When a 15th-century shogun broke his favorite tea bowl he sent it back to China to get it repaired. Rumer has it that he was so disappointed with how it was restored that he sent the bowl to Japanese craftsmen to see if they could do something better. This they say was the birth of kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending pottery. It involves mixing lacquer with gold or silver powder and using that as glue to fill in the cracks or to adhere the broken pieces. The restored piece will have gold (or silver) lines running through it, like tributaries branching off a river.
The kintsugi method is definitely different. Traditionally when we aim to fix something, we want to hide the flaw and make the repair seamless and invisible. The goal is to return the item to its former glory like it was never broken in the first place. But kintsugi doesn’t hide the cracks. Instead, it highlights and makes it the star player. In a way, kintsugi is the art of creating beauty from brokenness. The very same thing that Jesus does with us.
Coincidentally, the Bible refers to us as fragile clay jars (2 Cor 4:7). We are prone to breaking, chipping and cracking. We all bear the marks of weathering life’s storms. It’s hard not to be affected. This week alone some parents are making end-of-life plans for their baby who will never reach her first birthday. Others are tormented by the empty room their teenager used to inhabit. His body now lays in the morgue. And some are receiving test results that confirm their worst fears. These are all devastating jar-breaking situations and our bodies reflect it. They change us.
We will never be the person we were before, and we can never hope to be that person again. We are broken, shattered. There are no words that can ease the pain and that’s the beauty of kintsugi, it doesn’t mask the brokenness. Allow Jesus to take all the broken pieces and make them into something beautiful. He can take the chips that were meant to make us useless and make them special. He can take the cracks that were meant to destroy and turn them into the most powerful parts of our story.
Jesus is a kintsugi master and if we bring our broken parts to Him, He can turn them into works of art. Brokenness doesn’t have to be the end of our story, it can be the beginning.
We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies. 2 Cor 4:8-10