The Face of an Ox

In the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel, the Prophet and Priest Ezekiel describes a vision he had of four living heavenly creatures. Verse 10 is a description of the faces he saw.

“As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.”

The four faces pictures Christ; (1) as a “man” incarnate; (2) as an ox “suffering servant and sacrifice”; (3) as a lion, that is, ruler (“the lion of the tribe of Judah”); and (4) as an eagle, all seeing and all-knowing.

The Church in later times took the four faces described by the prophet and distributed them among the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

They gave Matthew the face of a man, Mark the face of a lion, Luke the face of an ox, and John the face of an eagle.

This was according to a supposed resemblance between the particular gospel and the thing symbolized by each face. For the present purpose, we will regard these faces as symbols of four great traits of character that every person requires who would serve his fellow man.

This month we will look at the face of an ox and its character traits. The ox is an animal that some people consider dull and common of all of God’s creatures. He lacks imagination. He plods along, never hurrying, never worrying and seems content with this.

For this reason, the face of an ox symbolizes labor, toil, drudgery, and patient perseverance. What, then, is labor and work? Work is what makes life worth living. Work is contributing to the forces that make the world. Work builds things up and makes them better. Work builds the worker up and makes the worker better. Without work, life ceases to exist.

No people ever rose in the scale of being until they learned the value of work. However, hard work does not receive the same welcome as idleness does. We greet holidays with smiles and joyous elations; work days are greeted with sobered antipathy. This is not to say that there is no place in life for recreation and play.

Play is an essential condition of work and wholesome living. Work builds nations, and all play can bring them down. When work ethics are lost, there is no more productivity. God is a being of creativity. He works. Therefore man is made to work.

It is said, “All true work is sacred.” Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven.