What If It’s True? – June 14
In the year 987 A.D., a group of emissaries sent by the pagan Prince Vladimir the Great of Kiev traveled across the Black Sea to visit Constantinople.
While there they visited the famous Hagia Sophia basilica and were absolutely stunned by the beauty they saw: the largest indoor space on earth filled with intricate mosaics, mighty marble pillars, and a giant dome soaring nearly 200 feet above them.
When they came back to Kiev they reported this to the prince:
We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it.
-St. Nestor the Chronicler, The Primary Chronicle
This must have had an impact because, according to tradition, the entire kingdom converted to Christianity and that’s how the Russian Orthodox Church was born.
I tell you this story because today we’re talking about beauty. And with a topic like this, it’s very easy to stay at a really shallow level. Talking about things that are pretty or attractive or nice to look at.
But the beauty I want to talk about today goes much, much deeper. It’s the kind of beauty that stirs something deep within us, as it did for those Russian diplomats.
It’s beauty like a piece of art or music that just leaps off the canvas. Or a jaw-dropping sunset or star-filled sky that sweeps you into transcendence. Or a movie scene that instantly brings you to tears. Something so beautiful you don’t really have words to describe it.
Take a second and think about the last thing of beauty that moved you deeply.
For me, it happened just the other day, right over our farm as I was out feeding the pigs breakfast. I watched a father Osprey teaching his two fledglings how to fly, and it moved me.
I was in a pretty low place emotionally that day, and the beauty of that simple moment just bowled me over. New life, generational wisdom, God’s creation… I couldn’t stop thinking about it all day. It was beautiful.
My point is this: whether it’s a work of art, the natural world, or a Byzantine cathedral, there is a reason deep beauty stirs something deep within us. We long for a beauty beyond ourselves.
It’s a soul-level yearning that all of us share. The Christian writer C.S. Lewis put it this way:
We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.
-C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
We all long for true beauty beyond ourselves. But why? Where does this longing come from?
And why, if this is our longing, is our world so filled with ugliness? Endless highways, mountaintop removal, impoverished slums, war…
In an ugly world, how do we recover the beauty our hearts yearn for?
SERIES RECAP
Well, that’s what we’re talking about today. Welcome back to “What if it’s true?” Our series exploring 7 core longings at the heart of every human. Things like justice, love, truth, and, yes, beauty.
Through the series we’ve acknowledged that there are many different answers out there for why we’re wired this way, but we keep coming back to why we believe that each one of these yearnings is ultimately pointing to Jesus.
Our text for the series is the gospel of John, so grab a Bible and turn there with me. John 1:14.Today we’re going to zero in on just one verse in John which is packed with meaning and, I believe, an answer to our question about beauty. Before we read, let’s pray together. [PRAY]
PARADISE
Ok, just a quick bit of setup. Matthew and Luke begin their gospels with stories about Jesus’ birth (stories about the manger, angels, and the three wise men). But John does something entirely different.
He starts before the creation of the world and describes Jesus Christ as the pre-existent Word of God - the embodiment of God’s will. According to John, the Word is the means by which all things were created. John tells us in verse 4,
John 1:4
The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.
That’s a very different origin story for Jesus than “shepherds abiding in the hills.” It’s cosmic.
So, with that background in mind, when we come to verse 14, our key verse for today, John says something rather amazing.
John 1:14
So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
So that’s our verse for today. But, you may be wondering: “What does this have to do with beauty?”
Well, to answer that, we have to take a bit of a stroll through Scripture. In fact, we have to go all the way back to the beginning. So buckle up. Let’s go on a journey.
On the very first pages of our Bibles we encounter two childlike humans - Adam and Eve living in a very beautiful place - the garden of Eden. Sin has not yet entered the picture, and the humans are thriving face-to-face with God. They’re living in a jaw-droppingly beautiful paradise.
And I use that word “paradise” intentionally, because it’s likely that the authors of Genesis had a specific type of garden in mind as they described the scene: a Persian paradise garden.
This was a hallmark of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, which the ancient Israelites had a lot of exposure to. There was a big community of Israelites living in Persia for centuries.
Anyway, a “paradise,” from the Old Iranian word paridaiza, was a walled garden filled with beautiful trees, fountains and streams, and plants chosen for their fragrance and delicious fruit.
You can still see this type of garden modeled today in Iran and India. It’s a beautiful mix of wild nature and human cultivation.
And that last part is important, because Genesis tells us that God placed the humans in the garden “to tend and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). This was humanity’s original job description: stewards of a beautiful, abundant paradise.
This is why the Bible says humanity was created in the image of God. Because we were designed as God’s representatives to foster life and creativity and beauty in God’s very good creation.
In fact, we were designed to help Eden spread. To make our whole world a beautiful paradise. We were made to help God create beauty beyond ourselves.
But that’s not what happens in the story. Long story short, the humans in Eden sin. They rebel against God and find themselves exiled from the garden. Cast out of paradise.
Now their descendants (you and me) live in a world of thorns and thistles and darkness and death. What was meant to be a beautiful world has become quite ugly.
So here we begin to get an answer to our question of why our souls so deeply long for beauty. Because We were created for paradise, but we live in the wilderness.
TABERNACLE
And thus the core drama of Scripture unfolds. How can God bring rebellious humanity back to Eden? Back into the beauty of his presence?
Well, as the story goes on, God chooses a people to be his agents of transformation in the world: the descendants of Abraham, a.k.a. the Israelites. He rescues them from slavery in Egypt and then takes them for 40 years through the wilderness into the Promised Land.
While they’re in the wilderness, God gives his chosen people a remarkable gift: instructions for how to build something called The Tabernacle.
The word “tabernacle” just means tent or dwelling place, but the Tabernacle (capital T) was something very special. It was like a tent temple where the people could meet with God.
Interestingly, the Tabernacle was specifically designed to be incredibly beautiful. Scripture tells us God’s Spirit uniquely equipped Israelite craftsmen to build it with wisdom and skill.
Imagine a whole crew of Jewish Ron Swansons. That’s basically who made the Tabernacle. They were masters of their craft.
And then just listen to the materials they used:
Exodus 25:3-7
Gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and scarlet thread; fine linen and goat hair for cloth; tanned ram skins and fine goatskin leather; acacia wood; olive oil for the lamps; spices for the anointing oil and the fragrant incense; onyx stones, and other gemstones to be set in the ephod and the priest’s chestpiece.
Gems, fine linen, fragrant incense, oil, wood… This was meant to be a place of staggering beauty - a place which activates all the senses.
Oh, and this is important: They used all these luxurious materials to create botanical imagery throughout the Tabernacle. Pomegranates, flowers, and a golden, 7-branched tree of life called the menorah.
The basic idea was that once these master craftsmen built the Tabernacle, the priests of Israel would “tend and keep it” and, because it was a tent, the Israelites could transport and set up the Tabernacle in the center of their camp wherever they went.
It became the dwelling place of God himself on the earth. He would meet with the people, and when he did the tabernacle would shine with his glory.
Glory - honor, weightiness, majesty, renown
Glory, by the way, was an ancient way of describing the aura or presence of an impressive king or leader. Kind of like what the kids today call rizz.
But in Scripture God’s glory is not just impressive; it’s overwhelming. It’s blinding. It’s stunningly beautiful. It’s the kind of presence that leaves you speechless like those Russian diplomats in the Hagia Sophia. “We are at a loss how to describe it…”
And yet this glory of God was now accessible to the Israelites in this beautiful mobile tent temple.
So let’s sum up. The Tabernacle was a place where God could meet with his people. Where they could bask in his glory. It was designed like a walled garden and handcrafted by skilled humans who were empowered by the Spirit to create beautiful things.
Maybe you’re picking up what I’m putting down here. The Tabernacle was a mini, mobile garden of Eden. The beginning of our world made right again.
It was like a little paradise in the middle of the wilderness. The fact that it was beautiful was not an accident; it was precisely the point.
When humanity was lost in the wilderness, God brought paradise to us.
It was the job of the Israelites to help that beautiful paradise of God’s presence spread.
WE HAVE SEEN HIS GLORY
Well, the story goes on and I’m going to skip a lot. But suffice it to say, the Israelites blew it. Just like Adam and Eve, they had paradise, but they chose to rebel. They eventually turned this mobile tabernacle into a permanent temple in Jerusalem, but it was destroyed by the Babylonians because of Israel’s sin.
It seemed like God’s plan to return humanity to Eden had come to nothing. Until… Jesus came on the scene. Which brings us right back to John 1:14. Let’s read it again.
John 1:14
So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
There’s another way to translate the words “made his home” in the first sentence. The Greek word John uses here, skēnoō, literally means “to pitch a tent” or, wait for it… “to tabernacle.”
That’s literally what it says. “The Word became human and tabernacled among us.”
John goes on. “He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.” Those are the core descriptors of God throughout the Bible as the Israelites constantly mess up and fail.
He’s the God of second chances and he has now tabernacled among us. A new tabernacle that isn’t just a tent. It’s a person.
“And we have seen his glory.” The glory - the beauty, the majesty, the weightiness - of God. Once it gleamed from the Tabernacle. Now we see it in Christ.
And that love and glory and beauty is what the rest of John demonstrates. Jesus giving dignity to the outcast. Healing the sick. Forgiving the sinful. Again and again transforming our ugly, broken world into something staggeringly beautiful.
He even transforms death itself through his resurrection. Ugly, vicious death is no longer the end of our story. In Christ, it’s the doorway to resurrection. To New Creation. To the garden of God’s presence. Or, to put it another way,
The gates of Eden are open again. We can find paradise in Jesus.
So. Why do we all long for a beauty beyond ourselves? Because we were made to tend and keep the garden. True beauty calls to us because God made us in his image as stewards of paradise.
Jesus has become a new tabernacle in our midst. If we surrender our lives to him, we can all return to the garden we were made to inhabit.
WHAT IF IT’S TRUE?
At least, that’s what we believe as his followers.
But I understand that not everybody listening to me right now believes that. Or maybe you’re just not sure what you believe. If that’s you, let me talk to you for just a moment.
If you’re a skeptic or an agnostic or an atheist, I recognize that an ancient story about cosmic gardens and tent temples doesn’t exactly move the needle for you. Some wordplay in the gospel of John doesn’t prove anything.
Which is why I always say, “I could be wrong” about the things I believe. But just for a moment I want to invite you to consider this: what if I’m not?
What if this whole story about God’s mission to save humanity - to bring us back home and rescue us from our own self-destruction and rebellion - is real?
What if it’s true?
Specifically today when it comes to the topic of beauty.
Something was happening in the hearts of those 10th century Russian diplomats as they entered the Hagia Sophia. Something was happening in my soul as I watched those fledgling osprey learning to fly.
And I think, if you’re honest with yourself, something is happening in you, too, as you encounter art or poetry that takes your breath away, as you stand speechless by a towering mountain or the crashing waves of the sea.
Or, as you grieve just how ugly our world has become.
Yes. It’s possible this aching, soul-level yearning for beauty is just an evolutionary byproduct of animals liking shiny things.
But maybe, just maybe, you feel these things because you were made for paradise. Because you were created for beauty. Because God designed you in his image, with skills and gifts to tend and keep the garden.
I could be wrong, but I believe that your heart’s longing for beauty points directly to Jesus - the Word of God who has tabernacled in your midst to show you his glory and to bring you back home to Eden.
What if it’s true?
We all long for a more beautiful world. Jesus invites his followers to help him build one. What will you say to that invitation?