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One time, a kid doing donuts in a gravel parking lot kicked up rocks and shattered the back window of our SUV. The kid drove away fast. We went home with the heat on.
Once, I threw a plate on the floor in anger and it shattered. I threw away the pieces.
One time, my little brother threw a canoe paddle intending to hit me but instead shattered the front window of our childhood home. He got in trouble.
“Kintsugi” is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery into treasures. Unlike the windows and plate above, the shattered pieces in this art form are considered redeemable.
Craftspeople organize and reassemble broken pieces of pottery and then, using a strong adhesive made from tree sap, they create a mosaic. For the grand finale, artisans transform visible cracks into pathways of shimmering beauty by tracing them with gold, silver, or platinum.
This technique highlights the breakage, transforming fracture lines into beautiful golden seams. The theme of Kintsugi is embracing the object’s history and its breakage, flaws, and imperfections as part of its beauty rather than something to conceal or discard.
This art practice aligns beautifully with the doctrine of God’s redemption!
God created humans to have a relationship with Him, but sin (rebellion against God) broke that relationship, shattering it into pieces. Through Jesus Christ’s life, death on the cross, and resurrection, God provided a way to forgive our sins and restore the broken relationship between God and humanity. God offers this redemption as a gift that people can accept through faith, not by their own good works or merit. We simply cannot glue ourselves or our relationship with God back together.
I picture all the pieces of each of our sin-stained lives gathered up and held in Jesus’ hands. He gently and purposefully sets the pieces of each of our lives into a unique mosaic that is stunningly beautiful and simply right. It’s not a gold or silver color that binds the pieces back together. It’s red; blood red.
Red is the color of the blood that flowed
Down the face of someone who loved us so
He’s the perfect man, He’s the Lord’s own son
He’s the lamb of God, He’s the only one
That can give us life, that can make us grow
That can make the love between us flow.
-The Coloring Song – Petra
God is in the business of redeeming our broken pieces into stunning works of beauty. If we look with eyes of faith, we can see beauty in and through brokenness because our God is a redeeming God. He redeems His creation not by discarding broken people or hiding our broken places, but by transforming brokenness, through the blood of Jesus, into something beautiful that reflects His glory.
I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine. Isaiah 43:1