In many of the great European palaces, you can find entire walls that are covered with mosaics. Pieces of broken glass and pottery or fragments of shimmering shells have been arranged by the finest artisans to form images, portraits, and landscapes. As you stand at a distance, you might think you are gazing at illustrations or paintings. It is only when you approach and look carefully that you can see the artist’s surprising medium.
If I were to hand you a box filled with shattered glass, another filled with shards of pottery, and a third filled with broken seashells, and then tell you to create something beautiful, you might scoff at me and doubt that it could ever be possible. You might laugh at the absurdity of it. Yet these mosaics prove that in the hands of a great artist, incredible beauty can arise from what appears to be little more than chaos, waste, and fragments.
There is so much to life that is broken, so much that is incomplete, so much that seems like it could only ever be waste.
Our lives can feel like that at times, can’t they? There is so much in life that is broken, so much that is incomplete, so much that seems like it could only ever be waste. We consider bodies that began to break down too soon, wealth that was stolen or squandered, opportunities that were never realized, and dreams that were never fulfilled. We consider the sins committed by and against us, the loves taken from us, the trials added to us, and we sometimes wonder whether it is even possible for good to arise from such shattering, such breaking.
But maybe God gave us mosaics to assure us that it is indeed possible. And if it is possible for mere humans, how much more for God? If even the weak and faltering hands of a man can bring order from chaos and beauty from brokenness, how much more the great and powerful hands of the almighty God? And if magnificent art can be made from mere rocks, shells, and glass, how much more can it be made from the most precious medium of all—human lives?
Take heart, Christian, that the God who gave us mosaics is in the business of making mosaics. He sees beauty beyond our marred natures, he sees possibility beyond our fractured circumstances, he sees ability beyond our broken bodies, and so he shapes it, he assembles it, and he polishes it into something wondrous, something worthy of his name. He is not only the mastermind behind this world, but also the master artist whose work will stand through the ages as a testimony to his artistry, his skill, his sheer brilliance.
(Inspired in part by an illustration I found somewhere in the works of De Witt Talmage.)
