Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the WorldSample

Broken Signposts: Beauty

Think of the last time you saw, heard, or experienced something truly beautiful. What was it that took your breath away, or made you pause to reflect in awesome wonder? Was it a sunset, sculpture, or starfish? Perhaps it was a mountaintop vista, a newborn baby, a Gospel choir, your favorite dessert, your loved one’s smile, or the perfectly placed game-winning goal. While the idea of what is considered ‘beautiful’ varies between people groups and personality types, it seems that humans are hardwired for beauty. We are called to be procreators with God, and to make and do and say and write things which are themselves beautiful and function as genuine signposts to the genuine beauty of the Gospel.

The signpost of beauty has become battered and broken because humans have tried to do beauty without God. Yet the story that John’s Gospel is telling is that of God who cares so deeply about the beauty of his creation that he entered into the creaturely brokenness through his personal presence of the Word made flesh. Indeed, Jesus tabernacled in our midst and humans gazed upon his glorious beauty (John 1:14). Johannine beauty bears witness to the reality of resurrection beauty that floods the human reality of decay and death with new life. This Christian vision to remake and recreate beauty is part of the human vocation.

In the story of Lazarus, we see Jesus at the tomb of his deceased friend, flanked by a crowd that doubted that anything of beauty could emerge from the scene of a gravesite. In fact, Lazarus’ sister Martha was most concerned about the stench of death. She could not imagine that she was about to experience something beautiful. 

In John 11:41, Jesus prays a prayer of thanksgiving: ‘Thank you Father, he said, ‘for hearing me!  And then, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ (v 43). Glory in the midst of shame—the ultimate meaning of art—finds a way to suffuse the scene of decay and death with beauty.  And yet, John is pointing his readers, and us, to reach for more—to the very place of Jesus’ own death where the divine glory of resurrection beauty will be fully revealed. 

John’s description of God doing something powerful and beautiful, in and through Jesus the risen Lord involves leaving the grave clothes behind in the tomb (John 20:6-7). Here we see beauty unveiled and accomplishing what the world’s best paintings and pictures and panoramas can do only in part. Jesus’ resurrection evokes beauty made permanent. His rising from the dead is not simply being revived or resuscitated only to die again. Rather, it is beauty itself emerging from the thing that most challenges the beautiful—the horrible corruption of death itself. 

Jesus’ victory over the dark forces that oppose the human desire and drive for true beauty is a God-given signpost designed to lead us back to his very presence. In and through the Word made flesh, God makes his way through death and out the other side into new creation, new beauty, and new life. His rising is like a glorious sunset that never fades, a sumptuous meal that never ends, or a lavish party where the guests never stop celebrating. John’s Gospel displays the beautiful redeeming love of Jesus, and by the work of the Spirit energizes his followers to continue creating signposts of beauty.

Questions to consider: 

What is your definition of beauty? How do beautiful things in our world point to the reality of God and help us make sense of the world and of what matters most?

Living it out: 

Identify something beautiful near you. As you pray today, express gratitude to God for this person, place, or thing of beauty. Consider what tangible ways you might create or add beauty in your family, church, or community.