Broken Beauty

“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, now and forevermore.”  Jude 1:24-25

 

Yesterday, as I walked by the nativity sitting on my coffee table, I was struck again by its beauty—the rich colors of the Magi, the shepherds’ earthy hues, Mary’s soft sweetness, Joseph’s proud relief, and the angel’s heavenly hovering.  But what I noticed even more than its beauty was its brokenness.  Though not obvious at first glance, a closer inspection revealed cracks, crevices, and chipped off paint.  An errant handstand by my oldest offspring several Christmas seasons ago led to the realization that given the right force, heads (even holy ones) will roll and that ceramic angels don’t fly—they fall.

Copious amounts of Super Glue reattached most of what was missing, but now, instead of perfection, it’s a motley crew around the manger—a bunch of broken people bowing low before the special baby.  I think my manger scene is perfect. 

It’s really the only way to come, you know—cracked and broken, with parts of what we thought was our best side chipped away by life’s realities of sin, sadness, and disappointment.  Until we acknowledge that we’re mixed up and messed up, we’ll never appreciate the gift lying in the manger, and we’ll never understand what He had to feel to fix us.

Sometimes we like to gloss over the depths of our depravity, applying another coat of pretend to give the appearance of seamless innocence.  Often we fake our feelings, afraid to show our struggles and sorrow and scared to seem weak to those who might not understand.  But none of our facades or refurbishings can hide the fact that a mighty fall has left us in a hopeless dilemma, and when we finally and honestly admit that we are broken, then we can know the healing blessings of His mighty grace. 

Jesus didn’t come to just put us back together; He came to make us brand new. In this world of hurt and heartache as we struggle with our own faults and the failures of others, He will hold our breaking hearts, and one glorious day, the God “who is able to keep us from falling will present us before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy”—unbroken—to be with Him forever(Jude 1:24-25).

None who are perfect need come.  The motley crew around the manger is beautiful because it is broken—and because Jesus is whole.

The Ten Terrible, Terrific Plagues

“But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.”  Exodus 10:20

I got personal with the plagues in the fifth grade. 

The project was a poster depicting the ten divine disasters brought on Egypt when Pharaoh refused to release God’s people.  The instructions insisted I divide a large piece of paper into the appropriate number of squares and illustrate each affliction.  Just as Moses received help from his brother during the exodus adventure, my sister aided her artistically-challenged sibling by outlining the gnats, flies, frogs, and locusts. (I did color the square portraying the darkness all by myself!)  As I admired my finished work showing the many horrors in ordered succession, I remember thinking, “Why didn’t Pharaoh just let them go?”

You would think he would have when the river churned with blood, frogs filled his bed, gnats matted in his eyes, flies buzzed in his ears, his cattle died and rotted, his skin blistered with painful boils, and trees, houses, and inhabitants were beaten and battered by hail followed by crawling, chomping locusts that infested his land before all was pitch-black dark for three whole days.  But he didn’t.  You would think that before the Lord struck down his firstborn son, Pharaoh would have gotten the hint that he was dealing with someone bigger, stronger, and better than he could ever fathom, but he didn’t.  Why?  Why didn’t Pharaoh just let them go?

It’s a very good question with a very clear answer—God.  Stated repeatedly in Exodus, we find the words, “But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go”(Ex 10:20).  Pharaoh didn’t let the Israelites go because God wouldn’t let him.  God had a plan and purpose in the plagues, and nobody was leaving until He was done.

He let Pharaoh know such was so with a message—“By now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power”(Ex 9:15).

God wanted Egypt to know that “there is no one like me in all the earth”(Ex 9:14).  He wanted Israel to know that “I am the Lord”(Ex 10:2).  He wanted the kids and grandkids of those being delivered to know “how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them”(Ex 10:2). And wanted all alive to know of His glory and power “that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth”(Ex 9:16).

As a later and even more powerful king named Nebuchadnezzar would inform the world, “God does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the people of earth”(Dan 4:35).  And as if he knew we would wonder if such is fair and fine, he continued with the assuring reminder, “Everything God does is right and all his ways are just”(Dan 4:37).  So the next time a frog hops by or a gnat gets in your eye, don’t be afraid—be amazed by a God who uses all kinds of things in all kinds of ways to help us and others know who He is.

The Ten Plagues are much more than a story of a stubborn Pharaoh.  They are the truth of a sovereign God, and though that can be hard to show (especially on a poster), it’s delightful to know!