Painstaking Restoration

Ever had something break so completely that it was lost to you, not worth the expense or effort required to fix? After-all, who smashes a teacup into a gazillion splintered pieces then gathers, sorts and glues them all together again? No one. We get frustrated, accept the loss and sweep up the mess.

But what if it's valuable?
Well, that's when we feel the pain. Cars can be both valuable and prized possessions. Yet damaged enough even they become too difficult, too complicated, too costly to repair; even insurers advising we give them up as lost.

But what if it's really, really valuable?
Well, that's when we feel an obligation. For example, huge resources are dedicated to preserving our cultural heritage, restoring artefacts damaged by time and neglect; case in point, the Statue of Liberty, an $87 million repair project.

But what if it's priceless?

Well, that's when we feel desperation. For the priceless, cost becomes almost irrelevant. Effort, energy and time are almost inexhaustibly sacrificed to repair that which is priceless but broken. There are many who are desperate to repair the damage done by man to our environment, before it's too late. Likewise, people are irreplaceable, therefore we will sacrifice almost anything to heal those we love from deadly illness or accident.

In which category does God consider us?

The bible speaks of us as his broken creation. Not by divine desire or blunder, but by the fact we no longer bare his image. We are like broken mirrors, so distorted by unyielded free will that we can no longer reflect the likeness designed for us -God's. Smeared over this twisted independence is layered the dulling grime of evil choices, diminishing further the mirrors ability to receive, let alone reflect, light.

However, for all that, we are priceless in God's eyes, and He is anxious to heal us. But where does He start? Obviously, he couldn't snap his fingers and simply restore us to what we were, else He would have long ago, and life would again be idyllic. No, there is something in the nature of our brokenness that is not so easily repaired. You see, humanity is more than broken. We are also changed by our choices, such that we have become almost unrecognisable from God's original.

What does one do with a mirror so changed that it can only reflect a distorted image? What's to be done with something that can no longer fulfil the designs of its best interests. Well, it needs recreating, it needs transforming, it needs that which is dead to be resurrected. However, no restoration effort is without its challenges. God knew the greatest challenge would be man's unwillingness to identify with his brokenness. Man would resist Gods efforts. Therefore, the task would be complicated and costly, requiring time, patience, great tolerance and sacrifice.

The Bible can be understood as the history of Gods restorative plan. It portrays a God who takes painstaking efforts with his creation; a plan that would take millennia to reach fruition. Until that time, God knew people would remain broken; sinners. He worked with them always from where they were at, in sin. The grime of their choices could not simply be scraped away, the distortion of their free will not forced flat. Many times he had to allow for their imperfections, applying his attentions most sensitively around their stubborn stains, their warped ungodly reflections. With His ultimate goal of restoration always in mind, God exercised great tolerance toward our brokenness; often allowing for or regulating behaviour far removed from the image He sought.

At last, with all preparations made and everything at a point of readiness, God sent Jesus into the world so as to offer His own perfect image as the transforming redeeming agent for our brokenness.

But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,

And by His stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5