Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 – 1881), the famous Russian novelist, made an interesting observation: “Beauty will save the world.” Technically speaking, those words were a line spoken by the character Prince Myshkin, as quoted by two other characters in Dostoevsky’s 1869 novel “The Idiot.” You may remember that Dostoevsky was endeavoring to help us interpret our fallen human condition against the backdrop of the massive struggles of 19th-century Russia: social, political, and spiritual.
“Beauty will save the world.” I find that quote fascinating, and I find echoes of its sentiment elsewhere in celebrated literature – before and after Dostoevsky.
In his “Symposium,” Plato (428 – 348 B.C.) wrote: “Beauty is the splendor of truth.” St. Basil the Great (329 – 379) said: “By nature men desire the beautiful.” St. Augustine (354 – 430), in his famous “Confessions,” penned it like this: “Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new.” In his poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” John Keats (1795 – 1821) used these words in summation: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all.” In his “On Fairy Stories,” J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 – 1973) expressed the other side of that coin: “Evil and ugliness seem indissolubly allied. We find it difficult to conceive of evil and beauty together.” As the characters behold the queen, who represents a false god in “The Magician’s Nephew,” C.S. Lewis (1898 – 1963) describes the scene like this: “… now that one saw her in our own world, with ordinary things around her, she fairly took one’s breath away … nothing compared with her beauty.” And, in reference to the true God as symbolized in Lewis’s “The Last Battle”: “… he no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.”
“Happily ever after” sounds pretty good right now, doesn’t it? Even as I write these words, I’m bombarded with terrible news about the economy … terrible news about serious conflicts on the world stage … terrible news about the American political landscape … and terrible news when it comes to record numbers of young adults giving up on the church. It’s our own version of social, political, and spiritual chaos. Other than that, things are hunky-dory.
Can you and I find beauty when it seems like the world is on fire?
Well, we can, but I would remind you that we may have to look for it. I’m paying particular attention to the hydrangeas this year, as they seldom disappoint. And, especially on days when the humidity drops a tad, the sunsets south of Nashville can be spectacular. This past Sunday, a sweet young couple in our church brought their infant son to the worship service. As I watched long-awaited Judah in the arms of his mom, it reminded me that God isn’t finished with this world – or with any one of us. The Lord is still working. He’s still creating. He’s still adding beautiful people, and beautiful things, and beautiful moments. Because He’s still good.
There is still beauty to be found, friends. In fact, it’s critically important that we find it. I think that’s what Dostoevsky had in mind. Sometimes works of art – literary or otherwise – help us escape the cynicism that can so easily set in – and nearly choke us – when times are turbulent. Back to Baby Judah for a second: When the world is upside down, it’s a close look at those tiny baby fingers that is our sanity!
But I’d like to bring you into an even more wonderful reality … “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). For those of us who are in Christ – found in Him and trusting in Him – what’s already on our horizon is so stupendous that human language can’t fully capture it! You and I are resurrection people! We have a new name … and a new identity … and a new hope … and a new reason to see beauty where others cannot.
And “the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (8:26). Even as you read this, the risen Jesus is praying for you! Just think about that for a minute. Christ knows how to pray for what you really need. “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (8:28). ALL THINGS. Wow!
It’s sadly true that the whole world is messed up under the weight of human sin. There’s simply no denying that. But – if you and I will take the time to look – we will see plenty of evidence that our God has not forfeited His throne. Nor has He forfeited His good plan for us.
Beauty, even here and now, helps the eyes of our heart behold the One who is all-beautiful.
My friends, the “happily ever after” is as good as done! “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (31-39).
It just doesn’t get any better than that! Between here and there, we’ll face some tough hills to climb … and some hard battles to fight … and some news that is everything other than what we wanted to hear. But we know who’s writing the story. And we know who wins in the end.
You and I live in the shadows, here and now, but God uses beauty – particularly the beauty of the gospel – to lift our heads long enough to peer into the world that is to come. And it’s a beautiful world.
So take the time to notice the beautiful. Even when the world’s on fire.
I’ll share a final quote from a famous author, the Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918 – 2008). Not from one of his published works, this is from Solzhenitsyn’s 1972 Nobel Lecture: “… perhaps the old trinity of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty is not simply the … antiquated formula it seemed to us at the time of our self-confident materialistic youth. If the tops of these three trees do converge, as thinkers used to claim, and if the … sprouts of Truth and Goodness have been crushed … then perhaps the … shoots of Beauty will force their way through and soar up to that very spot, thereby fulfilling the task of all three.”
Three trees. I know that you’re familiar with Faith, Hope, and Love. And now you’re familiar with Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. When truth seems hard to find, and goodness isn’t apparent around every bend, we have another powerful witness in our corner.
Beauty. Don’t miss it.
Pastor Charles
Thank You God for a beautiful forever!