God and our throwaway society

My wife and I enjoy antiquing. We love exploring back rooms and hidden corners, searching for glimpses of beauty and value, however dust shrouded or dilapidated. The ubiquity of antique shops and the success of television shows like “Antiques Roadshow” and “American Pickers” tell me we’re not unique in that respect. Of course, some hold hopes of finding buried treasure and striking it rich; but, on the whole, I think the motivation runs much deeper. I believe that the human heart has a deep-seated and desperate longing for restoration.

We live in a throwaway society. Products are manufactured under the business model of planned obsolescence. Dumps (or “sanitary landfills” as the euphemism has them) fill up at alarming rates. If it’s broken, why bother with fixing it? There are plenty more available at Walmart. The days of heirlooms, it would seem, have long passed. Yet in the interminable cycle of buy-use-discard, there remains an emptiness within that we never quite manage to satiate. We know something is amiss.

Do we ever pause to ask why God didn’t just start over? Why, after his creation rebelled, didn’t he simply dispose of the problem and begin anew? It certainly would’ve been a much cleaner and less convoluted solution. But something within the heart of God wouldn’t permit that. To be sure, love is a central part of the equation here, but there is more to it. God is a restorer, through and through. He sees beauty where there is none, looking past what is to what could be. For goodness sake, he envisioned in dust the entire human race! God has not forgotten the imago dei waiting beneath our scars and soul-disease to be reclaimed. The light each of us carries is far too precious to abandon; he will go to any length to salvage it. And he did.

Consider as another example the body of Christ. Scripture tells us his ordeal was so horrific that he was marred beyond recognition: “Many were amazed when they saw him – beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know he was a person” (Isaiah 52:14, New Living Translation). Deep gouges, gaping wounds, and blue-black bruises covered what remained of his body. Yet tattered and spent as it was, it was not left to decompose in the tomb, replaced by a new one. The body of Jesus was raised to life and restored. We recognize the resurrection as a picture of our own passage from death to life through Christ, but the symbolism doesn’t end there. It is also an undying reminder that no matter what occurs, no matter what this world does to us, beauty remains. After all, the scars which Jesus continues to bear once secured the salvation of humanity. What the world views as ugly, death-dealing wounds, God recognizes as a new beginning.

Restoration speaks a revolutionary truth: Every moment of our life, every misstep and mistake, every tear and heartache is an invitation into redemption. There is no place we have been and nothing we have done that God cannot redeem: “Every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. God knew what he was doing from the very beginning… Absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us (Romans 8:28-29, 39, The Message). This is the truth that we preach and the hope that drives us: His love never fails, never gives up, never runs out on us.