Tuesday, December 10
Title: ETERNAL PEACE WITH GOD
Scripture: II Corinthians 5:17-19, Romans 5:1-2
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. 

Poetry:
Late Ripeness
By Czeslaw Milosz
(translated by Robert Hass & Czeslaw Milosz)

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,   
I felt a door opening in me and I entered   
the clarity of early morning.   

One after another my former lives were departing,   
like ships, together with their sorrow.   

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas   
assigned to my brush came closer,   
ready now to be described better than they were before.   

I was not separated from people,   
grief and pity joined us.   
We forget—I kept saying—that we are all children of the King.   

For where we come from there is no division   
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.   

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part   
of the gift we received for our long journey.   

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago—   
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror   
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel   
staving its hull against a reef—they dwell in us,   
waiting for a fulfillment.   

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,   
as are all men and women living at the same time,   
whether they are aware of it or not. 

GOD OF THE GOLD 

Today’s artworks feature the Japanese technique Kintsugi: the repair of broken ceramic with powdered gold. The sculptor Billie Bond works in a dynamic relationship with her materials. Pulling form from clay, she releases her objects to free-fall, shattering where they may. But then, under her patient eye, she reconstructs the object, binding the pieces together with gold lacquer so that the breaking is enfolded into the beauty. 

Bond’s work is beautiful. And one feature of its beauty is that the ceramic bears its own history visually. It is a piece that has been made, unmade, and remade. The ceramic is a story with a beginning, middle, and end, held together as a single, whole object. Take a moment to look at the images of these objects. Hold them in mind as they are juxtaposed with today’s scripture, music, and poetry. As a complete set, these give us scope to prayerfully consider God’s work of reconciliation.  

Reconciliation, a work of mediation and peacemaking, follows a prior work of violence. Something has been shattered, unmade, or undone. God’s good creation had hurled itself headlong into destruction, breaking and fracturing family and kin; creation and creator. Groaning for wholeness, the creation waits for its artisan God to come and look with loving gaze, to apply his creative art to restore what we have broken. Under his careful eye and steady hands, the Father will turn each piece about, carefully held for the remaking. And like the broken ceramic, in God’s work of reconciliation, the traces of the break become a source of beauty and strength. The blood of the Son that binds the creation back together shines brightly in the fissure, tracing where once there was wound. 

And so it is that God’s reconciliation with us is not a gilding, but a remaking. These breaks that caused us to cry out for wholeness become thin, head-crown halos from which God’s glory shines. 

Our lives bear these breaks, but not only these. We bear the breaks of the past, living in a world where shards are our inheritance. God’s work must be cosmic; he must heal the wounds of our whole humanity, these “moments from yesterday and from centuries ago.” They are not discarded pieces, but “dwell within us--waiting for a fulfillment.” The peace of God has been poured out on us, but not only for us. Like Max Richter’s music, God’s hands go forth in steady search, through memory and future, until the pieces are brought back together. And where God joins together, beauty begins to shine. These recovered pieces join the steady song, not as painted-on embellishments but harmonic wholes. 

As God continues his slow, patient, and loving work of binding his creation together, let us remember that we, the broken-yet-healed ones, can join in his work. We share the labor by helping find the pieces that are still scattered about, offering them up to God as we find them, entrusting that he will find where the fit is just so, creating a new thin, golden light. 

Prayer: 
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 
As your children, Father, teach us the way of peace. 
Give us the grace to see that fractures are not final, 
And the patience to watch, to wait, and to learn
As you practice your art.
Amen

Chad Glazener
Asst. Director of Recruitment and Marketing
Torrey Honors Institute
Biola University

For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.