I have been asked by several people why our church values ‘beauty’.
Beauty is not attached to belief. Yet it provides an access point to the soul. Two people can find something beautiful, but believe different things about Jesus. Beauty becomes a contact between them. Sometimes a conversation about belief will come from that.
Beauty is an inherent characteristic of the Trinity. Like Charis (grace) and Chesed (steadfast love). Beauty is grace. You cannot manufacture it. It happens. Beauty is a gift. Beauty reveals the character of its Creator. It is a way for people to ‘get’ grace in a way that is slant, not overt (like a tract, or a big poster that says John 3.16)
Beauty is a gift of common grace. We value the way God is at work around us, whether we know it, participate in it, or not. He is extending grace to those who by definition don’t deserve it and drawing to himself those whom he dearly loves.
1 comment:
David,
When I first saw this post, this Advent carol came to me. But although somewhere deep within I must have understood the connection, for the life of me my conscious mind could not figure it out, until I read what you wrote on Restoration. I realized, then, that Restoration is a very Advent idea . . . as are both beauty and joy, in their most traditional senses, because both focus on what is yet to be -- joy (according to C.S. Lewis) is the Longing itself, and beauty is our attempt to give that Longing expression. I have always thought this carol did that very well, and as I meditated on our new name I realized why.
People, Look East
1. People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
2. Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.
3. Birds, though you long have ceased to build,
Guard the nest that must be filled.
Even the hour when wings are frozen
God for fledging time has chosen.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the bird, is on the way.
4. Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way.
5. Angels, announce with shouts of mirth
Christ who brings new life to earth.
Set every peak and valley humming
With the word, the Lord is coming.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the Lord, is on the way.
So let us look East these last three days of Advent, to the light of the Dayspring from on High, the Daystar who appears in our hearts at Christmas and who will come, soon, to restore all things. Amen, Maranatha, Come, Lord Jesus.
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