"You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." [2 Corinthians 3:2-3]
Martin Scorsese and Greta Gerwig make movies. Pablo Picasso and Mary Cassatt were painters. Marilyn Robinson and Wendell Berry are writers of novels and essays. Michelangelo and Rodin worked in sculpture. Ah, but the Spirit of the living God works in the medium of human hearts. God's masterpieces, in the end, are not on canvases, screens, or bookshelves, but human lives that reflect the character of Christ.
It's not our usual way of thinking, is it? To picture the Holy Spirit as something of an artist or creative type, but not working with oil paints, watercolors, movie cameras, or the Great American Novel, but rather crafting us as Jesus-followers? But that's the gist of this short moment from Paul's correspondence with the Christian community in Corinth. Paul, who himself is well-known for his ability to compose an elegantly written letter with the masterful prose and persuasion of a professional wordsmith, says that ultimately God isn't interested so much in lovely language on parchment or papyrus, but in lives that look like Jesus. That's the kind of letter the Spirit is writing--not just memorable turns of phrase or poetic figures of speech, but human hearts that love the way Jesus loves. In the end, it's people that God is looking to turn into a divine masterpiece, not an epistle, novel, movie, or painting. It's us.
I keep coming back to that movie, Mr. Holland's Opus, from 1996 with Richard Dreyfuss as a would-be composer who takes a job teaching high school band and orchestra to make ends meet until his hoped-for big break. You watch him over the course of decades as he attempts to do both at once--keep up with classes and inspiring students while also trying to work on his symphony--and by the time he is ready to retire, students from across the years come back and play for him the piece he wrote but which never made him famous. And one of his former students, now all grown-up and fulfilling her own vocation, now says to the aged teacher, "We are your symphony." Her point is that in the end, the real difference his life has made is visible in the lives of the students whom he has taught, rather than the fame, wealth, or status he might have achieved if he were only a composer. Mr. Holland had assumed for so long that his greatest "opus," would be the sheet music of a symphony, when it turned out that the real mark of his handiwork was in the lives of his students, family, school, and community. That is to say, his masterpiece was composed not of notes on paper, but of people.
Well, that's the way the Spirit works, too, ultimately--except that the Spirit doesn't have to wait until a retirement celebration in the high school auditorium after budget cuts to the music department to realize it. The Spirit of God has known all along that the real masterpiece comes in lives rather than limestone monuments, works of art, or famous writings. The Spirit's goal is ultimately to shape us to be people who speak, act, and love as reflections of Jesus. We are God's music, perhaps, but we are a symphony with faces. We human beings are the ones who are slow to catch on to what God been doing all along through the Spirit.
Sometimes we church folk get it backwards and think that the most important "work" of the Spirit was inspiring the Bible--in other words, a printed final product like the musical score of Mr. Holland's symphony. But that's not really the way the Bible itself sees things: the Scriptures aren't an end-point, made for their own sake. The Bible is one means by which the Spirit shapes us, forms us, and fashions us into the ultimate masterpiece of God--a whole new humanity in a whole new creation, in which Christ is all in all. God's ultimate goal has never just been to leave the world a written record of important truths or principles contained on printed pages, but to craft a community of people who embody the way and love of Jesus. If the Spirit is a composer, then the "opus" is really the live performance of the divine love song played through our lives, not just a printed score on a music stand.
How could your life today be place where the Spirit is bringing forth something beautiful... something gracious... something Christ-like?
Lord Jesus, make us into your great opus of goodness in the world, as your Spirit makes us a part of your new creation masterpiece.
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