Wisconsin is a beautiful place to live. The crystal-clear lakes, the crisp northern air, and the lush, vibrant forests caught my eye quickly, causing me to quickly fall in love with Wisconsin’s natural beauty. The cheese curds don’t hurt either! But there is something about true beauty that is more than just a pleasant feeling or an individual experience.
As Christians, we know that beauty is that which gives glory to God. That is why Johann Sebastian Bach (A Lutheran!) would sign his musical arrangements with sola deo gloria—”God alone be the glory”—because he recognized that all that was beautiful, including music, glorified our God. God did not design this world to be purely functional, but as something that we delight in (Psalm 104:31). When we find something beautiful in this world, it points back to God as our creator.
Our view of beauty can and should be shaped by our faith. While many people might recognize a transcendental beauty in the paintings of Monet, we find beauty where others may not see it. When we look to the cross, at a man who has been beaten, humiliated, and crucified, we see past the ugliness of humanity’s treatment of Christ to the beauty of God’s love in the sacrifice of his Son for us. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”There is nothing that gives more glory to God than Jesus dying for us sinners, so that we would be redeemed and made beautiful in the eyes of God. Perhaps that’s why we find stories of redemption the most beautiful, because that is the story God is telling with us.
We also find beauty in another strange place: a tomb, the stone rolled away, linen folded neatly inside. When they asked where their Lord was, the angels told them, “He is not here. He has risen!” That empty tomb, formerly a place for the dead, is now a beautiful promise that death cannot hold those who belong to God. He will raise us just as Jesus was raised, and renew this world to be even more beautiful.
So, as you go into the summer, I encourage you to seek out His beauty. Enjoy one of those Wisconsin lakes, go for a drive up in our beautiful state. Listen to a new song that resonates with angelic harmonies. Delight in the laughter of a grandchild. Ponder how that which is good and true and beautiful points us to God. And never forget to marvel at the two most beautiful things in the history of the world: An old wooden cross and an empty tomb.
In Jesus, Amen.
Pastor Ben
