WE come to the 7th and last installment of our consideration of JR Miller’s The Beauty of the Imperfect. But before we go there, I’d like to share a little something I’ve found fascinating. Have you ever heard of or seen a Kintsugi Bowel? It is another example of the Beauty of the Imperfect, a Metaphor for Grace.
Mankind is fallen, and we are all broken. Through the redemptive sacrifice of Christ, however, we are restored and become a part of the New Creation. Like the Byzantine painter who uses gold to represent the uncreated Light, Fujimura* sees the kintsugi master’s golden lacquer as a metaphor for the grace that restores our brokenness and shines through us. The Psalmist sees himself as a broken vessel until he puts himself in the hands of God. The broken pieces remain, an important part of our history, just as Christ’s wounds remain in his resurrected Body. But now the whole is transformed by grace, and made more valuable and beautiful than before.
[*Art + Faith: A Theology of Making, the Japanese-American artist Makoto Fujimura]
The above is from a 2021 column in Touchstone magazine by Mary Elizabeth Podles, a retired curator of Renaissance and Baroque art at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Ms. Podles’ article can be found at https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=34-05-062-c
This article has been visible on my desk, near at hand, for nearly two years now. I often reference it in my thoughts during personal devotions, and have frequently shared it with suffering souls needing a metaphor of grace on their road to redemption and restoration.
HERE’S a question I often pose and ponder. When you look at your Bible, closed, sitting on your desk, by your bed, or in your lap, what do you see? What single thought crosses your mind? In counseling or mentoring others, that’s a question I often ask a troubled soul in their moment of despair and undoing. Their answers are fairly predictable, if they break the silence at all. In that moment of reflection, I tell them what I see. I see a book full of stories of dysfunctional people; an endless array of individuals struggling with their own personal failures and flaws; betrayals and deep disappointments; without exception story after story of broken people in the process of being made whole in the Greater Story of Redemption. Whatever trial one faces, it is not as if someone else hasn’t already gone down that very path before, revealing a record and historical account of a “redeemed people” finding the table of blessing at the end of their journey, at the end of their trail of tears (Psa 23:4-6).
THIS is the beauty of the imperfect, God’s restoration of dysfunctional lives made whole by Christ,
The broken pieces remain, an important part of our history, just as Christ’s wounds remain in his resurrected Body. But now the whole is transformed by grace, and made more valuable and beautiful than before.
Now with that, let’s pick-up where we left off and conclude our reading of Miller’s The Beauty of the Imperfect:
“One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead — I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13-14)
If we are truly following Christ — the best ever lies ahead of us.
In the inexorable blessings of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa 30:15, Jas 1:2
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The Beauty of the Imperfect – Part 7, conclusion
One final note on the Beauty of the Imperfect.
“The Lord made mountains, to teach us how to climb.” – Lonestar
“One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead — I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14
If we are truly following Christ — the best ever lies ahead of us.
Life is a mountain climb, and we never get to the summit in this world. Paul tells us that he has not yet reached the end of his race. But he is pressing on with inexhaustible energy and enthusiasm. He forgets the things which are behind.
Some people live altogether in their past. They tell you over and over of the great things they have done, or lament failures in despair. Paul had done a great many brave and noble things, and things he would rather not speak of. But he put them all in the past, never talked about them, and did not take time to record them — he was so eager to get on and to attain loftier heights, to do greater things, to win greater victories. Before him lay the goal with the prize of life, and to this he pressed continually in his quest for Christ.
It is a noble picture, this old apostle, at an age when many men are retired — still reaching forward and holding eyes fixed on the real goal of his life far ahead.
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” Philippians 3:12
We ought not to lose sight of this lesson.
