From the Pastor's Study
Creative Redemption
Jan 19, 2022
A few weeks ago a table I had “made” appeared on Facebook. I put the word, “made,” in quotation marks because I had very little to do with making the table. For those who did not see it, the table is made out of a three-foot slice of the trunk of a soft maple tree. It is about 3 inches thick, and although the bark has been removed, the original shape of the tree is still there. I can’t claim that I made the table, for God made the tree, someone cut it down, another person cut it into slices and someone else put it into his kiln to dry it. I merely took the product of what others had done and finished it and put some legs on it.
What is not entirely obvious from the pictures (or even if you see it in real) is that that slice of the trunk of that tree had begun to rot in the centre. The centre of the table was actually quite soft and it had begun to deteriorate significantly and although it wasn’t completely rotten, it wasn’t far from it. To stabilize the rotten part, I saturated it with epoxy and then allowed it to harden. The epoxy transformed what was soft and rotten and made it as hard and durable as the rest of the tree. I then sanded it flat and put a finish on it. I had very little to do with making the table, for most of the work was done by God and others.
I must also confess that had I not been spending time looking at the creative work of others on the Internet, I would have written that slice of tree trunk off as garbage. Being it is rather decayed soft maple it didn’t even have much value as firewood, and I would never have seen what the tree slice could become. However, others, who are far more creative than I, have looked at similar blocks of wood and they have seen beauty. I am not creative like they are, but I can copy their work. I learned from them, and I took something that was fit for little more than to be thrown into the swamp and I made something useful out of it. It is also quite beautiful, although that is more a function of the wood itself rather than something that I can take credit for.
I think that there is an object lesson in this slice of a tree trunk. At one time the tree was solid, standing tall and proud in the woods. But it grew old and started to die, and insects and rot began to attack it, making it weak. If it hadn’t been cut down, it would have fallen down by itself. When it was dried in the kiln, it suffered further degradation as a huge crack appeared that went from the circumference to the centre. That crack weakened it further.
When God created trees, he made them to be beautiful and strong. When God created humanity he made us to be beautiful and strong. However, because of sin, we begin to die on the inside. Sin rots us from the inside out, causing us to become blemished and ugly. We crack and rot, and eventually our lives, like the life of that tree, will come to an end. There doesn’t seem to be too much redeemable in us. Like the tree, we might say that we are best fit to be thrown into the swamp.
But God is creative beyond just making us the first time. God, in his creativity, is able to take that which is dirty and ugly and seemingly beyond use, and he can shape it and make it into something beautiful. God doesn’t take away our individual histories with all our mistakes and problems and sadness. Like the creative person looking at a rotten tree, God sees what he can do with us to make us beautiful in spite of our problems and weaknesses and rot. He takes that which is ugly and stained and full of worm holes, and he strengthens us, finishes us, and makes us into something that is completely different from what we were.
We see this very clearly in those who have been much affected by sin. A drug addict or an alcoholic, an abusive person or a swindler – God has taken such people with all their ugliness and through Jesus Christ has made them into completely different people who are now beautiful. The scars and stains and rottenness of the past may still be evident, but they no longer make that person what he/she is. We have seen how God makes beautiful people out of that which is ugly and rotten. He changes us to become like his Son, scarred by the nails but beautiful in his grace.
Should the tree have rotted as it did? No, it should not have. That is not what trees are meant to do. They are meant to be strong and beautiful. That being said, a creative person can take that which is ugly and make something beautiful out of it. God does the same with us.
God does not intend us to be stained by sin, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t work with us and in us to make us beautiful again. Only our creative God can do something far more amazing than what can be done with a broken and rotten tree. He can do and, indeed, does that very thing with us. We ought to avoid sin, but when we do sin and when God gets hold of us, and when he saves us through Jesus Christ, he can make something very beautiful out of something that seemed unredeemable. He makes us into new persons through his Son and because of his creative work we become beautiful again.
Pastor Gary
