A SIMPLE THEOLOGY OF BEAUTY Part 3
In part one and two of this series, we explored the two viewpoints of beauty I believe are prevalent in Nigerian Christianity, and the pitfalls of both views. The first view, the “Purist” view, regard true beauty as “natural” and is best preserved by as minimum modifications as possible, just the necessities are ideal. The second view we explored, the “Grace” view, sees beauty as basically similar, but use the Grace offered us by Christ as an escape mechanism for the use of enhancements like make up and Jewelry. To end the series, we will look at a theology of beauty as it is shown by a careful look at scriptures. Last time we explored the theme of beauty in relation to the redemption of the world as refutation of the views of both camps, we showed that beauty is an important theme in the scriptures, as the truly beautiful is the truly good. From this we also showed how the beauty of the created world is used as a metaphor for describing the beauty of the person, focusing on women. Now we will complete the analogy.
First we will cover the source of beauty. It may be an obvious point, but all beauty comes from God. A lot of you will agree with me that your beauty comes from God (For the philosophically inclined, I cannot give a rigorous explanation of this principle in this post, it will be a topic for later posts). But what you may have either forgotten, or have been oblivious to, is that God is also the one that sustains beauty, and source is not exactly the same as sustenance, although they are connected. I may give you money, but I don’t sustain the money’s existence as money, it is money whether I remember I gave you or not. However a central bank is in a sense, a source and the body that sustains its status as money. You get money from them, and they determine its value, at least to some extent. If they declare a particular note valueless, it is valueless, it depends on them for its status as money. Similarly, God is the source and sustenance for beauty, and nowhere is this more clearly displayed as in the story of Jesus. Paul said in Him we have our being (Acts 17:28). This is a profound statement, it means not just that Christ is our Creator, but also our Sustenance. It gives new meaning to Jeremiah 29:11 (For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.) His attention is constantly on us. If Christ should truly forget you, you will cease to exist, and that is against His Love, for Love gives Life. He constantly sustains our existence because He knows each and every one of us. This is true for everything we are, and everything we have. You, whether male or female, are beautiful because Christ is beautiful. Anything that happens to him affects us. Your beauty is not some abstract Ideal God gave you from birth, but something you are by virtue of the creative and sustaining eternal act of Christ on your behalf. To answer a question someone asked me about the first post, Beauty is found in Christ, He is beauty personified, and because of this, we have a great lens for viewing beauty in the world and our lives.
The wounded feet of Jesus are beautiful because of what and who they represent. Beauty for the Christian is not sourced in material things, or in your natural face and body, or in clothes. Beauty for the Christian is conforming to the image of our image bearer, Jesus Christ our King, the Beautiful One. This means that anything that is used to correctly represent, worship or glorify Jesus in any aspect, whether clothes, jewelry, makeup, even scars and wounds, can be described as beautiful. There’s a reason Jesus called his crucifixion a “lifting up”. Anything and everything is beautiful as long as it conforms to God’s ends or purposes, and God’s ends and purposes are found in Jesus Christ. Yes it’s true that you are not to find your source of beauty in material things, but material things are beautiful, and you use them beautifully if they are used in Jesus’ name. Basically, you “complete” their beauty by conforming them to their source. Let me close with a quote from C.S. Lewis in his book The Weight Of Glory: “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.” He saw that one of our greatest desires, which ties into all our greatest desires is to be beautiful ourselves, and even more, to unite ever more fully with beauty. Jesus is the most beautiful one, the true visible beautiful image of the Invisible beautiful God, and our greatest desire is to be united with Him.