At the edge of the playground at the school where I teach stands a tree whose beauty almost defies description. In the fall, the leaves turn a variety of reds, yellows, and oranges to a deeply stunning effect. On crisp, cloudless October days, this maple fairly glows against a stark blue autumn sky. The beauty is breathtaking, and for the teachers and students at the school, it is a catalyst for praise. Because it is a kindness that God has retained the beauty of his creation, despite the ugliness that infected it after sin entered the world.
We know that God has made beautiful things, but what about God himself? Can we say that he is beautiful in his own right? The Psalmist wrote, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). The prophet Zechariah proclaimed, “For how great is his goodness, and how great his beauty!” (Zechariah 9:17).
It perplexes folks who don’t know God that those of us who do know him call him beautiful. After all, the world that we claim God made, in many respects, is anything but. There is war. There are gross injustices and humanitarian crises. There are factions and stark division, and hate is almost in vogue. Sure, there’s the Grand Canyon and sunsets over the Great Lakes and the aurora borealis and the Alps and the turquoise water of the Caribbean and our own beautiful tree by the playground. It is clear that God’s creation is beautiful. But God himself? What is so beautiful about God?
God’s Beauty is in the Dichotomies
The Christian faith is one of paradoxes and dichotomies. We are to be weak so we can be strong. We are to become nothing so we can become everything. We are to become poor so we can become rich. We are to become low so we can be lifted up. And we are to rejoice in suffering.
The beauty of God has nothing to do with attractiveness or external appeal. In fact, God’s inherent beauty far surpasses the beauty of the things that humans call beautiful in the temporal sense. God’s beauty shines forth in tragedy and suffering, and if you have followed him long enough, you love him more and more when you see it.
God’s beauty is demonstrated through my good friend, whose sweet daughter died very unexpectedly less than a year ago. The depth of her grief is unsearchable. I have the privilege of worshiping next to her during our school’s chapel every week. Chapel after chapel, my friend weeps as she sings songs about God’s goodness, faithfulness, and beauty. Her worship through profound grief is the beauty of God.
God’s beauty is illustrated through another dear friend, who was inflicted with a very serious cancer several years ago. When we went to see her in the hospital, the chemo was taking its toll and she was feeling lousy. Her thick chestnut hair was falling out all about her pillow. With a weak smile, eyes shining with tears, she proclaimed, “Seeing what I have received from the Lord, I wouldn’t trade this for anything.” Her joy in suffering is the beauty of God.
God’s beauty is seen through the headmaster of my school and his family, who are caring for his father who fell and suffered a very serious brain injury a little more than a year ago. Before the accident, his father was healthy and active. Now he is bedridden and requires round-the-clock care. On a recent social media post, his son wrote:
When I think back to (the day of the accident), my heart is full of gratitude. When I look at my dad right now, a part of me is deeply sad that he is not yet the man he used to be. Yet when I think about how close he was to dying …I am convicted that I should be so grateful to the Lord. So, I and my family choose gratitude, and we choose to allow the joy of the Lord to be our strength. And, even though this is a path none of us would have chosen, we can see God’s hand through it all.
This family’s gratitude through tragedy is the beauty of God.
The Beauty of a Crushed Son
Isaiah 53:10 says that God was “pleased to crush” his Son. Why? Because at the end of Christ’s suffering, there would be great joy. Hebrews 12:2 says, “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Here is an excerpt from my upcoming book on the goodness of God:
Picture Jesus in the garden. He has just completed his three year ministry, teaching and preaching to his lost sheep, and preparing his little band of men, those thick fellows who were often slow on the uptake and had no clue why they were following him. He must have been exhausted. His ministry was urgent and all consuming, and not always fruitful. And he knew how it would end. Even though he understood what lay beyond that first Good Friday, that promised “joy set before him” (Hebrews 12:2), his humanness led him to fear the physical pain and utter desolation he was about to face. He was surrounded by people, yet isolated and friendless. He did not “entrust himself to them, for he himself knew what was in man” (John 2:24-25). And there in the garden, when he needed his disciples the most, he found them sleeping.
Jesus was profoundly alone in his experience. He had no confidant. No counselor, no close friend to call in the middle of the night to share in what he was feeling. He had no one to relate to, and no one could relate to him. Standing accused before the Sanhedrin, facing an incredulous assessment by Pontius Pilate, enduring the scoffing curiosity of Herod, listening to the mocking of the Roman guards, feeling their spit on his face, stumbling along the Via Delarosa beneath the heavy crossbeam and the crowd’s staring eyes, ascending Calvary, and submitting to being nailed hand and foot to a tree, he was alone. For the first and only time in eternity, Christ was forsaken, isolated, and without help. He cried out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).
For all he endured, and in his most lonesome moments, Jesus never stopped crying out to his Father. And his pleas were no eloquent, censored prayers. They were raw, pleading and audacious laments for help and relief. Face to the ground, he pleaded, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass” (Matthew 26:39). Writhing in agony on the cross, he searched in prayer for his Father, wondering, “Why?” I don’t know how long Jesus felt forsaken by God, but even the shortest possible increment of time would have been too long. Yet he never stopped praying. He never stopped reaching out for help from God. And knowing he could have at any time called down an army of angels to relieve him from the ordeal, he instead, fueled by great love and unfathomable grace, prayed for forgiveness for the ignorant creatures for whom he was bearing this agony. “Forgive them,” he pleaded. “They don’t know what they’re doing” (Luke 23:34).
Then it was finished. And in the finishing came our rescue, and our permission to cry to him with our own raw and audacious lament.
The sacrifice of Christ is the beauty of God.
We Look to Our Home
A lover of Jesus Christ knows that this world is not our home. We are merely travelers in a hostile land. We expect trial and tragedy. And when we get it, we expect even more to see how beautiful the God we love truly is.
Our hope is in a future where there is no suffering, and we look to our true home whose beauty we have no capacity to imagine. We stand on the promises of our beautiful God for an eternity in a place where we will see “the perfection of beauty, (where) God shines forth” (Psalm 50:2).