The Compassionate Eyes of Christ

THE COMPASSIONATE EYES OF CHRIST

(Saturday, February 8)

Christ on a Donkey, in the Augustiner Museum in Freiburg, is one of the most moving Christ figures that I know. I have sent many postcards of it to my friends, and I keep one in my prayer book.

The afternoon I went to the museun to spend some quiet time with this Christus auf Palmesel (Christ on palm-donkey). This fourteenth-century sculpture originally comes from Niederrotweil, a small town close to Breisach on the Rhine. It was made to be pulled on a cart in the Palm Sundai procession. In 1900 it was sold to the Augustiner Museum, where it now stands in the center of the first exposition hall.

Christ’s long, slender face with a high forehead, inward-looking eyes, long hair, and a small forked beard expresses the mystery of his suffering in a way that holds me spellbound. As he rides into Jerusalem surrounded by people shouting “hosanna,” “cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in his path” (Matthew 21:8), Jesus appears completely concentrated on something else. He does not look at the excited crowd. He does not wave. He sees beyond all the noise and movement to what is ahead of him: an agonizing journey of betrayal, torture, crucifixion, and death. His unfocused eyes see what nobody around him can see; his high forehead reflects a knowledge of things to come far beyond anyone’s understanding.

There is melancholy, but also peaceful acceptance. There is insight into the fickleness of the human heart, but also immense compassion. There is a deep awareness of the unspeakable pain to be suffered, but also a strong determination to do God’s will. Above all, there is love, an endless, deep, and far reaching love born from an unbreakble intimacy with God and reaching out to all people, wherever they are, were, or will be. There is nothing that he does not fully know. There is nobody whom he does not fully love.

Everytime I look at this Christ on the donkey, I am reminded again that I am seen by him with all my sins, guilt, and shame and loved with all his forgiveness, mercy, and compassion.

Just being with him in the Augustiner Museum is a prayer. I look and look and look, and I know that he sees the depths of my heart; I do not have to be afraid.

--The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey by Henri J. M .Nouwen