The Face of Judith…
Hello there o reader,
In the last five or so years, I have found that the cool, calm, collectedness of my youth was thrown out the door for a very scared and unsettled young woman. However, I decided last year the my motto for the year and continuing on was going to be “make me an instrument of thy peace.” Although I do not always succeed, I find that I am becoming more content and peaceful, confident and fun loving as I used to be.
I have also discovered that I needed to be more trusting of God. However, I also do well when I have role models. Thankfully I am blessed with wonderful female role models in my life that I can relate to; and the more I read my scripture, I find them written among the beautiful passages.
Which brings me to my topic of Judith. As I sat down to read my scripture tonight, I thought I might share my perspective on an small passage in the book of Judith.
The prayer of Judith is a very powerful one and actually was not the passage I was going to speak of, but a prelude if you will. Judith is praying about her enemies and how they rape and defile women, about their infliction of pain and suffering, and how all their works go against the Covenant. Here is the part that I find interesting….After crying out to the Lord, she bathes, puts on her best attire and leaves the gates of her guarded home, with her hand maidens, on a mission of God to confront the enemy. Judith is then captured by the enemy, as she had intended to see Holofernes, the commander.
So she is in the camp, surrounded by these same enemies, but the words she speaks, the way she carries herself, the determination and the confidence in her words are enough to spare her very life. And so the passage reads ” I am on my way to see Holofernes the commander of your army,to give him a true report: I will show him a way that by which he can go and capture all the hill country without losing one of his men, captured or slain.”(Judith 10:13). Now here she is offering this enemy a way to slain her own people ( later found out to be trickery of course ), but this is NOT what actually saves her life. The following scripture reads ,” When the men heard her words and observed her face-she was in their eyes, marvelously beautiful” (Judith 14). Now some might say it was because of the asthetics, but I also believe it was because they admired her words, her boldness, and that she did not appear to be afraid. In fact, later on in Judith 10:19,”they marveled in her beauty and admired the Israelites, judging them by her. They said to one another, who can despise these people, who have women like this among them?”
Myself, I can’t imagine walking up to an army camp of the enemy and demanding to speak to the commander, knowing myself that I would most likely be defiled. And yet, here this woman is, being so bold to walk into the camp to really bring down the enemy and the persuasion is seen in her face, her expression, her eyes, her boldness, her words. I find this passage so powerful.
Although I have not studied Judith enough to appreciate the fullness of her mission, I pray I be that bold as I walk out the door into a secular world, that I may change a small part of the world with the words I speak;with the expression of my face because in that expression is the authentic human and God like image that I alone am; that each of us was given by God to use on his mission. I often find that beauty is the expression, not the asthetic, which people see and allows God to enter into their hearts.
Today I thank God for giving me the example of Judith.
Grace
