TWO BEAUTIES

TWO BEAUTIES

    In the fall of this year we saw the foliage looking in awe at the yellow, oranges, reds and in between colors and marvel, speaking to many others about this royal beauty/ How the Creator bestows on us sinful men such beauty!   In the winter will be another type of beauty with some discomforts from snow and ice.  I will never forget the one time that I was traveling on a small  “mountain” road, and on my way I saw that the branches of the trees were covered with glittering ice. As I ascended this road I was intoxicated by the absolute beauty of the ice covered trees, and the bright sun flickered all over. Made it look like millions of diamonds/  I got out of my car and making the sign of the Cross, I said: Lord your beauty is beyond words to describe!  There is also the beauty of the birds and their chirping music, the beauty of flowers and their aroma and bright colors, the fruits on plants, all come from the same soil, but by the wisdom and hand of the Creator of all that exists.

   There is another beauty which infinitely surpassed all other beauties, and that beauty is Jesus Christ.  Knowing that He is the Godman, and seeing Him weeping for the deceased  Lazarus,  almost breaks our hearts, and is couched in the two words: “Jesus wept.”  But of even greater is the beauty of  His life-giving and commanding voice: “Lazarus come forth.”   The ugliness and bad odor of death is immediately put to flight as Lazarus the dead man, comes out of death back into life. Lazarus now risen from the realm of death reflects the great beauty of Christ His Master, the author of our life. The joy and exultation that overflowed in the souls of Martha and Mary also reflects the beauty of Jesus Christ. We observe the beautiful man, who cured the deaf and mute, gave sight to the blind and the paralytics were walking vigorously after His wondrous works. 

Large crowds followed Jesus  attracted by His absolute divine-human beauty. Even the soldiers whose task was to take Jesus which they failed in doing, and when they returned without Him, they were asked why they did not take Him, they replied saying: “No man ever spoke like this man. Christ only by His beautiful authority and power would not rendered it impossible to take Him before His appointed time. Formerly blind men rejoiced when the Light of the world, enabled them to see worldly light. The beauty they experienced is this. Their eyes were opened and the physical light poured in making everything around them visible.  Another set of eyes were also opened at the same time, their spiritual eyes, for they saw with these ideas that Jesus was the Son of David and the Messiah or Christ.

In the world, men usually see only external beauty, but lurking beneath that external beauty is often  found ugliness in the form of egotism, arrogance and misery, for external looks are not genuine beauty. Genuine beauty is to be found in the person. Let us look at Christ’s internal beauty.  What attracted so many to him was His supreme virtue which radiated from Him with great brilliance.  The aura surrounded him  revealed to some his supreme kindness, His great compassion, and especially His unconditional love, For this love is a special aspect of His beauty, which we all attracted to is His being the only Lover of man or philanthropist. Greatly beauty is that when we were ugly and sinful, He in all His beauty and love willingly and in great forbearance, suffered His passion which He suffered for us and willingly allowed them to nail Him to the Cross.

Christ is beautiful and desires to share His beauty by creating man and woman in His image, thus reflecting His great beauty on all creation.  He  chose to create us out of clay, then breathed  into us a life-creating spirit, and by this spirit bestowing upon us freedom, intellect and feelings, with an active will to make choices and  decisions.  What has God wrought?   He has lovingly  given us the greatest gift possible, a gift for which we ought to glorify   Hin day and night. Yes we should thank Him for this temporary life, but we need to remember that the real life is the life in Christ, concerning which, Christ says: “Whoever believe in me shall never die/” The eternal life does not begin after we die, it begins here and now in this present world by our faith in Christ, our holy Baptism and the gift of Holy Spirit/

Jesus is our Head; Jesus is our Bridegroom; Jesus is our Savior; Jesus is the perfect example of what we must become. When we learn to love Jesus we will begin to see His perfect beauty. Everything is from the Lord Jesus Chrsit. All is given through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen genuine beauty until He sees the beauty of Jesus Christ. This is established when a man repents and confesses and approaches Him in a humble manner, with fear of God faith and love.