The second, long section of Acts 20 describes for us Paul’s departure from Ephesus. When we visit Ephesus today, the shoreline is four miles from the city which in Paul’s day was next to the water – the cumulative effect of silting over the centuries!

Paul has been there almost three years with a small band of Christian followers in a metropolis of pagans who looked down on them or laughed at them. Paul’s parting exhortation is recorded, and it is lovely.

After touching upon the joys and trials they’d faced together, he rather gloomily names that he’s heading to Jerusalem, where he expects to be arrested and probably killed – but his courage, his commitment to fulfill his mission drive him forward. And he knows that the days to come will be hard for them, so he admonishes them to be alert and steadfast, and to continue to lift up the weak and needy. He even quotes Jesus – a rarity for Paul: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

And then the emotional climax: “When he had spoken thus, he knelt down and prayed with them all. They all wept and embraced Paul and kissed him, sorrowing most of all because they knew that they would see his face no more.”

I’m fixated on that Luke shares, not just that they wouldn’t see him, but they wouldn’t see his face. I think of the Roberta Flack song, “The first time ever I saw your face / I thought the sun rose in your eyes / and the moon and the stars / were the gifts you gave / to the dark and endless skies.” That’s a love song, but I wonder if the handful of Christians in Ephesus thought of Paul’s face in this way. The sun rose. The gift he gave in the darkness. He wasn’t just a clever strategist or a great organizer. He was the very presence of the living Christ to people who’d not known him but were drawn to fall in love with him.

Flack’s song speaks of the “first time” I saw your face. What about the last time? Whom have you loved – and when did you see that face for the last time? Usually we don’t have a clue it will be the last time. If we knew, we wouldn’t just glance, or assume. You’d look, really look – and see. You’d notice the eyes that have seen so much, the mouth that has spoken, eaten, drunk, spoken, and kissed, that wrinkle from smiling so many times, or fretting in worry. So much love etched onto a face. So much history, and humanity. Even you are writ there.

Paul’s face: what did it look like? Had they sensed the mercy and compassion of God in his eyes, his expressions, his countenance?

The Ephesians were sad – yet their sadness on parting was because there was so much to be grateful for, so much to celebrate, so much to miss. They would never see his face again. And they would never be the same because they’d seen his face.