KINTSUGI

Kintsugi is the Japanese art form of repairing and displaying broken pottery.  Instead of hiding the flaws, or discarding the pottery altogether, the broken pieces are carefully reassembled and rejoined via lacquer, dusted with a precious metal, such as gold, silver or platinum.  The point is not to conceal the damage, but actually highlight the cracks and fractures, celebrating it as an intrinsic aspect of the object’s history, which offers a unique and even more beautiful appearance.  Through this process, the pottery becomes a transformed vessel, more valuable, not less, because it has been broken yet redeemed.

We, ourselves, are vessels of Kintsugi.  We live in this juxtaposition as God’s amphibians, creatures of spirit and flesh; being created in His image (Gen. 1:27) yet fallen (Gen. 3:1-24).  While sin cast us from the Garden, we were not beyond redemption, just beyond self-repair (Rom. 3:23).  As the Kintugi artist, through Christ, God does not discard us.  He redeems and restores us, not by erasing our scars, but by transforming them into testimonies of grace:  “But he said tome, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” (2 Cor. 12:9).  Like the gold-infused fractures in the Kintsugi pottery, our past sins and present struggles, when met with grace, become markers of God’s mercy and power, not shame (Rom. 8:1; 1 Tim. 1:15-16).

This image of a broken yet redeemed vessel resonates with how the Bible describes our lives in Christ.  Paul offers this contrast by proposing that while we are freed from sin (Rom. 6:18), we are also sold under sin (Rom.7:14).  We are, as Paul writes, both “wretched man” and “redeemed by Christ” (Rom. 7:24–25). We still struggle within—Paul confesses he often does what he hates (Rom. 7:15)—yet we are also being sanctified, reshaped by the grace of God. The cracks remain visible, but they are now filled with the mercy of Christ. The Reformed tradition affirms this paradox: we are simul justus et peccator—simultaneously justified and sinful.  Though we are declared righteous in Christ, we still wrestle with the flesh.  

We can see this in ourselves as individuals, but what does this mean for us, collectively, within the church, as a community of believers?  Perhaps it means that we do not expect perfection from one another (1 John 1:8). In fact, we know we will miss the mark; what we agree upon is where to aim.  We bear with one another and forgive each other (Col. 3:13), as Christ forgave us.  We stir one another up to love and good works, not through guilt or legalism, but through encouragement and shared hope(Heb. 10:24-25).  The beauty of the church is not in its perfection, but in its Redeemer.  We are an art gallery of Kintsugi vessels—each of us cracked, but mended by Christ’s grace.  The gold that fills our fractures is not our righteousness, but His.         

As we worship, serve and grow together, let us see each other through the eyes of the Master Craftsman:  not defined by our brokenness, but through the beauty of redemption is working in us all.

In Christ,

Mort Taylor