Beauty out of Brokenness

The time for restoring all things...
Acts 3.21

About a month ago, I learned about a Japanese art form called Kintsugi. This art form is about restoring broken pieces of art to make new pieces of art. The philosophy behind it is that each work of pottery is precious, and when or if it is broken, it should not be thrown away.

With kintsugi, the artist takes the broken pieces and seeks to repair the original work of art. But the artist is not trying to hide the cracks or the breaks in the pottery, like we might do with glue. Instead, the artist seeks to highlight the restoration by using a compound made with flecks of gold. The end result is a restored and new piece of art.

When I learned about Kintsugi, I couldn’t help but think about the good news of Jesus. In the gospels, Jesus is regularly restoring people.

Today, Jesus is restoring people. See, God loves his creation, and he has made us humans unique. We matter to him. We are his precious works of art. But we are also broken. We are broken because of the original sin; we are broken because of things done to us; and we are broken because of the things we have done. But God doesn’t just throw away what is broken. God makes beautiful things out of the brokenness.  

Remember, today, no matter who you are, what you have done or what has been done to you: You matter to God--he sent his son to restore us.

One day, because Jesus lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died, we can be restored. Restored to relationship with God, restored to relationship with one another, restored from death one day when Jesus returns. You are a work of art that God is making into a more beautiful work of art.