The Son’s beauty

When the Son of God came down to the earth, he could have been the most beautiful man, according to the norms of beauty in the world. He didn’t know sin, there was no deceit in his mouth, and therefore, the disfiguration that sin brings and the advances of death that it bears were not in him.
But, was he beautiful?

Was he as beautiful as Joseph, the father’s beloved son, with his “coat of many colors?” Or like Saul who “from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people”? Or like David, “blond, beautiful of eyes, and “ruddy, and withal of a fair countenance.”? Or like Solomon whose intelligence gave a special shine to his eyes? Or Absalom, without equal among the children of David, “praised for his beauty” who, “from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him”?

He could have been like any of these, or even more beautiful than the sum of all of them, but he was not.

Rather, he was “like a root out of dry ground.” “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2) The eternal Word that was hidden in him was not to be revealed through the beauty of his eyes, nor with an external pomp. Would he –who liked hiding from the crowds and avoiding vain praise– have wanted to cause people to get excited by the beauty of his factions, or his stature?

Unthinkable. What’s more, in the moments of his most grave pain, his appearance suffered even more deterioration. The prophet, seeing it in advance, said: “his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form so marred beyond human likeness!” (Isaiah 52:14). The one who had been robbed of his glory as God, appeared less than a man!

Could he have the beautiful face of an angel, he who took upon himself the sin of us all? Could a wide and unworried smile shine out from the one who knew the greatest depths of our depravity, who took responsibility to remove them from us, taking them, and purging them on the cross?

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