How Beauty and Glory Sneak Up on You

Fourth Sunday of Advent, 2023 (Christmas Eve)

When one of our daughters was eighteen, I was pleased to receive a text from her that said, “Sufjan Stevens’ Christmas record is awesome!”

Sufjan is an eccentric, talented Brooklyn musician. He does not lead a cult, but has a cult following. He is also a favorite artist of mine.

And my taste in music, if I may say so, is awesome.

I was glad about my daughter’s text because it revealed progress in her musical taste. Only a few years prior, she had argued fiercely that Hannah Montana would stand the test of time as an artist, but U2 would not.

Her logic: “Dad, U2 is old. And if you think Hannah Montana's music won’t be around when I am your age, then you don’t get it. Have you heard ‘The Climb’ and ‘Party in the USA?’ Get a clue!”

Two years later, Miley Cyrus declared on television that Hannah Montana was dead.

The Sufjan text reminded me that yes, young lady, you have come a long way. There is evidence that you are being sanctified musically.

(Secret sidebar: “The Climb” and “Party in the USA” are on my workout playlist. Debates aside, the songs are great. Don’t tell my daughter or Miley Cyrus I said that.)

What is the point of this story? It is easy to miss beauty and glory, even when both are right in front of us. We settle for less when we could have more.

C.S. Lewis sees into us:

“Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

When our family lived in New York City, an art collector invited me to tour his favorite museums. We started with modern painters in the Chelsea galleries. Then we visited two essential Upper East Side museums, the Guggenheim and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka “The Met”).

History’s acclaimed artists are well represented at the Met. We started with impressionists like Van Gogh and Rembrandt, whose works made sense. I was especially intrigued by Van Gogh, who did some of his best work from an insane asylum. (My friend and Nashville songwriter, Tom Douglas, has written a richly haunting song about that part of Van Gogh’s story)

Among his 860 oil paintings and many sketches, Van Gogh sold only a handful in his lifetime. He believed he was a creative failure, shot himself to death, and died penniless. His last words were, “The sadness will last forever.”

Look at Van Gogh now.

After Van Gogh, my friend led me to the abstract stuff. He was especially eager to enlighten me to the works of his two favorite abstract painters, Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock.

Rothko intrigued me, but I did not understand Pollock, whose method was to lay a large canvas flat on the ground, hover over it, and drip paint in swirl patterns until the canvas was filled. The finished product seemed unspectacular, like the rushed, haphazard work of a toddler on copy paper with crayons.

“I could do this in my sleep,” I thought to myself.

This time, I really did need to get a clue.

I asked my friend how much a Jackson Pollock painting would cost. He said the latest auctioned for $45 million. Appalled that anyone would pay that kind of money for swirl swirl, drip drip, I protested. “Are you serious? Any child can paint like this!”

Jesus thought more highly of artists and children than this.

My friend gave me one of those looks that said, “I love you but I also feel sorry for you, you dummy.” Then, he explained Pollock, revealing mystery and transcendence that I could not have seen on my own. With Pollock, the beauty and glory won’t be obvious to critical, uncurious eyes. But if you linger and become intimate with the painting, it will all sneak up on you over time. My friend instructed further:

“First, examine the macro-view from a distance. Then, examine the micro-view from up close. If you let yourself get intimate with the art, to have a relationship with it, to let it speak to you and receive from it rather than judging it, you will find that it is a wondrous outward representation of the inner complexity and tragedy and glory of a human soul.

“This is not scribble. It is a masterpiece. Jackson Pollock was a tortured soul who bears the image of God and there’s nothing about this painting that says otherwise.”

As I followed my friend’s guidance and got intimate with the painting, I began seeing the truth in his words. Close, careful, curious examination revealed the life and personhood of a world class mini-creator, whom I have since studied more deeply and become awestruck.

Pollock, rather than being the no-talent hack that my ignorant eyes first judged him to be, was a tortured and damaged, yet eternal and magnificent, soul of a human being. The chaotic undercurrent of his work was not a random or reckless sham, but was instead a masterfully-constructed autobiographical manifestation of the man himself. It functioned as a mirror as well as a window.

In the shattered image of Pollock, Pollock created.

And behold, it was good, a dynamic portrayal of what Francis Schaeffer called a “glorious ruin.” Pollock’s own self-portrait doubling as a mirror for us all.

Like Pollock, we, too have been shattered by sin and sorrow. Also like him and his painting, we still hold colors and shadows of the glorious creatures we were fashioned to be. It brought to mind Pascal’s image of the deposed king whose misery is borne from a Paradise that has been tragically, though not irretrievably, lost.

What relevance do Bono and Sufjan Stevens and Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock and Blaise Pascal have for our lives and the times in which we live?

All are examples of our blindness to actual beauty and glory, our tendency to replace mystery with things we think we can figure out and control, and our inherent attraction to the un-lovely and un-magnificent.

Speaking of, there was once a baby born of a virgin, and placed in a manger:

“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” (John 1:9-11)

For many of us, the original Christmas story has a similar effect as paintings on a people who lack ability to discern, behold, and savor the beauty which superficially seems messy, inglorious, disposable, and cheap…not of value.

From the outside, the first coming of Jesus seemed unspectacular and absurd. He was the product of an unplanned, teen pregnancy. He was born among farm animals. He was from a small, obscure, no-name town that didn’t get much attention. His parents were refugees with zero money, zero connections, and zero acclaim. They had never heard of a who’s who list.

But the more we examine this historic scene and the more intimate we get with it, the more will see glimpses of God, who is not like us yet became one of us.

God!

Yes, God—the master Artist whose “abstract art” not only reveals his own inner character, but holds within it the power to heal the whole wide world.

To the degree we can see God in a manger like a refined collector sees abstract art, we will be drawn in by a similar wonder as Mary:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior...for he who is mighty has done great things for me.” (Luke 1:46-49)

Bonhoeffer said that what seems weak and trifling to us may be great and magnificent to God. That was surely the case on the First Day of Christmas.

The gospel is in some ways an abstract art form. Only discerning eyes can see its meaning and worth. To have those eyes, you must retire your inner critic and gaze at God in a manger with expectant curiosity. When you do, watch out. Veiled in flesh, the Godhead you will see. Beauty and glory will sneak up on you, and you will never be the same again.

Merry Christmas!