God takes pleasure in beauty. God created a beautiful planet, as the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (3:11). That feeling we have when we are overcome by the beauty of the natural world around us is immensely spiritual. The philosopher Hegel saw beauty as a kind of bridge between the material and the spiritual. Medieval theologians put great emphasis on the importance of beauty as a reflection of God’s beauty and they encouraged the creation of beautiful worship spaces and beautiful music. Here in Exodus 31 we see God gifting people with the ability to create beautiful things. It is interesting to note that their skill is attributed to God. The fact that we humans can create such beauty is a reflection of God’s image in us. And God wanted this to come out in the building of the tabernacle. There were to be no images of any kind of creature in the tabernacle but everything in it was to be beautifully ornate. David, in Psalm 27, longs “to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD,” and, no doubt the beauty of tabernacle evoked this longing and served to remind the people of the ultimate beauty of God. We have a tendency to divide the physical and the spiritual and, in doing so, we miss the divine imprint in the physical world. Next time you walk through a beautiful building let it remind you of the divine in mankind. Next time you look out upon the beauty of creation let it speak to you about the beauty of the LORD.
Ask God to open your eyes to see his reflection in the world around you.
Read Exodus 31:1-11
