Beautiful in its time: The unsettling beauty of weakness in mission

In the beginning

In Genesis 1, as God completes creation days, he repeatedly pronounces the creation good. Once completed with the creation of people, he pronounces it very good. To describe God’s role in creation, Genesis 2 pictures God as a potter who shapes the first human, a lump of clay, into a beautiful statue. ‘This is the craftsman God who, in the way of a human artificer, stands back to look at his work and declares his satisfaction with it’ (Gordon, 1997: 353). An onlooker of his own masterpiece, God admires creation’s systemic beauty, particularly the way it functions in its complexity. For example, animals reproduce after their kind, planets mark time, and people do the work God assigned them, all following God’s beautiful design.

When God calls Moses to lead his people out of Egyptian bondage, Moses, like Frodo, is reluctant to accept his commission due to some form of speech disability. In response, God alludes to his creation of people with disabilities like Moses: ‘The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord?”’ (Exod 4:11). Qoheleth will echo the reference to the beauty of God’s creation in Ecclesiastes 3:11 when he says, ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time.’

When Qoheleth studies God’s creation to find answers to life’s questions, he recalls the Genesis 1 and 2 creation accounts as he does throughout the Book of Ecclesiastes (Fensham, 1960: 256-263). He imagines God inspecting the newly created universe and admiring his own craftsmanship. Proverbs tells us more about creation when it states that Wisdom, personified as a girl child, watches and learns about God’s systems while he creates. She even celebrates God’s skill in creating the world (Prov 8:30-31).

Beauty is what God sees in creation after he throws a lump of clay to form people. It not only has aesthetic beauty but also design quality reflected in its systemic complexity. For example, every person has a heart for thinking, planning, and feeling. It is good, even beautiful for what God planned and created it to be and do. Qoheleth describes everything in God’s creation as beautiful in its time (Gilchrist, 1980: 392). We are attractive to God because he made us. God delights in human creation because he formed us in his image (Gen 1:26-28). What then is the image of God?

The image of God

We read that after the Lord completed the rest of creation, ‘God created people in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them’ (Gen 1:27). Crucially, when studied as a salvation historical theme unfolding in all scripture, the image consists of both our intended connection with and reflection of God. What is more, it is already fully in place at creation. All people, including those with disabilities, are created in God’s image and never lose it. Although sin has entered this world and all have sinned, the image of God is not lost or damaged. The image gives all people full dignity.

On the other hand, all people–both Christians and non-Christians–are blemished by sin. Sin has damaged them. They await God’s full renewal as they grow spiritually. They have not arrived at God’s destiny for them, which we refer to as an already, but not yet plan. The New Testament also describes the image as a process in which God renews us through the Spirit empowered process of spiritual maturity (Stahl and Kilner, 2017: 22).

The image of God or his likeness, a near synonym (Millard, 1982: 141), described in Genesis 1:26-28 is more about God and who he is rather than we who are in his image. God’s purpose for the image centers on his intentions, his will to fulfill his determination for us to live and grow in reference to his standards for humanity. Godly growth in us is God’s intention for the image (Kilner, 2017: 140-151).

Who gets the image? All people in Adam are created in God’s image and this image therefore demands that we respect the sanctity of human life in all endeavors. Additionally, none of God’s intended attributes can be lost or marred. If that were true, it would run the risk of degrading people with disabilities. For example, if we argue that the attribute of reason is marred or damaged in people who are developmentally or intellectually disabled, we have missed the point of the image. We have segregated and excluded them.

How does the image function? It is important to recognize that ‘actual likeness to God is not what being created in God’s image involves. Creation in God’s image is God’s expressed intention that people exhibit the special connection they have with God through a meaningful reflection of God’ (Kilner, 2015: 79). Being made in the image of God entails special connection as well as intended reflection. This means that the image of God connects God with people; people reflect God’s image to other people, to onlookers.

Is the image in us? Our dignity is in our connection with God and in God’s intention for us—not in how much the image is actually in us. That is why disability is irrelevant to dignity—disability may limit much that is in us but being in God’s image is not about what is actually in us.

Viewed thusly, the image includes the perception of who people are as God’s creation. It is on display for the world to see. He made us to be like him and other people should see this. The image not only gives us a special connection to him, but it shows others who we are as well as God’s intentions for where we are going in his plan, including God’s design for mission. God’s redemption story is on stage for all to see.

Onlooking as mission

God’s mission theater stages weakness as systemic beauty. Weakness attraction enhances our worship and engages his mission in this world. The onlooker’s theme, pervasive in scripture, continues the story of God’s image; people connect with God in relationship and reflect his image before bystanders. Onlookers observe, believers reflect God because his children connect with him in relationship, and consequently they also may come to faith in him. This is not a mission model or strategy. It is biblical mission in action as God designed it. Bystander examples include:

Moses is unable to speak before all Israel. However, although he cannot lead by speaking due to a disability, he can lead Israel in worship by writing and singing beautiful songs, the Song of the Sea (Exod 15) and the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 31). Artistic beauty reflects God in Moses’ life to bystanders (Millard, 2016: 133-142). All Israel looks on.

In Israel’s hymnal the Psalter, Psalm 1:1 the very first word, ‘Blessed,’ describes the perspective of a bystander who watches those God blesses and who desires, even envies the life of the blessed ones who reflect God because they meditate on the Torah, day and night (Janzen, 1965: 215-226).

In Psalm 67 the psalmist admonishes Israelite worshippers to let the nations be glad and worship. Why? Because as onlookers, entire nations witness God blessing Israel as described in Psalm 1. The Psalmist says, ‘May God bless us still, so that all of the ends of the earth may fear Him’ (Ps 67:7). The nations see God bless Israel for reflecting him and desire Israel’s connection to God (Piper, 1993: 167).

Another form of onlooker pattern expresses ‘the satisfaction of the onlookers when a man brings on himself the calamity, he has planned for someone else’ (Scott, 1971: 62). Blessing and judgment are complementary perspectives that onlookers witness (Prov 26:7). Onlooking is not always for godliness

In Ecclesiastes, Qoheleth watches and studies God’s creation, particularly people and their times, to understand life. We will return to Qoheleth’s experience and his description of beauty in Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 and 5:18-19 as an onlooker’s response to beauty in God’s creation.

Jesus heals one disability after another thus reuniting the healed person with the community until a bystander asks, ‘Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he should be born blind?’ This bystander seeks to understand what caused the disability. Jesus explains that it was neither ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him’ (John 9:4) for onlookers. Jesus tells his disciples that they are the light of the world and that bystanders can see his light reflected in them: ‘In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matt 5:16).

In Acts, immediately after the day of Pentecost, a healed paralytic enters the temple to worship! The passage states clearly that onlookers are ‘astonished’ because they saw and heard his testimony (Acts 3:10-11). Onlookers respond to the miracle as God designed onlooking to function. They glorify the God of heaven who performed the miracle.

Paul’s strength is ‘made perfect’ or brought to completion in weakness (2 Cor 12:9), which was likely some form of disability. The apostle’s weakness is on stage before all bystanders, including Paul’s critics, to give God’s power center-stage in mission with fail-safe accuracy. Black addresses the impact of weakness on disability:

In the midst of his inadequacy and apparent disabilities is at work the grace of God that enables him to be a more than conqueror (Romans 8:37). . . . By means of this disability God’s will was made manifest to his servant: ‘My Grace is sufficient; my strength is independent of human ability; my might is displayed in human weakness; and my will is performed despite infirmities of the body or soul’. (Black, 2012: 111)

From Genesis to Revelation, we find one account after another of mission-onlooking leading people to worship in accordance with God’s intended plan for his image in humanity. In a creation echo, Paul says, for ‘we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus’ (Eph 2:10). The term handiwork implies beauty of craft. Onlookers appreciate God’s work in us and through us for there is arguably no greater power to move people for God than the example of a godly life.

God’s mission story on stage

In Genesis 1, God admired his creation in operation as did Qoheleth when he pronounced, ‘He has made everything beautiful in its time’ (Eccl 3:11). It is God’s drama of redemption, his mission script for all people to witness. On the larger pallet of human history, God is repainting creation’s canvas. ‘Everything’ represents the various aspects of creation in their systemic complexity and resulting functions. Kaiser captures God’s artistic bend from the creation story and ties it to God’s eternal plan in Ecclesiastes when he explains the times in Ecclesiastes 3:2-8:

Everything, as it came from the hand of the Creator in Genesis 1, was ‘very good.’ Even the activities of verses 2-8, which in themselves do not appear beautiful, have a beauty when they are seen as constituent parts of the whole work of God. In God’s world plan, he ‘had made’ all things to fit in their appointed time and place (v. 11). (Kaiser, 1979: 66).

This different kind of beauty creates in us an insatiable appetite to see the parts in the whole as if to paint the many scenes from the creation story on one canvas: ‘So integrated is this total work of God that man, likewise a creation of God, yearns in the depths of his being to trace the providential dealings of God’s government from beginning to the end; yet he cannot’ (Kaiser, 1979: 66).

Why not? ‘The key word in 3:11 is ‘eternity’: God has put eternity in their heart. This quest is a deep-seated desire, a compulsive drive, because people are made in the image of God to appreciate the beauty of creation’ (Kaiser, 1979: 66). People yearn to understand how their story fits into God’s beautiful eternal plan, his comprehensive story. What is the nature of that beauty?

God’s way of beauty

Visit any art gallery and you will witness bystanders appreciating art. The onlooking Qoheleth observes and appreciates the cycle of time and seasons in Ecclesiastes chapters one and two followed by times within God’s eternal plan in chapter three (Blenkinsopp, 1995: 22). We understand the word ‘beautiful’ in Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 based on its use in the sectional goal statement in 5:18, a verse which describes the good life for God’s followers. Consider both verses for clarification:

I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end (3:10-11).

We understand the word ‘beautiful’ in 3:11 better based on its use in the section summary in 5:18:

This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate [beautiful] for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot (5:18).

The ‘times’ of our lives should include eating, drinking, and savoring the good life God has given us. We enjoy them within the framework of God’s ‘activity as a whole, a system’ (Fox, 1999: 104, emphasis added). These verses reveal a unique perspective on beauty that might seem foreign to us. Beauty entails our simple daily pleasures as experiences we desire. Wise living values God’s timing and leads to a good life. So, how then should we understand the expression, ‘He has made all things beautiful in its time’ in 3:10-11? Kaiser explains,

But 3:10 must be taken together with verse 11. For on further revelation, it must be boldly announced that God has made all the events and relationships in life ‘beautiful.’ And in addition to the beauty of this order of things, He has also implanted in the hearts of men a desire to know how this plan of God makes all the details fit together. (Kaiser, 1979: 66)

This description of beauty may seem strange to our thinking. It is an enigma, and it is what Qoheleth saw in creation as he observed (Scott, 1965: 220). Enigma is an interestingly instructive riddle (Clements, 1992: 41). We might expect that good and beautiful things have enigmatic character; we anticipate one thing but get another. For example, in the ancient world, feet were considered dirty and loath to be touched or even seen. But Paul citing the prophet Isaiah created a literary turn, an enigma, on beauty when he says, ‘As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”’ (Rom 10:15 alluding to Isa 52:7). From this illustration we learn how every occasion in life can be beautiful in its time, even if we do not understand it. Beauty is a mystery, particularly when we try to understand it in a story.

Story beauty

Qoheleth recognized that people want to know about and understand their stories, both in the parts and the whole. They want their story to be ‘beautiful’ or ‘good’ as God saw in creation. In both Ecclesiastes 3:13 and 5:18 ‘beautiful’ occurs with ‘good’ in eyesight perception. This along with the word ‘made’ seems to echo Genesis 1 where God creates then sees and pronounces the creation good until he creates people in his image. Then God sees the entire creation as ‘very good’ (Murphy, 1992: 35). The clause, ‘all that he had made’ includes, not only the entities but also the functioning systems God designed. Crucially, the terms good and beautiful as descriptors also occur combined outside the Bible (Hoftizer and Jongeling, 1995: 464). What is more, extra-biblical paraphrases of Ecclesiastes 3:11 substitute ‘good’ for ‘beautiful’ (Barton, 1909: 105). The evidence to link ‘beautiful’ in Ecclesiastes with ‘good’ in Genesis is both contextually and terminologically compelling. In short, Qohelet’s’s use of ‘beautiful’ appears to echo ‘good’ in the Genesis 1 creation account.

The list of appointed activities God assigns to humanity, a ‘catalog of times,’ (Schoors, 2000: 232) is a representative sampling of life activities, such as being born or dying; other activities exist but are not mentioned, such as a time to work and a time to rest both of which Qoheleth commends in Ecclesiastes. In practical terms, this means: ‘Doing the right thing at the right time yields a beautiful sense of fulfillment (11a)’ (Wright, 1991: 1162). In short, God has a fitting time, place, and opportunity for every occasion in life. All parts fit into the whole of God’s story. That is beautiful. The church father Augustine connected disability with beauty attraction on this basis (Brock, 2012: 76).

This leads us to conclude that ‘beautiful’ in Ecclesiastes 3:11 means attractively appropriate to a specific time or occasion (Estes, 2005: 313). For Qoheleth, ‘his view of the earthly realm is that God’s disposal of events in their times is beautiful, . . . an adjective [that] is generally applied to beauty of appearance’ (Eaton, 1983: 81). To repeat, ‘Even the activities of verses 2-8, which in themselves do not appear beautiful, have a beauty when they are seen as constituent parts of the whole work of God’ (Kaiser, 1979: 66).

We learned from the Genesis 1-2 creation account that all creation is attractive because God made it. It improves from good to very good once God creates people. God brings it to its intended purpose in our lives and in eternity’s plan (Hengstenberg, [1869]1977: 106). All creation sets the stage for the creation of God’s image in people. It is beautiful in the parts or the whole because the Master Artist paints his story of ‘eternity’ and its litany of ‘times’ with the broad-brush strokes of redemption history. Redemption, as a story not just an event, is breath-takingly attractive. The most critical question for worship and mission is: Do we want to accept God’s standards of beauty? It is important that we consider the role of beauty in God’s wise design.

Wise design beauty

In scripture, beauty is an attribute of wisdom. To create something of beauty or to appreciate the beauty in that creation requires wisdom. Systems God implanted in creation also have functional or systemic beauty reflected in their wise design, for example the planetary orbits as indicators of time (Gen 1:14-19). On the one hand, God exercised wisdom to create ‘a plan that covers all men, times, and actions’ (Kaiser, 1979: 61). On the other, we onlookers need wisdom to interpret and engage our role in God’s plan. Every aspect of this plan intricately embedded in creation has ‘aesthetic and practical qualities along with its moral perfections’ (Kaiser, 1979: 61). It is truly a ‘beautiful plan’ (Kaiser, 1979: 66).

In the ancient Near Eastern world, art was attributed to wisdom. Israel shared an appreciation for wisdom with its neighbors but elevated it to the work of God. God is the source of all beauty. For example, when it comes time to build the tabernacle, Bezalel, an artisan credited with wisdom produces the pictorial engraving (Exod 31:1-6, and chapters 36-39). Through Moses, God commissions Bezalel to recreate the Garden of Eden in the tabernacle, the sanctuary where people met God in fellowship and worship. These depictions, such as palm trees in the Garden of Eden, facilitate Israel’s worship and mission by reminding worshippers of creation when people walked with God in fellowship. The Garden of Eden is the quintessential location where worship began. This is beauty in worship and mission. Bezalel’s wisdom produces a visual story. Crucially, God also empowers him to ply his craft:

Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts’ (Exod 31:1-5).

Without God’s empowerment, the artist could not have produced beautiful tabernacle engravings. Neither could God’s people appreciate it. This is artistic power in wisdom. Also, without the empowering gift, Bezalel’s skilled colleague Oholiab could not have designed and produced the rest of the tabernacle complex. Their weakness—skill empowered by God—prepared them to receive God’s artistic power. Even weakness has systemic beauty in the hands of an all-powerful Creator God. All of us on mission, like Frodo, are insufficient—too weak to attain mission success. But God empowers us in our dependency. How should we understand this weakness?

Weakness is unsettling beauty in our worship and witness

Weakness is another beautiful system in God’s redemption plan. God created us in human frailty as part of his image. Famously in the words of one theologian, ‘We are all Weak’ (Søren Kierkegaard). As image-bearers, we reflect God’s power and wisdom through our dependency upon him. This weakness attraction is the heart of mission leading to witness and worship. At first glance, this may seem counterintuitive or enigmatic. But upon closer observation, it is the mission crucible of the cross’s power, the climax performance on stage in God’s redemption theater.

Weakness is a loss of strength or ability that affects everyone, and changes throughout our lives. Disability terminology changes over time, but with each new term one characteristic remains: namely, that some ability is lacking. This negative framing of disability is a reason why the church struggles to understand it, appreciate it, and respond fittingly to it. Seeing weakness and strength through a biblical lens brings a positive perspective that corrects ableism. One disability theorist referred to this perspectival shift as ‘image enhancement’ (Wolfensberger, 2013: 86-93).

The Bible teaches that to be human is to be weak (Gen 1; Ps 19; Rom 1). We are frail, transitory, and mortal beings (Rom 5:6; 6:19; 8:26). From Genesis to Revelation, scripture recognizes the weakness of people or their ‘flesh’. It is pervasive and continuous: ‘Weakness is . . . not simply the occasional experience of sickness or powerlessness, but a fundamental mark of the individual’s worldly existence’ (Black, 2012: 154).

As Qoheleth explains in Ecclesiastes, while we may experience temporary strength, to pursue strength is ultimately a chasing after the wind (Eccl 1:14). We all are weak. The apostle Paul taught that our ‘whole being is dependent upon God and that men and women as creatures of God (like Adam and Eve) are susceptible to the limitations of all creation’ (Black, 2012: 151). Crucially, Paul’s treatment of weakness is commonly found in biblical contexts which focus on the apostle’s mission (Deuel and John, 2019: 12-17). Paul viewed weakness as essential for mission.

Owning our weakness can lead to biblical strength, which is rooted in dependence. Because God created the universe, he depends on nothing. But God designed humanity, indeed all creation, to depend on him. In the Fall, people sought independence and power, and, sadly, became weaker as sin weakened the creation. Ironically people’s unquenchable thirst for independence and power resulted in weakness that would ultimately crush them.

By contrast seen clearly throughout scripture, when we depend on God, we allow him to enable us with his strength. True biblical strength is a consequence of a right and dependent relationship with God. God’s plan of redemption is to bring human beings back into perfect dependence upon and union with him. Therefore, paradoxically, it is in our weakness that we are strongest yet most dependent on God. Similarly, if we are disabled, we are perhaps more likely to be dependent on God; to be God-abled.

Weakness, the cross, and the Spirit

But God in his grace resolved our human weakness by sending his Son in weakness as a babe to die as an adult in weakness on a cross at the hands of human power. In Christ, the paradigms of power and weakness were turned upside down. Through this weakness of the cross God restores our relationship with himself, allowing us to depend on Christ dwelling in us, and giving us true biblical strength.

The cross nullifies the root cause of weakness by restoring our relationship with God in astounding ways. About weakness, Black says, ‘It is enough to know that Paul ‘most gladly’ and with full eagerness welcomed it because it had made him all the more aware of his Master’s all-sufficient grace and dynamic power in the midst of his own weaknesses’ (Black, 1984: 79). What is more, it’s true of Paul’s disability in the throes of mission. Silva adds, ‘At the same time the power of God is at work in that weakness amid the conditions of suffering and alienation. Thus, Paul arrives at the paradoxical statement that he would rather boast about his weaknesses’ (2 Cor. 11:29-30; 12:5, 9-10; 13:9), for God’s ‘power is made perfect in weakness (12:9)’ (Silva, 2014: 422), meaning brought to its completion.

How does God work through all people including those with disabilities for his mission? The Spirit activates God’s mission even when we are so weak that we do not know what to pray. In Romans 8:26, ‘Paul emphasizes the missiological role of the Spirit in light of our weakness’ (Vollmer, 2018: 222) because ‘for Paul prayer is the ultimate showplace of the power of God revealed in human weakness’ (Black, 2012: 127). The stage in God’s mission theater is set for God to manifest his power before a watching world. But does the Spirit empower prayer weakness only?

In Romans 8:26, when the Spirit intercedes for us it ‘relates to a weakness in relation to prayer, but more than just simply prayer, it relates to accomplishing God’s will in the world’ (Vollmer, 2018: 261). Unlike us, the Spirit knows God’s will and intercedes for us accordingly, particularly in our brokenness and inability. This gives us hope. Indeed, in 2 Corinthians 10-13 ‘Paul sees hope increasing in times of suffering and the Spirit is the missiological medium God uses to help believers overcome’ (Vollmer, 2018: 169).

Also, the Spirit is the mediating agent by which God accomplishes his mission in the world whether as the divine source for knowledge or specific action (Vollmer, 2018: 203). Our mission is in God’s hands and God does it all through our weakness. Why? ‘The power of God evident in Paul’s ministry, not least in the transforming effect of the Gospel he preached, could be seen to be no merely human achievement of Paul’s but divine power which found its opportunity in Paul’s weakness’ (Bauckham, 1982: 4). Is it beautiful? It is difficult to imagine a more stunningly attractive performance in God’s weakness theater. No wonder God said to Paul, ‘power is perfected in weakness’ (1 Cor 12:9).

How is perfected power beautiful? The beauty of Paul’s weakness was that it allowed him to experience God’s grace more fully as God provided him with the power to endure challenges. We experience ‘God’s riches at Christ’s expense’ and as ‘a force that sustains us throughout our lives’ (Garland, 1999: 524). When Paul said he was ‘content with weaknesses,’ he wasn’t saying he just tolerated them. The word content means ‘to be well pleased with, take delight in’ (Silva, 2014: 313). We might liken this to the experience of appreciating art and all things beautiful. We accept God’s standards of beauty, even with our unanswered questions. God’s image, the true beauty we reflect before a watching world, engages us God’s mission and empowers us to serve and glorify him (Deuel and John, 2023: 74-79).