A Japanese legend tells the story of a mighty shogun warrior who broke his favorite tea bowl and sent it away for repairs. When he received it back, the bowl was held together by unsightly metal staples. Although he could still use it, the shogun was disappointed. Still hoping to restore his beloved bowl to its former beauty, he asked a craftsman to find a more elegant solution.
The craftsman wanted to try a new technique, something that would add to the beauty of the bowl as well as repair it. So, he mended every crack in the bowl with a lacquer resin mixed with gold. When the tea bowl was returned to the shogun, there were streaks of gold running through it, telling its story, and—the warrior thought—adding to its value and beauty. This method of repair became known as kintsugi, which roughly translates to “golden joinery.” Kintsugi is the Japanese philosophy that the value of an object is not in its beauty, but in its imperfections, and that these imperfections are something to celebrate, not hide.
With the idea of brokenness in mind, I was studying Jesus’ classic miracle of feeding the 5,000, when I came upon this verse: “And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fish He divided among them all” (Mark 6:41).
Mark mentions the detail of Jesus breaking bread and it caught my eye. I got to thinking to about little boy's lunch that was offered, broken, blessed, and multiplied to feed thousands.
In God's economy brokenness is a channel of blessing. God uses broken things; He doesn’t throw them away. It takes broken clouds to give rain. It takes broken alabaster jars to give off the sweet smell of perfume (Mark 14:3). Broken grain to make bread and broken bread to satisfy hunger.
Jesus, of course, is the model. He later broke the bread at the Last Supper and said it was a picture of his body (Matt. 26:26). Then on Easter, the two Emmaus Road Disciples knew it was Christ when they recognized the way he broke the bread (Luke 24:35). His brokenness led to our salvation.
Joni Eareckson Tada wrote, “A friend made a special cross for me. She had placed, in the wet plaster of paris, small pieces of broken china, all different colors and some pieces with gold trim. And because the cross was made of shattered things, of broken china, it just meant so much. It was a reminder that Christ is building His kingdom with earth’s broken things—broken people. People want only the strong, the successful, the victorious, the unbroken, in building their kingdoms but God? He is the God of the unsuccessful, of those who have failed, of those who have suffered and suffered deeply. Of those who are broken, heaven is filling with earth’s broken lives, and there is no bruised reed that Christ cannot take and restore to glorious blessedness and beauty.”[1]
Just as the boy offered what he had to Jesus, so too we can offer to Jesus what we have - even if it's just the broken pieces of our life. Jesus can use it as a means of multiplied blessing to others. And just like there was nothing wasted in the mass feeding (John 6:12-13), God will not waste our broken pieces either. -DM
[1] Joni Eareckson Tada, “Broken Things,” Joni & Friends, 23 November 2017 <https://www.joniandfriends.org/broken-things/>
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