Repaired and Renewed

John 20:19-31

Repaired and Renewed

Some of you may be familiar with the form of art known as Kintsugi (which may be literally translated as 'golden joinery' in Japanese, also known as kintsukuroi or "golden repair"). It is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with urushi lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.  

In our Gospel reading for today, you may have noticed that Jesus showed the disciples, and later Thomas, his wounds to confirm that it was really him. Interestingly, in John’s vision of heaven in Revelation 5, the Apostle recognised the Lamb as one that had been obviously slaughtered. In other words, the wounds of Jesus that identified him as our Passover Lamb, are still visible even now as he sits on his throne in glory.

Many have wondered why his wounds had not disappeared after he was raised…but that which bought us our salvation is far too glorious to hide from the sight of the redeemed. In eternity to come we will still humbly and lovingly gaze with deep gratitude on those wounds that redeemed us. Of course, they also serve to remind everyone of the awful cost of sin…we should never take our salvation for granted…grace may be free, but it was not cheap.

But I believe, the presence of his wounds post-resurrection also addresses what God does with us when he redeems us. Like Jesus, we are raised from a state of deadness (in our case deadness in sins and trespasses) and we are seated in heavenly places with him because we are united with him according to Ephesians 2:6.

But, like Jesus, I believe, we too continue to bear the tokens of our scars.

In 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 Paul wrote: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”

As the scars of Jesus are far too glorious to hide from the sight of the redeemed, and as his wounds serve as a reminder of the awful cost of sin, so too our scars…not removed but redeemed and renewed…serve as a reminder of salvation and sanctification, but also that the surpassing power belongs to God, not to us. 

We often do not understand this because we are part of a consumer-based society that sees renewal as a discardment of the old and a replacement with something completely new…the so-called “new and improved” version…but God’s renewal is not replacement but reparative…not just in a sense of restoring utility or usefulness…but in a sense of transformative re-creation (a new creation of the old creation) that brings about a beauty out of brokenness and, in many ways, in that brokeness.

The Kintsugi masters go looking for broken pottery and may often find treasures that no one else wants, precisely because they are broken. Then out of the shards of shattered bowls and vessels, they painstakingly mend the object with laquer and gold making a restored piece that is, in many ways, more beautiful than the original. 

But, and this is probably the most important point I wish to make today, the repair work shows to the world the creative nature and the amazing ability of the skilled craftsman that remade it into the beautiful piece of art that it now is. 

And so it is with us. We find God’s creative salvific presence and power not on the shelves of the “new and better” but on the heaps of the broken and the discarded. Like the Kintsugi pottery, we bear in our bodies the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. Our repaired brokenness witnesses to his grace, his forgiveness, his love, and his redemptive power at work in us and tells those who see us that salvation is gifted to the broken, not the whole or the perfect. God’s glory shines most brightly through our cracks rather than through our perfection.

So, as we celebrate the greatest gift ever given to humankind, let us remember that this gift is most clearly seen in our repaired scars…

I’d like to conclude with a poem I wrote entitled The Ballad of Creation.

The Ballad of the New Creation

Before the voice that summoned light, there was a formless deep,

The Spirit brooded over all in silent hovering sweeps.

The darkened void hung motionless until the Word unseen

Spoke into being all that is and all that is to be.

Then broke the darkness into light, an evening and a day,

The Cosmic Artist sung the stars and laughed the Milky Way.

He spun the world in rhythmic turns of sky and sea and earth,

He breathed into a lump of clay and granted Adam birth.

The pinnacles of what he made were called to represent

The one whose image they revealed, and they were quite content.

Then on the seventh day he ceased; he finished all he’d made,

He hallowed it and rested from the goodness now displayed. 

But then the serpent found the tree and coiled it with deceit,

And in the garden sin destroyed the fellowship once sweet.

A woman stood beneath the tree as God looked on and cried,

The precious jars of clay he’d made lay shrivelled, cracked, and dried.

Yet mercy wove within the curse a thread of golden grace:

Broken not discarded shards of pottery, though defaced

Would once more be restoried, in renewal beautified,

As he reversed the dreadful curse that day when death would die.

Again, the Spirit brooded, not over waters, but the womb,

And so was born the Holy Child in brokeness and gloom.

The Word once more spoke light into the world that he had made,

And yet the serpent coiled again, and Jesus was betrayed.

There on the cross the darkness clashed with word and light again.

“It’s Finished”, the Creator cried as life came to an end.

The women stood beneath the tree, as God looked on and cried,

His precious incarnated Son bowed low his head and died.

Again, the seventh day was still, the Creator was at rest.

He’d robbed the grave of victory and raided Satan’s nest.

But then the Spirit moved once more, once more the voice was heard,

The rising, swelling, upsurge of the symphonic living Word.

Still shards of broken pottery we all appear to be,

But as the wounds that bought us life, still there for all to see,

Were not removed nor were replaced, but borne and deified,

So are our cracks with glory filled, renewed and beautified.

He does not cast the world aside, though shrivelled, cracked, and dried,

But gathers shards of shattered clay and with what he supplies

Creates a new yet better work of art that will reveal 

The love of God that shines so clearly through the wounds he heals.

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2025.