, and it shall be without fault, and firm in the wind, and beaming with love, and full of glory.