Personal Matters
I have for some time been convinced that the Church today needs to be recaptured by a vision of beauty, moving outside the box we have created by our fixation on good and evil to see God and his purposes in a new way. This conviction was deeply confirmed last week as visiting pastor Ian Shelton spoke about the “beauty of spirit”, the “beauty of unity”, the “beauty of the unborn/Down’s child” etc. There is something very immediate about beauty that even the hardest atheist cannot deny. The saying, “When intimacy is born beauty is released.” (Shelton) took my mind to God the Father as the origin of all created goodness (1 Cor 8:6). This teaching concerns the revelation of the Father as the restorer of universal beauty and the one through whom everything wonderful is crystallised. It is an approach to spirituality that directly contradicts the dominant “can do” or pragmatic mood in the Church today.
The Father is the Beautifier
Meditating recently I had an overwhelming awareness of how the Father’s heart is saturated with a sense of the all sufficiency of his bountiful glory (Eph 1:17). From the splendour of Fatherhood the Son and Spirit are poured forth as distinct but equal Persons in the wonder of God’s life as Trinity. Each of the Persons of the Trinity appreciates each of the others in immeasurable love. Within such unity-in-diversity God experiences his own beauty. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have eternally appreciated each other’s distinctiveness and planned to share their sense of wonderment with humanity as created in their likeness.
At a certain level echoes of the divine beauty are inescapable; “God has made everything beautiful in its time” (Eccl 3:12); “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1 ESV). The psalmist was feeling after this when he said, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.” (Ps 27:4). There is a tragic side to creation however.
As I awoke today my mind was filled with an image of a beautiful painting, like the Mona Lisa, slashed from one side to another. We are God’s precious work of art, but our sinful rebellion has formed a scar running across all creation; our own lives and relationships and the world itself has suffered disfigurement (Gen 3:18; Jer 18; Rom 8:20). Only Jesus can heal this deep wound on the face of the beauty of the world.
Beauty through Christ’s Cross
Jesus is the perfect form of the beauty of his Father in this world (John 14:9; Heb 1:3). His voice was wondrously attractive (Matt 12:19; John 10:27), his miracles scented with the glory of God (Matt 15:30) and his service of humanity ablaze with the splendour of the divine presence (Luke 9:29). The whole shape of the life of Christ communicates the beauty of the Father’s love; this radiance of true Fatherhood comes to climax through the sacrifice of the cross. Jesus is the Lamb of God whose sacrifice is directed to “Abba, Father”; “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” (Mark 14:36; John 1:29; 2 Cor 5:16).
Against all external appearances the death of Jesus is a beautifying exchange. On the cross Jesus bears the wrath of God becoming one with all our sinful ugliness (2 Cor 5:21); to mortal eyes the crucified Lord had “no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa 53:2). On the inside however the Father was overwhelmed by the limitless beauty of the submissive love of his Son. The evidence of the Father’s appreciation is that through resurrection and ascension attains the glory of God himself (John 17:5; Phil 2:9). The Father beautifies all things “in Christ” through a pathway of great personal cost. This is a journey he shares with us.
The way of divine beautifying follows the shape of the life of Christ. Our zealous expectation of great things from God must pass through the pain of failure and disillusionment. Such anguish provides the opportunity for unconditional surrender to the will of the Father, which then issues in a vision of the beauty of the Lord. (Or to put it more simply: 1. Birth of a vision. 2. Death of a vision. 3. Resurrection of a vision.)
Shift your Spirit
The Holy Spirit is calling for a radical spiritual shift in the zone of spiritual fathering; from an emphasis on quantity to quality, from striving for numbers (attendees, finance) to abiding in God’s presence. Fatherly wisdom teaches the people of God that they are the “gold, silver and precious stones” being built together as a living temple inhabited by the eternal glory of God (1 Cor 3:10-12a ; 1 Pet 2:5; Rev 21:9-27). All such stones are beautiful. Mature other-centred fatherhood always imparts a clear sense of identity to its children. Secure men and women of God convey to their spiritual children that each of them is an absolutely distinct manifestation of the image of God; each child of God is unutterably beautiful, irreplaceable and precious in the eyes of their Father (Rev 21:7).
A well fathered Church enters into “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”, a fullness whose beauty has the power to incite jealousy (Rom 11:11, 25; Eph 4:13 cf. Gen 37:11; Acts 6:15). The radiance of the Father’s beautiful wisdom in the Church will move Israel and all the nations with a desire to know him as Messiah and Lord (Hag 2:7; 2 Cor 4:6).
Conclusion
Intimacy with the beautifying Father in the way of the cross issues in that deep discipleship for which the hearts of all true believers ache. From such a glorious presence of Fathering the unity for which so many of us have so long prayed will necessarily flow achieving the results which Jesus promised, “the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:21-22). A matured church can transform our culture’s perception that the Christianity is about right vs. wrong to one of beauty vs. ugliness, the lost can behold, “how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news” (Rom 10:15).
The revelation of the beautifying Father is hidden from our eyes of most comfortable Western Christians because it involves a painful pilgrimage (Ps 96:9). The goal of such a pilgrimage is the consummating vision of an eternal city and a Bride of limitless beauty. It was by this vision that the Church of the apostles and martyrs lived and died in their unstinting love of God. The hour is upon us to see reality in a new way, through the depths of the lens of the cross. Christ died and rose again to make all things beautiful; this is the vision of the all beautifying Father. May such a vision grip each of our hearts, and may we become those secure spiritual mothers and fathers without whom such fruit can never be born.