Beauty Bears Witness To God

The room was packed with fine suits and floral print dresses. Relatives were poised with homemade signs ready to cheer their graduate on. But first, the commencement speech.

A frumpy old man with shoulder-length gray hair, bangs, a bushy beard, and spectacles made his way to the podium. He began his address without a hook; people shifted in their seats. Then the speaker made an interesting point: AI can give us knowledge, but it cannot impart wisdom. The audience leaned in.

Why can’t AI gives us wisdom? Because in our broken world, wisdom bears witness to beauty from beyond.

Grace of Wisdom

Though we tend to think of wisdom as something that comes with experience and success, the apostle James says it’s rooted in a “harvest of righteousness” that comes down “from above.” Such wisdom is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17–18).

Wise living doesn’t involve amassing platitudes and accolades but walking in righteousness. It’s choosing mercy when crowds urge vengeance, responding gently instead of angrily. Wisdom walks so closely to Sage Jesus that his character rubs off.

In our broken world, wisdom bears witness to beauty from beyond.

The commencement speaker, Malcolm Guite, continued by insisting that the aha moment in learning doesn’t arise from the teacher but from Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:3). He concluded his address by citing some original poetry:

I cannot think unless I have been thought,
Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken.
I cannot teach except as I am taught. . . .

Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring,
Come to me now, disguised as everything.

Noisemakers and cardboard signs in hand, we thought we had all that was necessary to celebrate. Our hearts were ready to explode in pride over our graduates’ accomplishments. But it turned out we needed poetry. The sublimity of the moment required a brush with beauty to elicit a joy fit for the occasion. No one sitting there in fine attire thought, What we really need at this commencement is some poetry. But beauty is more indispensable than we realize.

Indispensable Beauty

Ethan Hawke’s TED talk on creativity includes these statements: “Most people don’t think they need art, or think about poetry, until you go to a funeral, lose a child, a parent, and you’re like has anyone ever felt this bad, or when your heart explodes in love for someone, and you’re like has anyone felt this, then art feels not like a luxury but sustenance.”

Art taps into deep human longing. Beauty has universal appeal. But why? Why are we drawn to stunning films, masterful paintings, blooming rows of colorful tulips, and rhythmic, poetic words? Because beauty beckons wholeness. It suggests that things won’t always be in ruins.

As people wounded by evil and sin, we’re desperate for a world where everything is put back together, where all is beautiful again. The symmetry of a rhyming couplet, a pristine field of wildflowers, an orange shaft of light cutting across the nighttime sky—all suggest the possibility of wholeness and glory.

The film 1917 follows two British soldiers during WWI on a mission to deliver a message that could save hundreds of lives. As the pair make their way across no-man’s-land, director Sam Mendes skillfully draws our attention to beauty in their bleak trek: a felled, blossoming cherry tree against the backdrop of billowing smoke from destruction in the distance; a woman’s act of kindness to a wounded soldier on the run; an army troop singing amid the lament of great loss.

Why does Mendes introduce these aesthetic disruptions into the derelict landscape? Because beauty in our broken world beckons belief in an unbroken, whole world. Their harrowing journey is manageable because it’s punctuated by beauty.

Practice Beauty

Art is haunted by beauty, and beautiful things point beyond themselves to more perfect beauty. Psalm 50 says, “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth” (v. 2). We’re meant to trace this world’s splendor back to its Creator.

Art is haunted by beauty, and beautiful things point beyond themselves to more perfect beauty.

One way we bear witness to God is by making beautiful things—by writing poetry that captures human longing, by planting a colorful garden, or by raising children with godly character. Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich conducted extensive research and numerous interviews with Soviet sufferers to write Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets. In 2015, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for “her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”

Her critique of oppressive Russian regimes resulted in her self-imposed exile. Despite the great pain she’s experienced, Alexievich writes, “When I see a garden in flower, then I believe in God for a second. But not the rest of the time.” A flower’s beauty provokes even someone who has suffered greatly, and documented unbelievable human anguish, to believe.

If this is true, shouldn’t those who possess new-creation hope bear witness to divine beauty by planting beautiful gardens, cultivating families rooted in love and respect,  writing lines that capture hope, tending our lives, and marking out plots that may spark belief, even if only for a second? Who knows what God may grow from the beauty we practice?

Bear Witness

Beauty may compel belief in God’s existence, but only the good news can impart saving faith. As Herman Bavinck writes,

Art in all its works and ways conjures up an ideal world before us. . . . [But] art cannot close the gulf between the ideal and the real. It cannot make the yonder of its vision the here of our present world.

What then bridges the gulf between ideal beauty and our gritty reality? How do we get the God of beauty into people’s hearts?

Through witness. A true witness tells people where to go. She uses verbal testimony to get her point across. This is why Alexievich’s writing is so powerful. It isn’t a personal reflection on Soviet sufferers but their verbal witness captured for us to read. Similarly, the world needs witnesses to Jesus’s beauty to help people bridge the gulf between their gritty reality and ideal life with Christ. Yet we often struggle to share the gospel with others. How do we clear this hurdle?

My friend Ryan turned to faith in Jesus but still had doubts about Christianity. So I invited him to join our family on a road trip. We did the usual: sang along with the radio, corrected the kids when they got out of hand, and ate fast food. The trip was unremarkable to me, but years later Ryan shared how powerful it was for him to see our children interacting with us. He was unaccustomed to the respect and love that flowed freely. His encounter with a Christian family grounded in God’s authority and love dealt a blow to his skepticism and strengthened his faith.

The key to being a true witness is to be taken with the beautiful truth about Jesus. Has a truth about Jesus struck you lately? Have you been surprised by his grace, encouraged by his forgiveness, or astounded by his beauty? Tell someone! We’ll be more faithful gospel witnesses when we slow down to truly absorb Jesus’s goodness and beauty. A true witness shares the gospel with others not only because it’s true but also because it’s beautiful news. So let’s practice beauty, point to glory, and bear witness to gospel beauty in our broken world.