Broken, Beautiful Things

“All this pain

I wonder if I’ll ever find my way

I wonder if my life could really change at all

All this earth

Could all that is lost ever be found

Could a garden come up from this ground at all

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of us

All around

Hope is springing up from this old ground

Out of chaos life is being found in You

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of us

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of us

You make me new, You are making me new

You make me new, You are making me new

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of the dust

You make beautiful things

You make beautiful things out of us”

Gungor

As a self-identified Enneagram 1 working on silencing my super loud inner critic, this song gets me every time. During this time in the Christian calendar (advent) where we set aside time to wait expectantly in the anticipation of celebrating Jesus’ birth and the hopeful eagerness of his coming again, I see this song through the lens of the last meal Jesus had with his disciples here on earth. In both the meal that Jesus had with them (the Last Supper), and what they were remembering as Jews that night (Passover), Jesus was showing His disciples that broken things like bread and his body aren’t the end of the story--in fact, they came to symbolize the transformation into a new reality.  And the Passover is a remembrance of the time that God delivered the Jewish ancestors from Egypt and slavery.  During that time, God was showing his people that broken things like slavery and wandering through the desert aren’t the end of the story--in fact, they came to mark how God transformed their nation into a new reality.  And now as we wait in this already-not yet tension of the advent season, the Holy Spirit is showing me that broken things like barren bodies and empty nurseries aren’t the end of the story.  

Sunday’s New Testament reading was the song of Zechariah as his tongue was loosed after nine months of not being able to speak in preparation for their son, John the Baptist—the one who would prepare the way for Jesus. One of the kids in Sunday school got confused between this story and the one of Abraham and Sarah because, “they were also old and sad because they couldn’t have a baby, but then God made a miracle happen and both babies became really important people.”  I’ve never made that connection of the similarities between these stories; from the mouths of babes, right? Both couples waited and waited and waited, perhaps believing they were broken. No garden could come up from their barren soil. 

And yet, it was not the end of their story. 

In their waiting, these couples found a hope to end all hoping. Through Abraham and Sarah’s line came the savior of us all whose way was prepared by the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth. God was making things new. God is always in the process of making things new. Our waiting may not turn out how we hoped—what mother wants her son beheaded in the prime of his life or to be asked to sacrifice the very son she waited and prayed for? But in the midst of it all, God is reminding me that nothing is too broken. 

The story doesn’t end in pain. 

It’s why we proclaim the mystery of our faith each week before we take communion, the remembrance of Jesus’ broken body and spilled blood marked during the last supper with his disciples, a meal which remembers the Passover and deliverance of the Israelites: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Our advent is not done yet. 

So in the season of our lives as Alec and I await the birth of our child, we can sing, 

“All around 

Hope is springing up from this old ground

Out of chaos life is being found in You

You make me new, you are making me new.”