When I was a kid, my family used to stay in a cabin up in the mountains of Lantau Island in Hong Kong. I spent hours with my brother digging an elaborate “construction zone” into the clay of an embankment for our Tonka trucks and Matchbox cars. Every once in a while, we’d find just the right tool in Dad’s tool box. A dirty old chisel, perfect for the job.
When my second daughter, Siri, was just learning to draw, she gave me two ID cards she had made. They have been in my wallet ever since. They are not great representations of our actual appearance, as you can see, but every so often, when I’m feeling lonely or down, I look at them and usually get teary thinking about her at that age. Perfect ID cards.
When I was a teacher in Taiwan, I took a group of students on a hike to a beautiful waterfall. A deep pool. A rocky outcropping to jump off. A spot to sit right on the edge of the pool before the water cascaded down to more rocks below. Some of my students were terrified of the whole endeavor or felt it was all just too dirty. But for me and many others, it was the highlight of the trip. It was perfect.
A dirty old chisel. Deeply inaccurate portraits. A cold and mossy waterfall. Perfection?
This November I spent nine days with 25 students in Guatemala on one of our GO! Week trips. One of the highlights for me was a two-hour, late night conversation about theology with the boys in my cabin. One of the topics was perfection. What did perfection look like in the Garden? What will it look like one day in heaven? Did Adam ever cut his knee on a rock? Did Eve ever bump her head on a tree branch as she foraged for food? Did it hurt? If so, was this a perfect world and perfect garden? We asked ourselves: do we sometimes think about perfection too much like sterility or a clean math solution and not enough like the “messy” aesthetic of music or art?
Is the statement true from one of C.S. Lewis’s characters in Till We Have Faces that “holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood”?
In Hebrews 5, we see a curious image of our Perfect Savior:
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.
Jesus, our Perfect Savior, with loud cries and tears.
Jesus, our Perfect Savior, somehow learning obedience.
Jesus, our Perfect Savior, suffering unimaginably.
This Christmas, as we celebrate the Incarnation, or God being “made flesh” and “making his dwelling among us” (John 1), let us consider the mystery of God’s Perfection.
First, let us marvel at God, the Perfect One who chose to live a Perfect life in the midst of darkness—of a world filled with sin and shame. Imagine the agony Jesus must have felt in being immersed in a world of corruption and flaws, in seeing the consequences of petty and largely failed attempts at righteous behavior among his disciples, in being tortured and killed by the very forces that destroyed His Garden. All willingly, all with the patient awareness that he had the power to completely transform and sanctify in the midst of the deepest chasms of brokenness. God’s Perfection is willing to get down in the muck and mire with us. It’s a marvel.
A filthy manger. Restoring sight with spit and mud. A splintered cross. Perfection.
Second, let us change our expectations. Just as our ways are not His, so our notions of perfection are not God’s. When we parent, we often place expectations on our children that might be more about our own preferences than God’s. Are we looking at the things He does? Are we more concerned with grades than learning—or with behavior than heart change? This Christmas you may be tempted to feel disappointment that the decorations are not done right or put up in time. You may be frustrated that someone changes their plans at the last minute. Your version of perfection will not be met. But are you paying attention to what God sees as good? To what He looks at as Perfect? Would our incarnate, Perfect Savior be angry about the plans and the preparations, or would he be more pleased about the “one thing”—“the good portion”? (Luke 10:41-42) Is His Perfection something completely different from your version?
A meaningful conversation amidst the chaos. An incisive question. A healed heart. Glimpses of Perfection.
Third, let us be filled with gratitude. We are broken people living in a broken world. As John put it, “the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him” (John 1). We are natural slaves to lust and materialism, to gossip and greed, to bitterness and worry. Our inclinations are what provoke our Savior to “loud cries and tears” (Hebrews 5). Yet He, in all His Perfection, has atoned our hearts and sanctifies us. Our shoddy attempts at righteousness are like rancid rags to God (Isaiah 64:6), yet in His mercy He somehow sees beauty in us, stooping to our feeble attempts, molding us more and more into the image of His Son. How can we not rejoice in His willingness to make the imperfect Perfect? To see beauty in our ashes and life in our bones?
A Perfection we can’t comprehend.
A Perfection that defies our petty expectations.
A Perfection with us in the mud.
A Perfection that makes us new.
Rejoice this Christmas that our Perfect Savior made His dwelling in our imperfect world. May we better see His work around us, in us, and through us.
— J.T.
