Beauty

Matthew 27:1-31

The contrast between light and dark is so strong sometimes it hurts the eyes to look at.

This is one of those cases.

The degree of ugliness on display here is so difficult to fathom, especially in light of the great beauty the ugliness is set over against. This is hard to look at, and harder still to study and understand.

One thing remains clear, and is still on display in the world today: Human nature, left to its own devices, is incredibly ugly.

All we see in nature, of the brutality and killing and suffering looks terribly small and comfortable in comparison to man left unchecked.

But what could possibly make man more than merely an animal of great ferocious proportions as the evolutionist presents man to be? Well, only love and devotion.

It is love and devotion, pure and unadulterated, also on display here in great contrast to the crassness, baseness, brutality and ugliness of man. Christ is so beautiful in the midst of this ugliness that it shocks our consciousness, and brings into even sharper focus how truly ugly we are.

I’m forgiven because Christ was forsaken. (By me, and all who are as I am.)

Who would forsake such love? Who could forsake such beauty, and glory, and wisdom – such love and devotion to the task of loving me? Well, that would be me, many times over.

Every time I fail to commit myself to the beauty and wonder and truth only found in Christ, I bring Christ right back here to this place of brutality, and I repeat the process all over again. Knowing this, how could I be so ugly? Why would I ever turn from such beauty?

-Pastor Bill