It's what Jesus did, as he began to pray in John 17, having concluded his long discussion with his disciples. But why look up? Doesn't he know God doesn't really live in the sky? Wow, how primitive can you get.
But this is the Son of God. His grasp of the reality of God so far exceeds our miniature glimpses it isn't even worthy of a comparison. So what's really going on here?
Perhaps what we're seeing here is the significance of posture as symbol. By his posture, Jesus is symbolising, in his upward look, the reality that God is transcendent and reigns supreme; it is also a look of unfeigned trust (cf. Ps. 123). And his posture not only conveys that to the watching disciples, it also helps Jesus to express it.
Posture in prayer is clearly not everything but perhaps we can say that it is not insignificant – Jesus himself teaches that in his example here. After all, we are not simply spiritual beings; we were created as physical creatures and need to express ourselves in an integrated way – heart and hands, so to speak.
Jesus raises his eyes – something the tax collector in the temple would not do, because of his felt sense of shame. Only Jesus can by rights look upward into the face of God without any hint of shame, without a shred of arrogance. But here he models the reality for all who are right with God in him – there is no longer any need to hide our faces but, knowing the mercy of God, we can look upward into the face of our Creator and call him ‘Father’, we can look upward and seek his glory.
