“But then face to face”

There’s a place I like to go on the coast of Maine that is one of my “happy places.” I won’t tell you where it is, because tourists are already starting to ruin its idyllic repose, but it’s utterly perfect and beautiful. I try to take a one-day “spiritual retreat” there every summer, when I can just read, pray, meditate, and write.

I sit on the rocky water’s edge, prayer journal in hand, listening to the waves lapping against the rocks, and the constant advance and retreat of the little pebbles on the beach that dance to the rhythm of those waves. I hear gulls chattering, the melodious songs of a foghorn and bell buoys in the distance, and the hum of lobster boats on the horizon. I watch as common terns nosedive into the water in pursuit of lunch, and occasionally see seals pop their heads up, unable to curb their curiosity. One time I watched as several dolphins gracefully and slowly engaged in synchronized swimming about 200 yards offshore.

I can literally do that for hours without interruption, allowing the sound and sight therapy to wash over my soul (that is, until fellow well-meaning but disruptive travelers interrupt my peace).

It is truly heaven on earth—an enchanting, though imperfect, reflection of God’s creative heart (and yes, I’ve been to many places in the world, but nothing beats summer in Maine—though I admit I’m a little biased).

The last time I was there, however, I finally put something into words that I had felt but didn’t know how to articulate. I realized that the scene was so beautiful it hurts. That was a strange—though helpful—realization for me.

Actually, part of what I was reading helped me realize this. Among other materials on the menu, I was reading Surprised by Joy, by C. S. Lewis. Lewis has always been able to capture in words what I’ve felt in my heart. And in that little book he defined “joy” in a surprising way, describing it as an “unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” Indeed, he proposes that joy may be called a “particular kind of unhappiness or grief” that has a “stab,” “pang,” or “inconsolable longing.” This is because, according to Lewis, “joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still ‘about to be.’ ”[1]

In other words, joy, according to Lewis, gives us a brief dopamine hit, but then leaves us wanting more, reminding us of something greater.

The Main Course

So this is why I felt the scene that day was so beautiful it hurt (in fact, Lewis talks about being “maddened by beauty”).[2]

That scene, as beautiful and as rapturous as it was, could only remind. It wasn’t—and isn’t—the full expression of what my heart truly longs for. It was merely a “tease” in many ways, whetting my appetite for the main course—which I will someday, hopefully very soon, be able to devour.

Theologians have long talked about that “main course,” referring to it in different ways. One of the most common terms used, which has been around for centuries, is the term “beatific vision.” Beatific, a Latin term related to the term “beatitudes,” which refers to the expressions of blessing that Jesus shared at the beginning of His sermon on the mount, means “blessed” or “happy.” So this “beatific vision” refers to the happiest of all visions—the greatest, most exciting, most fulfilling sight we will ever see.

All the joyful moments we experience now are but faint echoes of all we were designed to experience.

It refers to that moment when we will look at God in the face, unmediated and unrestricted. For those who’ve responded to His love with love, it will be the most intense, exciting, out-of-this-world feeling we could ever imagine. It will be emotional overload (and, in fact, those who haven’t responded to God’s love with love will be overwhelmed emotionally as well, to the point that they will want the rocks, according to Revelation 6:16, to hide them).

But it’s the reason for which we were created. It was the precise purpose for which we were made.

Until Then

We were designed to experience personal, embodied, unmediated, eternal fellowship with God. We were never supposed to have a veil between us, separating us from Him. And all our other urges, desires, and longings merely point to the grand fulfillment of that desire.

It’s why we can look at a beautiful coastal scene, be enraptured with its beauty, and yet still long for something more.

It’s why we can experience the bliss of beautiful and unconditional human love, and still long for something more.

It’s why we can even respond to the glorious news of the gospel, with all its eternal hope, and yet still long for something more. We weren’t created to experience only momentary bliss. We were created to ever live in the presence of God, experiencing unceasing joy and happiness.

For now, as Paul says, we see through “a glass, darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12, KJV). All the joyful moments we experience now are but faint echoes of all we were designed to experience. Even the glories of the gospel we encounter now are mediated through the imperfect glass of broken and damaged humanity. We aren’t yet prepared—morally, emotionally, spiritually—to have an unmediated encounter with the glory of God.

But, Paul goes on to clarify: “then,” someday, we will see God “face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). The veil will be removed, and God will show us His full glory, as Moses desired to see (see Ex. 33:18). And in that moment we will, as Lewis describes elsewhere, fully realize that God completely and unequivocally loves and delights in us. “To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness,” he thus writes, “to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”[3]

Glorious thought! I long to experience the beatific vision—to see God “face to face,” and to fully “know just as I also am known” (1 Cor. 13:12). Until then, I will keep retreating to the coast of Maine, hoping to catch a little glimpse of that eternal glory.

[1] C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2017), pp.19, 93.

[2] Ibid., p. 126.

[3] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2015), p. 39.