If I arrange a meet up with a previously unfamiliar person in a public place, we exchange identifiers: I’ll be wearing a red scarf or the other person will wear a straw hat. We do this to recognize one another. In the case of Christ, light recognizes Light. How will I know Jesus? “You’ll know,” God says, “you’ll know.”
II Corinthians 4:6
For God . . . made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
This is of great comfort to me. We live in a world of charlatans and an array of “Elmer Gantrys,” who work hard to deceive the people around them. I have feared being deceived. But here, God promises the illumination of knowledge in my soul will guide me to recognize the true face of Jesus, the glory of God.
“When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the LORD’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant.” [Exodus 34:33b-35a]
The face of Jesus is luminous because of God’s glory within, not just reflected, like Moses. An object is either luminous (generates its own light) or illuminated (reflects light).
When a person’s face is relaxed and open, that face radiates and reflects warmth. Some examples that come to my mind are mothers with their newborn children, children in sleep, brides in love; we have all seen it at one time or another. When Jesus walked among the people, He had that look, that Light, all the time. It was catching. Jesus’s face reflected in the faces of the people.
“As light was the beginning of the first creation; so, in the new creation, the light of the Spirit is his first work upon the soul.” [Matthew Henry commentary]
I cannot stand face to face with the physical Jesus today. This illumination is now within. This Light is in the worship, in prayer, in contemplation.
My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”
Your face, LORD, I will seek. [Psalm 27:8]
Meditations from Zion 
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