Ultimate Beauty This contemplation considers what ultimate beauty really is.
We need to know beyond our imagination or opinion if such a thing does exist,
And if it's a source of all beauty.
I suggest that ultimate beauty is only found in God.
You might have well-developed ideas about God or not,
But hopefully the biblical underpinning in this contemplation will help you to know ultimate beauty as God himself.
Simone Veille,
The French philosopher and mystic,
Said,
In everything which gives us the pure authentic feeling of beauty,
There really is the presence of God.
There is,
As it were,
An incarnation of God in the world,
And it is indicated by beauty.
The beauty of the world is Christ's tender smile for us,
Coming through matter.
Do you think of God as being beautiful?
Many don't make this association,
But God is indeed beautiful.
The first way we might understand this is by looking at the Hebrew word tov in the Bible.
This word means good,
Perfect,
When something is the absolute fulfillment of what it's meant to be.
This word is used to describe all that God creates in Genesis.
We know that many things in this world are not beautiful,
But as one wisdom writer,
Ecclesiastes,
Explains,
God will make everything beautiful again.
It's God's will to restore all things to their intended perfection and beauty,
Even each one of us.
The word glory appears a lot in the Bible as an attribute of God,
Tiphra in Hebrew.
But perhaps instead of reading the word as an archaic descriptor of God,
Know that it's referring to his perfection and beauty.
The third way that God is described to be beautiful is in a way that fascinates and mesmerizes,
Just as a beautiful woman can fascinate a man.
It's this kind of fascination with God's beauty that the psalmist experiences when he speaks about his longing to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord forever.
God invites us to enjoy not only the beauty of the world,
But his beauty too.
Jesus could be arguably counted as the most beautiful human being that has ever lived.
His love and self-sacrifice revealed in his actions and death go beyond any other.
He also physically revealed his splendor and beauty to his disciples whilst up a mountain,
Or to others in visions,
So that they were overwhelmed by it.
Perhaps this is why we cannot yet see God face to face,
As his beauty would overwhelm us.
However,
We are promised in the Bible that one day we shall see him face to face,
As we will be like him,
Perfected and beautified.
It is only in God that we see ultimate beauty,
And only from him that we find ultimate beauty for ourselves.
.
.
