To behold the beauty of the Lord

by Dr. Mac Sandlin, associate professor of Bible and ministry and director of theological studies

“One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord.” Psalm 27:4

When the Bible speaks about beauty, it generally refers to the beauty of creation, a beauty which, while real and valuable, is, as Proverbs says, fleeting. But the beauty of God is as eternal as God. God has never not been beautiful, and indeed, all other beauties are manifestations of the beauty which is God’s and is God – incomplete, corrupted, or temporary as those manifestations may be. Like Goodness and Truth, beauty is both a property of and a name for God. We see this in three characteristic things that beauty does to us.

First, David Bentley Hart argues that beauty “creates distance,” that is, it intimidates us. Beauty overwhelms us with its grandeur and glory. Who among us doesn’t feel small when looking at the stars? Who hasn’t found themselves diminished to silence and stillness – a loss of self – in the presence of beautiful music? When we see a person as truly beautiful, we feel that he or she is high above us. But beauty not only intimidates us; it also captivates us. It crosses the distance it creates and draws us into itself. We long to reach out and touch those same stars that make us feel so small. We long to sing the song that hushed us to silence. We can’t not speak to the person whose beauty so intimidates us. This creating and crossing of distance happens at the same time in a fantastic and mysterious way. But our experience of stars and songs, of human attraction or the glories of art are only shadows of our experience of the beauty of God. To behold the beauty of the Lord is be made aware of the infinite distance between God and ourselves. This is at the root of the biblical idea that no one can see God and live. The terror of his sublime beauty is such that Moses must hide in the cleft of the rock or be destroyed, and yet he prays, “show me thy glory.” Finally, the Beauty which creates and crosses distance, which lays us low and raises us up, sends us forth to share its goodness with others. Beauty compels us to write poems in praise of it, to take photographs that never quite do it justice, to retell its story with wonder and animation to those who have not seen it and to connect deeply with those who have.

Beauty is God’s own self shining through his creation and yet infinitely transcending it. It intimidates, captivates, and animates us in ways that mirror God’s own life of trinitarian love. When we see this connection our experience of sunrises and sculptures, novels and night skies, music and mountains become to us windows through which we see the creator, sanctified moments of blessedness and light.