Trauma Conquered by Beauty St Marks 4.1.26 held in Guilford Anglican Hall due to violence on our building making it unusable for an assembly.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=YFkV8lf1Idg&si=1Sk3FiHgUpYUC6Pf
Ps 87; Prov 8:22-31; 1 Pet 2:20-3:7; John 1:1-18 [] = omitted from spoken sermon
Introduction
By divine design (Eph 1:11) we are in a time of the cosmic exposure of good and evil, from the horror of Bondi to the glory of Christ in his Church. We are “filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Pet 1:8-9) through singing exalted Christmas hymns, while living in an age of massacres (DRC, Sudan). In Myanmar recently, after an intense bombardment of a Christian state (Kayah), 35 people were put in cars, had gasoline poured on them, and burned alive. Any Christ-centred response to such trauma must not stay within the sphere of normality. By “normal” I mean the sort of bloodless anaemic passionless events that have become characteristic of many Western churches. We can discern today an assembly before the Lamb whose aura is brilliant beyond sight and whose hue is eternally memorable. Eccentric Russian Christian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, an exile, epileptic and gambling addict, truly prophesied: “beauty will save the world”. The vision of tormented geniuses, touched by grace (e.g. Dr George O’Neil https://www.sbs.com.au/news/dateline/article/an-australian-doctors-dream-curing-americas-opioid-curse/1uet55xv5), enables them to see glories that the rest of us rarely perceive. In the light of my upcoming 6th trip to Myanmar my topic today is Trauma Conquered by Beauty. (https://ca.thegospelcoalition.org/article/seven-reasons-you-shouldnt-ignore-beauty/). The Gospel message is a prophetic protest against the ugliness that has intruded into creation so that we might find four final hope in Christ alone (https://hymnary.org/text/in_christ_alone_my_hope_is_found). [we confess in the Creed that Jesus is “Light from Light, true God from true God” (Nicene Creed).]
Jesus Beautifies
The beauty of the Lord radiates throughout Scripture. Ecclesiastes 3, was very important to a devout Christian friend dying of cancer: “I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Eccl 3:10-11), this is expounded by the later revelation that the “the Beginning and the End.” (Rev 22:13) is Jesus!
Background
“Beauty” is a reflection of God’s eternal glory which he delights to reveal (Pss. 19; 24:7; 29:2; 1 Chron 16:29; Isa 6:3; 43:7 cf. https://derekzrishmawy.com/2019/03/27/for-holiness-is-hidden-glory-and-glory-is-holiness-shining-forth-or-tracking-down-a-bengel/) e.g. Moses was commanded: “you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty.” (Ex 28:2), these were robes studded with precious stones that pointed prophetically to the glory of the Church [as the New Jerusalem] (Rev 21:10-11 https://www.anthonydelgado.net/blog-1/what-was-the-significance-of-aarons-priestly-garments-including-the-ephod-and-breastplate) and an image of the glory and beauty that radiates from Jesus our High Priest in heaven [and beneath whose canopy we will shelter forever and ever (Rev 7:15-17 cf. Isa 4:2-6 https://www.dmateer.com/for-glory-and-for-beauty-2/)!] Trauma is conquered by beauty throughout its unveiling across salvation history.
A History of Trauma Conquered by Beauty
Our faithful Creator has always revealed himself to humanity through ordinary beautiful things that fill life with everyday joy (Acts 14:17). Our Old Testament reading from Prov 8 testifies that the Lord’s highest “delight” is those made in his image. Our “world of wonders” is studded with pockets of brilliance testifying to everyone about the character of God. Noah’s dazzling rainbow (Gen 9:12-17) points forward to an everlasting covenant of peace in a post wrath cosmos (Isa 54:9-10), [Ezekiel was given a vision of a rainbow at the time of his call as a prophet imaging God’s [transcendent] holiness and power (1:28),] Revelation 4 pictures a rainbow in heaven speaking of the indestructible new creation.(cf. https://cross-connect.net.au/about/cross-connect-vision/) [None of these visitations is purposeless. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Elijah are all prophets of the glory cloud full of celestial creatures (Isa 6; Ezek 1-3; Luke 9:28-36).] John’s testimony to the rainbow around the throne of God and of the Lamb in Revelation (4:3; 22:3) speaks of the revelatory power of the blood of the cross to reconcile “all things” to God in Christ (Col 1:20). [Contrary to much popular Christian teaching Jesus was not sent into the world to correct the mess Adam had made] as “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Rom 5:14; Col 1:15; 1 Pet 1:19-20; Rev 13:8) the manifestation of Jesus’ beauty was always central to God’s plan for the universe.
Eternal Purpose
For many people today, such as victims of domestic violence and sufferers from our mental health epidemic, trauma is the new normal. Yet Paul powerfully teaches: [ “And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written,] “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”” (Rom 10:15 Isa 52:7). It has been well said that the Gospel is not only luminescent but incandescent (cold light vs hot light). [Biblically, Jesus is never compared to the moon, but always has a glory superior to the sun (Gen 1:16-18). It is not that Jesus shining is like the brightness of the sun but the very reverse (Acts 9:3; 22:16; 26:13).] ‘evangelism is the spill-over of a heart and mind too full to contain the reality of the gospel’. (Meatheringham https://www.newcreationlibrary.org.au/books/covers/070.html) The success of mission in contemporary post-modern culture calls for surprising new revelations at the heart of the gospel. Amongst other things, this will involve using our renovated church hall to host events to speak healing into human trauma through literature, dance, pottery, sculpture, textiles, poetry, music etc, all of which are found in scripture (cf. Ex 15:20-22; 31:1-11; 2 Sam 6:14) and church history as vehicles of the prophetic testimony of Jesus (Rev 19:10).
Such testimonies are glimpses anticipating the sheer glory, glow and goodness of the End of all things (1 Pet 4:7). [see below**] Things are beautiful because they are ‘first beautiful in the eye of God’ (Jenson) x2. The Gospel utterance of the coming, death, resurrection and glorification of Jesus has released saving divine beauty into ordinary history. As Peter glowingly puts is 2 Pet 1:9: “you will do well to pay attention to it i.e. “the prophetic message”, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts”. The “morning star” in the book of Revelation is of course… Jesus (2:28; 22:16).
[In the light of the resurrection from the dead we will see that all things we will affirm "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well" (Julian of Norwich )] The crux of the revelation of the beauty of God is found in the last place where fleshly folk would naturally look for it, the cross (Rom 8:7).
The Beauty of the Cross
Beauty can only finally be “seen” in what the Spirit of God the Father has perfected in salvation in Jesus. Hebrews 2 testifies: “ In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered” (Heb 2:10) Isaiah 53 may start with ugliness, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (53:4) but it concludes with everlasting splendour: “After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied” (53:11). This is the true light which enlightens all who receive it forever and ever (John 1:9; Rev 21:23). The challenge to believe such things emanates from reconciling Jesus’ own words from the cross.
We must reconcile these traumatic words, “[At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.34 …] Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)” (Mark 15:33-34) with, “Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46) In Himself (https://youtube.com/watch?v=NMnUNnTWadM&si=eDg-ONYeHnt2ML76) Jesus has emptied judgement of meaning by plunging into the depths of God’s natural unknowability to sinners (Matt 22:13) so that the fruit of the cross is beauty forever. [To be grasped by a revelation of these things requires illuminating artistic/aesthetic biblical teaching (https://www.biblicaltheology.com/Research/WWade01.pdf; https://cdn.sbts.edu/media/publications/sbjt/sbjt_1998winter6.pdf.)]
I chose to include 1 Peter 3 in today’s readings because around 3 am recently the Spirit spoke to me through this text: “Your beauty… it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” A text not only about a beautiful wife, like Donna, who submits to her husband as to Jesus (Eph 5:21-33) but about (Eph 5:26) the beauty of the Church/us in every place in the world. Within us is “the pearl of great price” (Matt 13:45-46) “the imperishable jewel of a gentle and quiet spirit” (RSV of 1 Pet 3:4). On such grounds Paul testifies in Eph 3:10 “now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,” His key word manifold wisdom [πολυποίκιλος polypoikilos] can be traced back to Joseph’s gorgeous coat of many colours (Gen 37:3, 23, 32). (cf. https://www.bethelchurchtroy.com/poems/francis-thompson) [A great drama (the foundation in the Word of all possible human dramas),] the endless spectacle of the triumph of the cross (2 Cor 2:14ff) is being enacted before myriads of celestial beings in virtue of the very existence of the Church, and it is being displayed spectrally (cf. 1 Cor 4:9; Col 2:15).
A Different Hermeneutic
On the cover of a book of poems titled, The Unutterable Beauty*, by WW1 army chaplain, G.T. Studdert Kennedy, is Salvador Dali’s painting of the unutterable beauty of the cross. Dali, not a Christian, like Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, was convinced by dreams (Gen 41; Dan 2; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_of_Saint_John_of_the_Cross), that he should paint the crucifixion. [ Its design is based on a drawing by the 16th-century Spanish friar John of the Cross. It is not accidental that John’s most famous writing was The Dark Night of the Soul, an exposition of how through various forms of suffering the Lord strips away all idolatrous attractions to reveal himself as the sole object of our affections.)]
The transition from the darkness of the cry of dereliction “my God my God” to God as eternal Father into whom the Son confidently casts his spirit into unfathomable beauty (Heb 9:14) comes through the Gospel (cf. John 1:18; Rom 1:16) In Christ [we are already inside the cloud of glory where] everything is transfigured in the all-conquering plan of God in the Lamb. [From dysteleology, people can cope with any suffering as long as they see it has a purpose, to eternal purpose (Rom 10:4) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy).]
Conclusion
There is a profound truth in the notion (Maximus Confessor, T. F. Torrance) that in descending form the eternal light of the Father into the darkness of a fallen world (John 1:1-18) “Christ loved us more than himself.” Following the pattern of the life of Christ humiliation always precedes exaltation (James 4:6; 1 Pet 5:6), the spiritual key to the illumination of beauty depends on “dying to self” as Jesus taught (John 12:23-26). So, Paul commanded, “ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:19-20) Until the Church as the inwardly beautiful Bride of Christ is willing to die to her own self-interest/preservation, we will never see the reformation/renewal/renaissance that the Spirit is urging upon us. We need an outpouring of “the love of the Spirit” (Rom 15:30; Col 1:8) the love in which Jesus was sent, died, rose and ascended. Only then will we, the Church in Perth with the church in Myanmar, enact that total forgiveness bringing reconciliation and peace with our traumatiser in the beauty accomplished in Jesus. Until we fully forgive we are deceived and held back by poor pathetic idols (“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” C.S. Lewis) John exhorts, “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.” 1 John 5:21)
Believer, do you realise that as a fully forgiven person you will at the Lord’s return, “shine like the stars for ever and ever.” (Matt 13:43; citing Dan 12:3 cf. (1 Cor 1:30; 15:40ff; 1 Thess 2:19-20; Rev 1:20) Already participating in the radiance of the 7 golden lampstands (Rev 1:20) of Revelation the glory of our life of Christ is indescribably wonderful (2 Cor 4:6; 5:17).
[The true location of Beauty is not in a wonderful sunset nor glorious mountain vista worth dying for (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-31/australian-climber-dies-on-nepals-himlung-himal/105960032) nor swimming with whale sharks up north (https://www.whalesharktours.com.au/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=9336281483&gbraid=0AAAAADCmCXU4sWLoz9ESW_c68bB_mBMHf&gclid=CjwKCAiA3rPKBhBZEiwAhPNFQKpeBE-i-JtOWj6yeLXnTVWHXO-gStg54xVyqodP-Lk4kuagdY-XmBoCqQEQAvD_BwE)] In the Spirit we share in the testimony of Jesus as the “Lamb slaughtered (and raised) from the foundation of the world” (Rev 5:6; 13:8). As a once traumatised but now glorified human being Jesus has seen with his own “eyes of heart enlightened” (Eph 1:18) both the horrors of hades and the ecstasies of “the things God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9). If there is any truth in the saying, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, that Truth is in the beholding of Jesus (John 14:6).
The revelation of the end-time glory of the indwelling Jesus is inestimably beautiful (Acs 2:17-21) in every believer’s life. “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.” (1 John 5:14). Jesus has the last word for us: ““But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27-28)
Epilogue
C. S. Lewis famously preached: “You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.” (https://www.doxaweb.com/assets/weight_of_glory.pdf). To see this we need a more holistic and less rationalistic way of seeing reality. The book of Revelation, for example, employs sociological, psychological, auditory, and visual elements to communicate the multifaceted wisdom of heavenly Lamb. We need an expanded vision of what it means to be human. Various devout believers have said to me, “If I was tortured for being a Christian I am unsure if I would be faithful?” But hypothetical grace does not exist. Grace is given “in time of need” (Heb 4:16).
Let me add an appendix on beauty based on the poem mythopoeia by J. R. R. Tolkien (https://exlaodicea.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/mythopoeia-by-j-r-r-tolkien/)
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artefact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
** An article on Apocalyptic Beauty ends with (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a84efcfa8b2b01c39eb110f/t/5b89e6bc575d1f42f2e92eaf/1535764159375/Wright+Aldersgate_9_September_2011.pdf) this challenge, “Beauty, as the call of the future to temporal beings, is a call to change; at once irresistible and nearly always rejected.” To reject the fulness of the implications of the Gospel to beautify all things is the danger we must all strenuously avoid.
*Indifference, a poem by G. A. Studdert Kennedy
When Jesus came to Golgotha they hanged Him on a tree.
The drave great nails through hands and feet, and made a Calvary;
They crowned Him with a crown of thorns, red were His wounds and deep,
For those were crude and cruel days, and human flesh was cheap.
When Jesus came to Birmingham they simply passed Him by.
They never hurt a hair of Him, they only let Him die;
For men had grown more tender, and they would not give Him pain,
They only just passed down the street, and left Him in the rain.
Still Jesus cried, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
And still it rained the wintry rain that drenched Him through and through;
The crowds went home and left the streets without a soul to see,
And Jesus crouched against a wall and cried for Calvary.
Revelation Song (played at start of today’s gathering )
Worthy is the
Lamb who was slain
Holy, holy is He
Sing a new song
To Him who sits on
Heaven’s mercy seat
Worthy is the
Lamb who was slain
Holy, holy is He
We sing a new song
To Him who sits on
Heaven’s mercy seat
Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord, God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come, yeah
With all creation I sing, praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything
And I will adore You
Clothed in rainbows of living color
Flashes of lighting, rolls of thunder
Blessing and honor, strength and glory and power be
To You, the only wise King
Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord, God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come, yeah
With all creation I sing, praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything
And I will adore You, oh yeah
Filled with wonder
Awestruck wonder
At the mention of Your name
Jesus, Your name is power
Breath and living water
Such a marvelous mystery, oh
Holy, holy, holy
Is the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come, oh
With all creation I sing, praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything
And I will adore You, oh
And I will adore You, yeah
Yeah, yeah