The Hidden Son of Man

Rene Magritte (1898-1967) was a Belgian artist known for his unusual style. Three years before his death he painted a work he called "The Son of Man". The picture features a man in a suit with a bowler cap. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the piece is the fruit that seems to be floating over the man's face.

Most of the objects in the painting look fairly ordinary. The suit was probably an ordinary thing for a person to wear in Magrittes' day. The wall, the sky, even the fruit seem like ordinary walls, skies, and fruits.

The apple over the face is a little unexpected, though.

Magritte's comment on the piece is:

Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, but it is impossible. Humans hide their secrets too well...

Camus writes in The Myth of Sysaphus that it is hard to tell what is going on inside a person. One does not know whether a woman crossing the street is in high spirits or whether she is simply a good actress.

Like the Son of Man painting, people often had a hard time seeing the real Jesus Christ. When looking at Jesus some saw a future political leader. Others saw Moses or Elijah.

In Mark 8 Jesus asked Peter who he found Jesus to be. Peter answered, "You are the Christ". In other words he believed Jesus was the Messiah - sent specifically by God to save His people. Jesus told Peter, "Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you."

In the same way that we cannot see the man in the Son of Man painting with our eyes, we cannot see Jesus Christ with our physical eyes of flesh and blood.

Magritte finds that is impossible to see who is really there underneath everything. The recognition of another person's identity is truly a miracle. And to see oneself, one must not look at the exterior (as the world sees the apple), but as God sees oneself.

"By their fruit you will know them."

The most we can see about the Son of Man in the painting (other than his hands and clothes) is the fruit blocking his face from our view. We do not have the priviledged perspective of the painter who sees his subjects barefaced.

Jesus tells us the best we can do now to recognize others is to see their fruit. This is not the same thing as seeing people as they are before God ... to see their hidden thoughts and underlying priorities.

The fruit one bears is an indirect communication of the spirit cultivating the fruit. When Jesus manifested himself to people on earth, he usually wasn't clothed in the luminant shining robes of heaven -or however you fancy they dress in heaven. His clothing was regular human clothing that did not directly express his divinity.

In his earthly ministry, Christ's expression of his identity was in the way he cared for others and served them through healing, teaching (usually parables), and demonstrating a righteous life.

So too a disciple of Christ cannot effecively assert his association by loud proclamations and ingenious super-human arguments. Jesus told his disciples: "They will know you are my disciples if you love one another." A disciple of Christ must learn to communicate his standing before God indirectly: by loving God and his neighbor.