“For glory and for beauty”

God loves beauty and art. Look at the sunsets and meadows, soaring mountains and deep seas, abundant creatures and even outer space–the uniqueness, symmetry, colors, shapes, and sizes. In Exodus 28:2 God commissioned Moses to weave ornate garments for Israel’s priests “for glory and for beauty.” He desired beautiful priests for His beautiful tabernacle that was already filled with gold, images, and fine linens.

Beauty doesn’t stop at the external. Outward beauty drives us toward inner beauty. So beauty is aesthetically pleasing Truth. The ornate tabernacle confessed that God met His people there. There He forgave them. There He promised to send His Messiah, whose sacrifice would crush the serpent’s head and win salvation.

God forbade Israel from creating an image of Himself because He would provide His own image in His incarnate Son. The ornate tabernacle is gone for the beauty of Christ is here.

The beautiful art at Living Word drives us to the inner beauty of Christ’s work. We depict these images of our Lord not to say that He looked like this, but to confess that Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal God, that He lived in our world and did these historical acts, and, finally, that He is bodily present among us in the Holy Communion to met us, forgive us, and make us holy. The beauty of our ceremonies and music confesses the same.

To say that we don’t need beauty misses the point. We are not the focus. Christ is. We do not discard art or beauty, but by these windows Living Word confesses to all who enter the glory and beauty of God and His Christ. God loves art and beauty; so do we. We echo David, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).

May the beauty of these windows hold before our eyes the glory and beauty of Christ. This is our comfort, hope, and peace.