Beauty instead of Ashes
Beauty instead of Ashes.
BEAUTY: The quality of outstanding excellence in appearance, in usefulness, in moral character, in creative expression; brings delight to the senses; well-designed and constructed; a harmony that reflects creation; extremely attractive; that which inspires awe, wonder, admiration, praise; profoundly pleasing; an act of pure goodness; the presence of loveliness and grace; something exquisite in form, function, and proportion; that which contains glory and splendor.
Dwelling on His Beauty. It’s not enough to simply appreciate or admire the beauty of Christ. Instead, we need to fix our eyes on Jesus and His beauty, to gaze upon Him and worship His beauty, to allow His beauty to be formative in our lives. David exclaims in Psalm 24:7 that he has ‘one thing’ he wants more than anything else, there is one thing that would help form and direct his life… “to gaze with complete focus upon the sweet and delightful beauty of the Lord.” There’s a good chance that centering our life on the beauty of Christ, of worshiping His beauty, of allowing His beauty to change our lives into one like His, is indeed our ‘one thing most needful.’
“So Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And when He opened the scroll, He found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach the Good News to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ Then He rolled up the scroll, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. ” (Luke 4:16-21, paraphrasing Isaiah 61:1-2).
Mission Defined. Jesus, anointed since birth, has simply been waiting for the right time for the Father to send Him on His mission. So here we see that the time had come, the year of God’s grace has arrived! Jesus now inaugurates this time period as the one “when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound.” (Amplified Bible). This is the time for the spiritual Jubilee. This is the reality of what God hinted at back in Leviticus 25 with the Jubilee year: the time when debts were cancelled and slaves went free. The time when prisoners of war were released and everyone is freed from their oppressive burdens. And now Isaiah’s prophecy has come true, the Messiah has come that the world may begin to experience the spiritual Jubilee, a time when all are set free by a gracious God to start over with Him in the spirit of redemption and blessing.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me to… provide for those who mourn in Zion, to care for the needs of all who grieve in Israel; to give a crown of beauty to replace their ashes. I will anoint them with the oil of gladness to replace their sorrow and grief. And I will give to them a garment of splendor and praise to replace their spirit of burdened heaviness. Then they will be called magnificent trees of goodness, planted by the Lord to glorify Him.” (Isaiah 61:3).
Mission Continued. The first verses in Isaiah 61 were quoted by Jesus to clarify His mission and ministry. But His life purpose does not stop with the first couple of verses. His mission continues in verse three. The Holy Spirit is upon Jesus to provide an exchange that is difficult to reject. Beauty for ashes, taken in context, means that the Messiah will take away our ashes of hopeless defeat, of lifelessness, and then provide for us a crown of beauty. Our ashes, symbols of the ugliness of death, is to be exchanged by Jesus with a crown of beauty, something beautiful to replace something dreadful. The Spirit’s anointing oil of gladness and joy will replace the sorrow of our sinful nature. And He will cover us with festal attire, with garments of praise and rejoicing, to replace our fainting spirit of weakness and heaviness.
Daily Exchange. This is not a one-time offer from Jesus. This process is a vital part of our daily renewal. This is a daily exchange of going to the feet of Jesus every day and giving to Him the ashes in our lives, those parts of us that are broken, or hopeless, or spiritually unhealthy. And He has promised that He will take those ugly ashes that were placed on the heads of those in mourning or despair, and replace them with a beautiful crown to wear on our heads instead. When we come to Him every day and offer to Him our ashes, He will give us beauty as His replacement. As we participate in this daily exchange, our inner lives in Christ will continue our daily renewal. Christ wants to substitute our ashes of our death-dealing brokenness with the beauty of His wholeness.
Renew, Restore, Redeem. God has proven Himself to be in the business of redemption all through history. He yearns to take the bad and turn it into something good, to restore what is broken into something whole, to take what is disfigured and make it become beautiful. God takes our weakness and uses it as a springboard for His power. He uses the ashes in our lives to construct something glorious and beautiful. Astoundingly, in the ultimate act of redemption, God has already proven that He can take death and make it come alive.
“There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance. He was not perfectly formed or especially handsome. There was nothing about His appearance to attract us to Him.” (Isaiah 53:2).
Attractive but not Beautiful. So apparently the beauty of Christ was not found in his physical appearance on earth. He didn’t attract others to Him by His natural human beauty. What kind of beauty did Jesus possess, then, that could attract thousands of people at a time? Certainly, Jesus seemed to have a magnetic personality when He wanted it displayed. But the beauty of Jesus that attracted others to Him was revealed in the way he lived His life. Jesus had the beauty of wisdom, of goodness, and of hope.
The Beauty of Wisdom. People find themselves naturally attracted to people who make sense, who have discernment and irrefutable logic. People are drawn to those who have a knack for living skillfully, creatively, truthfully. Most people find it admirable when someone takes pleasure in thinking thoughts that fit the occasion. True wisdom has a humility to it that attracts people… A wise person doesn’t necessarily have to have the highest natural intelligence. Wisdom is available to the common person. It is present in a person who is able to develop a deep understanding, not an impressive resume or impressive test scores. People are drawn to how wisdom is accessible to average people. Wisdom doesn’t shame people into feeling dumb or inferior. Simple wisdom lifts people up because it honors a person’s dignity and worth. Wise ideas tend to make sense, and people desperately want to make sense of the world and their existence. People want ideas to hold together, to have integrity, to stand up well against the trendy thoughts of the day. Wise logic tends to have the ring of truth, unlike the false tones of much of what is considered to be logical in contemporary life. So wisdom can be attractive to those who realize they are caught up in superficial thinking, skim reading their way through a life that doesn’t make sense. Wisdom is attractive in a foolish age, one in which one idea after another doesn’t seem to hold water. In His wisdom, Jesus was also very clever, and people love that. At every turn, He outthought the opposition. He had clever rejoinders, clever stories, clever wordplay. People find that attractive. He wasn’t afraid to mix it up with opponents, to cleverly outthink the power brokers, the elite, the arrogant and self-assured. Jesus was wise as an owl, and clever as a snake. Believers have an important task here. Communicate in an appetizing way that gives people a taste of true wisdom. Live in a way that winsomely introduces wisdom to the culture and its people. Make wisdom attractive. People will soon latch onto wisdom like bees to pollen. Jesus incarnated wisdom. In Jesus was hidden all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). In fact, Jesus was made wisdom for us (1 Corinthians 1:30). And the beauty of His holy wisdom will attract people’s attention.
The Beauty of Goodness. People are naturally attracted to those who make the world a better place. People are intrigued by those who simply want to treat others well and help others flourish. People admire those who can be trusted to do the right thing, who are consistently kind and just. A person filled with love is the strongest magnet to attract others. Compassion naturally draws others into its influence. When people are not receiving mercy in life, they seek out a merciful person. When people suspect they are living a tainted life, in their hearts they seek out someone who is leading more of a pure life, a holy life, for some moral direction. Genuine purity tends to get people’s attention, depending on how it’s displayed. Goodness is a secret goal in most people’s lives. We may not know it, but we all have a secret yearning for true goodness. Most of us want to be known as a good person. We all have the breath of God in us, and we have inhaled the fresh aroma of goodness, and we want more. We are drawn to those like Jesus who have authentic goodness, who are not hypocritical, who do not compromise. We look up to those who have a healthy moral authority. Jesus had an attractive goodness, and it was communicated loud and clear in the way He lived His life. The beauty of His holiness revealed a goodness that pulled others toward Him. Here is a man, they thought, who is living the way we were all meant to live, the way I want to live. He didn’t obey the pull of power and applause. And look how His personality fleshed out His goodness… through the fruit of the Spirit with such qualities as love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5). As Christians we need to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to live in a way that makes goodness attractive. Our robe of pure righteousness must be seen somehow as a necessary part of everyone’s wardrobe.
The Beauty of Hope. Everybody hopes for the best to happen to them. What can provide more hope than healing, exorcisms, truth-telling, and the certain victory over death? Resurrection is the ultimate victory, and Jesus achieved the biggest win of all time. Is there anything more beautiful and glorious and perfect than rising from the dead? When people consider Jesus, they might say that, yes, He was unusually wise. But many people fit that category. They might say that He was an extraordinarily good man. But there have been other good people too. People might say that Jesus was indeed a great man, but what can they say about the resurrection? They would have to think about that long and hard. They can’t just shrug that off without at least a serious glance. Even with hundreds of eyewitnesses, many might try to ignore this aspect of Jesus’ life. But people can’t simply ignore the empty tomb. Many would have to admit that the resurrection changes everything. If that’s true, He wasn’t just a great man. One could easily excuse other aspects of Jesus’ life, but not this. And one would need to consider all the life-giving actions of Jesus that serve as appetizers to the resurrection… healing lepers and cripples and the deaf and the blind; making demonic spirits powerless in His presence; offering hope to the overwhelmed and overpowered; raising people from the dead. This was all a prelude, hints of a major life-giving event to come. Somehow His suffering and death didn’t end there, but became a life-giving event. The resurrection is attractive to those who have a deep heart’s desire for life to conquer death. We believers need to offer a life-giving hopefulness to others, revealing the beauty and truth of the resurrection. The victory of Christ could be the ultimate attraction to others. May we open the empty tomb for all to see.
“Many were amazed when they saw Him. His face was so disfigured He seemed hardly human, and from His appearance, one could scarcely know He was a man… Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?” (Isaiah 52:14, 53:1).
The Cross. Could there be a more profound example of ‘beauty for ashes’ than the Cross of Christ? Jesus embraced the ugliness of sin and it led to the beauty of forgiveness and eternal life. The ugliness of the Cross led to the beauty of the empty tomb. As dead as Christ was on the Cross, the early Christian church had a habit of referring to it as the Tree of Life. They said the Cross was the Tree that healed the Tree, the Tree that healed the sin of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, and the Tree that restored the Tree of Life in that same Garden. The death of God led to the life of the world as He conquered death itself, beauty replacing ashes.
The Beautiful Tree of Christ.
“Faithful cross! above all other, one and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom, none in fruit thy peer may be;
Sweetest wood, and sweetest iron! Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
Bend thy boughs, O tree of glory! Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigor that thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the king of heavenly beauty on they bosom gently tend.”
(Honorius Fortunatus, 569 AD).