Ugliness is our enemy
Ugliness:
• Deadens us – by hardening our sensitivities
• Depresses us – by offending our emotions
• Diminishes us – by denying our full humanity
We need a champion who can defeat this enemy.
A beautiful-ugly world
Evidence of beauty is all around us. Where I live I see beauty all around in the sea and the countryside and in beautiful gardens. But at the same time there is plenty of evidence of ugliness: The ugly things people do to one another; the dumped mattress in an otherwise beautiful wood; the ugly building no town planner should ever have allowed.
Beauty and ugliness are hard to define, but we know them when we see them. And while we might not all agree about what is beautiful (“I like this music, you like that music”) we can all agree that beauty and ugliness are real.
The perversity is this: the need for beauty is hardwired into us humans, yet we humans are the cause of ugliness. What is the story here?
The Bible: A story of beauty created, lost, and recovered
1. The beauty of creation
Genesis 1 tells the story of creation, of God taking what was formless, empty, and dark and filling it with shape, fullness, and light. Everything that God made was good – it was all beautiful.
2. Man’s sin was ugly
Genesis 3 tells the story of man’s rebellion against God, and how this lead to separation, pain, and toil. Man was expelled from the garden where God had placed him. We were exiled from beauty.
3. God still cares about beauty
Although God took the man out of the garden his plan was still to bring his people into a beautiful place – the promised land, “a land flowing with milk and honey.” This was a land so beautiful that the grapes were so big they needed a pole to carry them [Numbers 13:21-23].
4. The focal point of worship was to be beautiful
We can see God’s concern for beauty in the details of Israel’s worship [Exodus 25-31]. Yahweh commissioned them to build an ark and a tabernacle, with almost pedantic detail: purple, scarlet, embroidery, acacia wood, silver, gold, and jewelled garments. This was to be done “for glory and for beauty” [Ex 28:2].
God anointed and appointed artists (Bezalel & Oholiab) to carry out this work [Ex 31:1-6]. Creating something beautiful was a charismatic gift!
5. The Ark trumped by the Temple
Once the people had entered the promised land a beautiful Temple was built for the worship of Yahweh [2 Chronicles 2-4]. This was built of endless cedar and gold and festooned with golden pomegranates. Nowhere in history has there been such a carnival of the arts: elaborate architecture, decorated with expensive metalwork, woodwork and cloth, before which all manner of poems were written, songs sung and dances performed, with musical instruments in abundance and the fragrance of incense throughout.
6. All these were but shadows of the things to come
Despite all this beauty, the great enemy of death was still reigning. Death is the ultimate stink of ugliness, but death was beaten by Jesus. In his resurrection corruption and ugliness were overcome, and the new creation was started. A new creation that culminates in the new heavens and earth [Revelation 21] – a creation in which ugliness is wiped out, the curse of decay on creation is lifted, and the promise of the new world is secured: gates of pearl, streets of glass-like gold, a river of life. In the death and resurrection of Jesus the Genesis curse was reversed. The Bible begins and ends with beauty triumphing over ugliness, and it is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that makes this possible.
Our desire for beauty points us towards God
The fact that every human has a capacity for beauty is evidence that all of us were created for beauty. Our response to beauty is an echo of God. Jonathan Edwards, the great American theologian of the 18th century, said, “God is beautiful, and all beauty is divine.” Whenever we seek beauty – wherever we seek it – we are in some way seeking after God.
The Church should display the beauty of God
As people who have come to faith in Jesus and been transformed by him we are pulled into his victory over ugliness. We are now able to see beauty not merely as an echo, but made solid in Jesus. As transformed people we are now in the transformation business. Jesus is making his church beautiful! [Ephesians 5:25-27] We are meant to bring beauty to the world – through everything we do – and tell people a story of how they can find true beauty too.
Beauty isn’t ‘perfection’ but transformation
One of the most powerful TV moments of recent times has been Susan Boyle’s performance on Britain’s Got Talent.
When Boyle first walked on stage everyone was against her. She didn’t look or come across in the way people on TV are meant to. We like people like Amanda Holden – beautiful and graceful and talented. We like winners, not losers like Boyle. C’mon – even her name – Boyle – is ugly! But the moment Boyle opened her mouth a transformation happened.
Why has this event got so much attention?
Because in Susan Boyle we see our own story. We see the ugliness of our own hearts in the crowds initial reaction. I guess all those people thought of themselves as kind and tolerant, but their initial reaction to Boyle gave the lie to that.
Because in Susan Boyle we wee our own need of salvation – that we need something transforming to happen to us that will make us different.
Because in Susan Boyle we see the power of transformation – someone who was so despised suddenly exalted, and the attitude of a crowd completely turned around.
This is what Jesus has done! This is the story of his defeat of ugliness.
We see this in Christ’s own body: Jesus still carries the scars of his crucifixion. We wouldn’t normally think of scars as beautiful. We would see scars as imperfection. But the scars that Christ still bears have been transformed from ugliness into beauty. Christ’s scars are the sign of his glory. This isn’t ‘perfection’ as we might imagine it, but a transformation into glory.
The good news is this: because of his scars, whatever ugliness we carry, Jesus can transform it into beauty.
Ultimate beauty is found in Jesus
Psalm 27:4
One thing have I asked of Yahweh,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of Yahweh
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of Yahweh
and to inquire in his temple.
This is where we’re headed – literally, physically, we are going to be in the presence of Jesus, gazing on his beauty. Here and now we need to live in the good of it, by allowing his beauty to fill our souls. We need an artist who can paint over the ugliness in our own souls and restore us and the earth to true beauty. Jesus is this artist. Jesus defeats all enemies. Jesus defeats ugliness.
Application Questions
• What things do you find beautiful and ugly?
• What do you consider ugly in your own life?
• How has Jesus transformed you?
• How can you bring beauty to the earth?
• In what ways will the new creation be different from this creation?
• How is Jesus beautiful?
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