All Things Beautiful

Galatians 6:12-18

March 16, 2025 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Beauty, they say, is in the eyes of the beholder. You and I could look at the same piece of artwork and I could think it’s ugly and you might think it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. It’s also true that beauty is only seen by those who pay attention. You might stand gazing at a sunset, in awe of the beauty God has created, while I rush by, on a mission to do this or that, and completely miss it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the one who sees.

Pastor Brian Zahnd tells about a time when he discovered that truth about the cross. He had been raised in a Baptist church and then became a self-described Jesus Movement charismatic, but in his thirties he first visited a European cathedral and encountered artistic representations of Jesus on the cross. The crucifix that we talked about last week. That was not part of his upbringing, but he was drawn to the art. He stood and stared at it, and he couldn’t help but think, “I’m not supposed to like this, but I do.” As he gazed even more intently, this thought also came to mind: The crucifixion “wasn’t like that. It wasn’t beautiful. It was ugly!” (Zahnd, The Wood Between the Worlds, pg. 66). If nothing else, Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ showed us the ugliness of the cross, and Gibson’s film was toned down from what a crucifixion actually was. Crucifixion was so horrible and so gory that Romans didn’t use the word in polite company (Zahnd 67). Crosses and crucifixes don’t appear in Christian art until the fifth century—a hundred years after the practice had been banned in the Roman Empire—and even then, Jesus was portrayed more as a king on a throne than a victim in agony. It took another thousand years before artists began depicting a suffering Jesus (Zahnd 65). Crucifixion and crosses were ugly, horrible things. How did we get to a place where they are considered beautiful? How did we end up in a time where we decorate churches with them and wear them as jewelry?

This Lenten season, we are standing around “The Old Rugged Cross,” diving deep into some of the many meanings that the Bible gives to this symbol we think we know so well. And yet, we often focus on one aspect of what happened on a hillside outside Jerusalem somewhere in the 30’s AD, and we neglect so many other meanings and messages Jesus was sharing with us by his death on the first Good Friday. The fact that we call it “Good” Friday is a hint that something more than the violent death of a Jewish rabbi was going on at the top of that hill. Just calling the day “good” asks the same question I asked a moment ago: how can something so bad be good? How can something so ugly be beautiful?

In his letter to the Galatians, which actually may be the earliest of the Apostle Paul’s letters that we have (cf. McKnight, James and Galatians, pg. 237), Paul is arguing against some false teachers who have infiltrated the Galatian church. Galatia was not a city; it was an area of Asia roughly where central Turkey is today (McKnight 96). And recently some teachers had arrived from Jerusalem, determined to “correct” what the Galatians had been taught. Specifically, the teaching they brought centered around circumcision. Here’s the deal: for the Jewish male, circumcision was the sign of the convent, a physical mark on the body that proved you belonged to the community and, thus, to God. When Gentiles (that is, non-Jews, like you and me) wanted to become part the Jewish community, they had to submit to circumcision to be able to go all the way. If they did not, they could be considered “God-fearers” but not fully part of the community. Now, most Jewish boys were circumcised at 8 days old and wouldn’t remember it. Gentile adults were a bit more hesitant, as you might imagine, to go through with it because it would hurt and they would remember. But Paul preached that circumcision was no longer necessary for those who wanted to follow Christ; they didn’t have to become Jews first to be able to follow Jesus. So why would these people—often called “Judaizers”—try to “correct” Paul’s teaching?

Two reasons seem evident in this passage and, really, throughout the whole book. One reason is that they wanted to please people (Paul says they want to “impress people,” 6:12), specifically some of the leaders back in Jerusalem. It’s “the desire to look good by worldly standards” (cf. deSilva, OneBook: The Letter to the Galatians, pg. 90). This whole thing was a constant struggle in the earliest church that centered on Paul’s specific mission to the Gentiles. All of Jesus’ first believers were already Jews, so where did the Gentiles fit in? I can understand this group’s desire to make the leaders in Jerusalem happy; that was, after all, where the church began and where its center was for the first several decades. It’s natural to want to respect and honor those who came before you, those who paved the way in the faith. Also playing into this was probably the urge that still exists to always be right, especially when it comes to theology or beliefs about God. They believe that Paul’s way of leading people to Jesus wasn’t kosher enough. It wasn’t consistent with the law of Moses. Paul disagreed. In the strongest possible terms (McKnight 237-238).

The other reason they were pursuing this course, according to Paul, is that they were afraid of being “persecuted for the cross of Christ” (6:12). It’s interesting, isn't it, that Paul is talking about persecutions when in the beginning he was one of the chief persecutors? Paul certainly knew what persecution could be like because he had done it (cf. deSilva 91). He met Jesus when he was on his way to arrest Christians. So he would have known they had a real reason to be afraid of it. Since following Jesus, he has known persecution of his own, from the other side. He tells the Galatians that he bears on his own body the “marks of Jesus,” which probably refers to scars he has from beatings he has received. “They were inflicted to shame Paul, but he regards them as marks of honor” (deSilva 93). And yet, these false teachers only get the shame side of it, so they want to avoid it. If Paul and others were beaten because they were uncircumcised, then why not get on the bandwagon and become a Jew first? Again, Paul disagreed. In the strongest possible terms.

But how can he argue against these Judaizers? What will counteract their teachings? Paul isn’t so much concerned to tear down their arguments, at least in this last little section of the letter. He’s more concerned about pointing his readers to the cross, because if they grab onto the cross, nothing else will matter anymore. He doesn’t use these words, but what Paul is talking about is the glory of the cross, the joy in the midst of the same, the beauty in the midst of the ugliness and horror.

Make no mistake; the cross was grotesque. As I said earlier, no one ever used the cross as a symbol for Christianity until anyone who had ever seen an actual crucifixion had died. You didn’t talk about crucifixion—unless you were a Christian. Even then, they had other symbols they relied on rather than the cross: an anchor, a fish, a lamb or a shepherd (Zahnd 65). All of those were much easier to take than a cross. We have this beautiful, smooth cross here in the sanctuary that we look at every week—or maybe we’ve stopped seeing it because we have seen it every week. But either way, it’s a beautiful, shiny, heavy but moveable piece of wood. Nothing could be further from the reality of Christ’s cross. The wood would not have been polished. It might have been covered with blood from a previous crucifixion. The tall beam stayed on the hillside while each prisoner carried their crossbeam to the site. It was rough, rugged, ugly and horrific. It didn’t need to be pretty because its function wasn’t pretty. It was, as I said, grotesque and had the main purpose, besides killing people, of deterring crime. The Romans believed if people saw what happened to criminals, they wouldn’t do similar things. We’ve thought that all throughout history; it doesn’t work.

But when Paul looks at the cross, he sees something entirely different. First of all, he sees the cross as something to boast about. While the Judaizers are trying to get the Galatians to be circumcised so they can boast about how many people they have affected, Paul says he doesn’t want to boast in anything except the cross (6:13-14). It’s like he’s saying, “You want to boast about what you’ve done? I’ll boast about what Jesus has done.” The word there that’s used to describe what the Judaizers are doing is a very self-centered word, as in “It’s all about them.” Paul wants it to be all about Jesus and the cross. In a later letter to the Corinthians, he says a similar thing but in a different way. When he’s talking about the hardships he has been through and the fact that he has a “thorn in his flesh” (which most scholars think was an eye disease of some sort), he tells them those things don’t embarrass him. In fact, he says, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Again—others may boast about what they have done, but I will always boast about what Jesus has done. I will boast about the cross. Which causes me to ask: what do you boast about? We live in a world of self-promotion. Get likes on social media, collect followers, do whatever you can do get eyeballs on your content. Celebrities dress up in outlandish outfits to get attention. Even preachers say ridiculous things so that they can make headlines. There have been many so-called preacher celebrities who grab headlines claiming to know why this disaster or that one happened, or what will happen in an election or because of a national event, and I just shake my head. Why do the news sites give them space? Because it gets clicks. Because you and I read the articles. We live in a world of self-promotion where even church people talk more about their own achievements than we do about Jesus. Boast about the cross. Celebrate what Jesus has done. Paul says that’s the only thing worth boasting about.

The other thing Paul sees when he looks at the cross is new creation (6:15). He says this whole thing about circumcision is really ridiculous because “what counts is the new creation.” When it comes to your salvation, when the focus is on your eternity, the only thing that matters is whether or not you have trusted in what Jesus did on the cross and allowed it to make you new. Circumcision doesn’t count. Uncircumcision doesn’t count. That’s all external, it’s all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is new creation; are you being made new because of the cross? “New creation” is just dropped into the letter here so easily that it seems to have been a stock phase used among the Christian community of that time (deSilva, The Letter to the Galatians [NICNT], pg. 510). Looking at the other times Paul uses that phrase, it seems to point to what happens in a believer when the Spirit of God begins to work in their life. Elsewhere, in a very familiar passage just a bit before what we read this morning, Paul describes that work as “fruit” growing, fruit that looks like this: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). But it’s not just about individual believers because when the Spirit begins living inside one believer, and then another believer, and then another, that affects the whole community. This same fruit begins to grow in the community and that community becomes known in the world for that fruit. “New creation” is ultimately about the way the whole community is transformed when individuals are transformed, and that’s something that should sound familiar. Our mission, you remember, is making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Are you—are we—demonstrating more love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control to the world around us, in our neighborhoods and in our lives? Transformation. New creation.

And that’s all possible because of the cross. Are you beginning to see the beauty in the midst of the horror? When Jesus chose the cross, he did so in order that every single person in every single time period in every single corner of the world could experience new creation, could become new persons. It’s for you. It’s for me. It’s for the person you think is least likely to receive it. It’s for the person who is most likely to receive it. It is for everyone, and that is what makes the horror of the cross so beautiful. On the cross, Jesus stretched his arms apart—willingly—in a gesture that universally indicates welcome. His outstretched arms are a model for us, showing us how we approach the world. Transformed. Welcoming. Grace-filled (cf. Wright, Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians, pg. 83). Christ upon the cross, arms outstretched in an offered embrace, forgiving the world (Zahnd 71). The cross is a beautiful reminder that there is hope, there is forgiveness, there is love for all who will come and stand in its shadow.

Now here’s the kicker, or the bottom line perhaps. A symbol of death was turned into a sign of love because of the redeeming power of Jesus. “If the cross can be saved, the world can be saved. If crucifixion can be made beautiful, all things can be made beautiful” (Zahnd 68). And that means that the ugly, broken things in your life can be transformed and made beautiful too. Let me give you a small example from my own life. I know it doesn’t even touch some of the things that you or people in your own life have been through, and I acknowledge that. But when I was first a pastor, I had a tendency to hurry through hospital visits. I was an associate pastor and had certain days I was to visit, and I remember I would have the goal to get in and get out as quickly as possible. Productivity was the name of the game, get as much done as you can in the shortest amount of time. And inwardly, I was proud of that. I would have never said it, but I was. And then I ended up in the hospital as a patient. Not with my heart this time, but with a severe lung infection. I don’t believe God causes things like that, as I’ve been saying a lot lately, but I do know God can bring good out of it because being a patient in the hospital caused me to slow down. I had to. And I had to wait. And rest. And heal. And if you’ve been in the hospital, you know how long those days are. I’m telling you there is only so much TV you can watch and usually I don’t have energy to read. So the only thing that broke up the day was when someone came to visit, and in those days I stayed in the hospital, I came to realize that I was being unkind when I treated every patient in our congregation as a product. God used that ugliness of my illness to change the way I visited, to make me a better pastor, which I hope has been a beautiful thing. All things can be made beautiful.

Sometimes it takes more time than that, though. Two of the hardest funerals I’ve ever done involved children—one who died shortly after her birth and the other who arrived stillborn. The parents in both situations were in terrible emotional and spiritual pain, and yet because of the love of the body of Christ and the support of their families, in both situations they found themselves with their faith renewed. Not because of anything I said but because of the love of those around them, which is the way God brought beauty out of awful situations because God can make anything beautiful. Or another situation: a family member receives a terminal diagnosis and family members who hadn’t before had anything nice to say about each other suddenly come together and find that the differences between them were not nearly as important as they thought. God can make anything beautiful. Or I also think of the Holocaust survivors, people who came out of one of the worst examples of hatred and horror in the twentieth century. Six million Jews and others exterminated in the gas chambers. Those who survived faced a long, hard journey back to normalcy, but so many of them, including Eva Kor here in Terre Haute, used their experience to educate people and to build the mindset, “Never again.” Many gave their lives to highlight the dignity of every single human beings, and it scares me a bit that most of those who lived through that time are now dying and their memories are disappearing. I’m thankful for technology that has allowed many stories to be recorded and digitized, preserved so that we can continue to remember. And I believe God will continue to bring beauty out of horror because God can make anything beautiful. He did it with the cross. He can do it with anything.

The cross stands as the worst injustice in all of human history. It is bloody, ugly, grotesque and, yes, a horrific thing to contemplate. And yet out of that horror came the hope of the world. God can and does make all things beautiful. What in your life do you need him to make beautiful today? Because he can and he will. The cross is the proof that the most broken, most beaten up, most difficult things in your life can turned to beauty if you place it in his hands. That’s the promise of the cross. Let’s pray.