My friend Dana is a sculptor. She creates beautiful bronzed statues, many of which are on display at some of our national museums and public parks. When she isn’t working with bronze, she enjoys working with clay. She makes stunning glazed bowls, plates, and cups, each with their own unique shapes and colors. Her work is breathtaking to behold.
The last time I was in her home, she handed me a bowl that had gold streaks running through what looked to be old cracks. When she saw me looking more closely, she said, “This bowl has been through a lot over the years, and it finally broke apart a while ago. But I felt like I could do more with it. So I melted gold and put it back together.” But then she said something that I will never forget. She said reflectively, “You know, I can now see that it’s more beautiful for having been broken.”
As we head into Good Friday and Easter, we can see brokenness everywhere we look. We see gaping cracks in our institutions, our social order, our treatment of the vulnerable among us. We have cracks in our economies, our food supplies and clean water sources. The brokenness can feel overwhelming and hopeless.
This is what I know about God. Our God, the Ultimate Potter, looks upon this broken-down world and, just like my friend Dana, sees how it can be more beautiful because of its brokenness, not in spite of it. God never causes the breaks, mind you. But once there, God uses them to bring forth new and even more beautiful creations.
Easter is a story of how God took the brokenness of crucifixion and transformed it into new life through resurrection. God made something new, something even more beautiful in the Risen Christ. We can trust God to do this with us. This season, where everything is off and you may feel broken to your core, consider that God is creating within you someone more beautiful for having been broken.
We are in this together.
Cameron
Prayer for the Week…
Holy God,
Keep us mindful of those who lack basic resources in these times. We pray for those who are hungry or without a safe place to stay. We pray for those in homeless shelters, in prisons, in detention centers, where close quarters make social distancing even more difficult. We follow a Christ who looked out for the most vulnerable, the least, the last, and the lost. Help us too, in these anxious times, to serve first the ones who need the most.
Amen.