The gift of beauty

Can you appreciate beauty?

Dictionary.com defines beauty as “the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).”

In the October, 2010 issue of Christianity Today, there was a feature article about The Church of the Transfiguration, located at the Community of Jesus, in Rock Harbor, Massachusetts. It is a small community of Christians who treasure the arts as a way of glorifying God. For fifteen or more years, they have engaged in creating a place of worship that is stunningly beautiful, without descending into gaudy. (http://www.churchofthetransfiguration.org/)

That church sought a way to glorify God on this earth by creating a space of beauty, a reflection of their reverence. Some criticize their work! That critical impulse is common among us, focused as we usually are on utilitarian goals. We build functional buildings. We live to be productive. Beauty generally loses out to efficiency, sacrificed to our need to do more with less. We are poorer for our failure to appreciate the value of beauty for its own sake! We have a God-given need for beauty and so we content ourselves with many trinkets and few treasures.

When God created the world, He didn’t aim for efficient! He lavished color and variety on this tiny orb. A mountain meadow is splashed with an array of vivid colors, delighting our eyes. He could have made a dozen kinds of butterflies, but He went over the top and gave us millions! He loves beauty!

The Gospel of Mark records a moment of beauty. It offends some of Jesus’ disciples, but the Lord Himself commended Mary for her lavish expression. "Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper. While he was eating dinner, a woman came up carrying a bottle of very expensive perfume. Opening the bottle, she poured it on his head. Some of the guests became furious among themselves. “That’s criminal! A sheer waste! This perfume could have been sold for well over a year’s wages and handed out to the poor.” They swelled up in anger, nearly bursting with indignation over her. But Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why are you giving her a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me." (Mark 14:3-6, The Message)

Disciple, do you make life beautiful?
Are you cultivating beauty in your character, in your work, in your worship?

Sin is ugly. It robs beauty from those who continue in it. It turns a palace into a ruin, a work of art into cheap exploitation, a person of infinite value into a drone only valued for his production. We are incapable of truest worship if we are unwilling to take the time to create beauty. Be like your Creator. Do what you do with a desire to make life beautiful, to ennoble others, to glorify God.

"And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,
And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work of our hands." (Psalm 90:17-18, NKJV)

____________________

He gave me beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise
For the spirit of heaviness,
That we might be trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord,
That He might be glorified.

Beauty For Ashes
Manzano, Robert
© 1976, 1979, 1983 Maranatha! Music (Admin. by The Copyright Company)

CCLI License No. 810055