I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple…..Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’
Isa. 6:1,8
Beauty has a way of transforming us. It never leaves us indifferent or unaffected but moves us towards action, sending us back into the world as witnesses of what we have seen. As Hans Urs von Balthasar puts it, “Beauty works its way into our bones, into the sinews of our life, indelibly marking us, and then setting us off.”
Isaiah, having tasted the goodness of the Lord, is sent out as a herald of the beauty he has seen. As the Catholic theologian Robert Barron writes,
- The one who has been grasped by the beautiful is like the woman in the Gospel who breaks open the alabaster jar at the feet of Jesus and allows the aroma of the perfume to fill the entire house; she is willing to break open her life in order to witness to what she has seen and heard.
Experiences of beauty always imply mission. We are changed by what God has shown us. And whatever we receive in such encounters is always for the sake of others. As Barron notes,
- Visions of the divine are never given merely for the sake of private edification or contemplation. The “seeing” is never an end in itself. On the contrary, there is always a commission attached to the insight. Vision opens you to mission. You have been shown so that others might see as well.
There are countless examples in Scripture of this movement from “seeing” to “being sent.” Moses is so marked by his encounter with God that his face became radiant. He doesn’t stay on the mountaintop but comes back down to set his people free. Saul of Tarsus, dazzled by Christ’s light, is sent to Damascus where he is given a mission to carry the message of Jesus to the gentiles. And Peter, the first to discern that Jesus is the Messiah, is immediately given the commission to anchor and ground the community through which the glory he has recognized will now be proclaimed to the world.
God, it would seem, does not disclose himself without a “price”. He commissions the one who has seen with a call for service to the whole community, a call that is both compelling and inescapable. The beauty of the Lord becomes a fire within us, prompting us to a missionary life of proclamation. As Barron puts it, “To refuse this call would be tantamount to refusing the best of oneself. To ignore it would be to ignore the person we are meant to be.” He adds,
- The summons from God is like the coal placed on the lips of Isaiah, or the fire burning uncomfortably in the bones of Jeremiah, or the compulsion that Paul feels to proclaim the Gospel: ” I am ruined if I do not preach it!” The beauty of God so possesses us that our very identity, our very person, becomes the mission to communicate this to the world.
Whatever we have seen of Christ transforms us into witnesses of the gospel. And the same mystery that first drew us to His beauty now sends us out to share with the world the glory we have seen.
Rob Des Cotes
Imago Dei Christian Communities
(written for June 27th, 2013)
QUESTIONS
1. In what ways has the beauty of God transformed you? What particular aspect of God’s beauty comes to mind for you today?
2. What do you wish you could share most with others about the beauty of the Lord?
3. How do you relate to Robert Barron’s statement that “To refuse this call would be tantamount to refusing the best of oneself. To ignore it would be to ignore the person we are meant to be?”
PRAYER: Take time to meditate on the things you already know of God’s beauty. Express to God something of your desire to know more—that He would open your heart to more fully appreciate the beauty of His ways. Now pray for those who you would like to share this knowledge with.