Beautiful Beauty Broken Broke

We get to host this amazing exhibition at St George's Church this week - and I get to write a piece about the heart behind it.  The text is here - but there's nothing like coming and seeing it for yourself.

Beauty.  The thing that creates intense pleasure or deep satisfaction.

Beauty in the wrinkles around deep and soulful eyes.  Beauty in the sun-kissed landscape.  Beauty in the moment of connection of two hearts.  Beauty in the moments of massed non-violent protests against injustice.

Beauty.  In the miniscule and the massive.  It’s everywhere and it’s just out of reach.

Brokenness.  The thing that’s left after violation, crushing or forcible separation.

Brokenness in the frail, aging and dying body.  Brokenness in the scorching and devastation of the rainforest.  Brokenness in the heart of a child who can’t understand why their parents hate each other.  Brokenness in the society that allows the 1% to abuse the 99.

Brokenness.  In the miniscule and the massive.  It’s everywhere and just beyond cure.

As a society we have a strange relationship with birth and death.  The two most natural of all human passages.  Our society would have us hide them away in whitewashed, clinical, sterile environments.  We take the most human moments and put them in the most inhumane buildings.

Maybe we can’t really cope with seeing beauty and brokenness up close and personal.  Maybe there’s something in us that is happier to pretend everything is ok rather than face the fact that we’re surrounded by astonishing beauty and devastating brokenness.

Maybe the reason we hide behind facebook profiles, dress ourselves in other people’s labels, define ourselves by what we do, maybe it’s because we can’t bear the idea that this beauty and brokenness is not just outside us.

If there’s real beauty then there’s real value.  If there’s real value then there’s a real value-giver.  If there’s real brokenness then there’s real value – destroyed.  If there’s real value then there’s a real value giver and they will be eager to restore value.

The Christian message is born in the cauldron of beauty and brokenness.  In the beginning God created… and he declared it was very beautiful.  Then, as the story goes, brokenness enters our beauty.  Mistrust into a perfect moment of vulnerability.  Pain shatters perfection leaving a world divided, unequal and hurting.

The good news of the Christian ‘gospel’ is that God himself has stepped into his beautiful and broken creation.  He is not hiding behind a facebook profile, a book, a messenger or an institution.  God himself has come face to face with the highest heights of beauty and the deepest depths of brokenness.

The cross where Jesus died shows the brokenness of the world absorbed in one man.  The empty tomb bears witness to the fact that beauty wins.  God wins.

The invitation of Christianity is to allow God to restore you to the person you were meant to be.  As you become restored you will join in the work of restoring beauty in a profoundly broken world.

This is why St George’s are thrilled to host such a spectacular exhibition.  We are in awe of the quality of these artists and their ability to bring beauty and brokenness to our attention.  We believe that you cannot know beauty and brokenness intimately and not be drawn to Jesus – the pinnacle of beauty and brokenness.