The Sculpture

How can we create a living sculpture without a model? Or how can our sculpture be accurate when the model is wrong? And when we have labored over our sculpture, and when the clay is now hardened, how can we reform it after we realize it has been shaped after our own imagination and not the model after which it was to be commissioned to reflect?
Oh it looks so nice and polished, and we have worked very hard to finish it. And when standing alone it seems beautiful and a wonderful product of our sincerity and skill. But when we place our sculpture alongside the original model we are astounded and aghast, for it looks so unlike the model after which it was to be fashioned. All that labor must be undone? Can’t we at least make a few adjustments that will improve it without dismantling the entire sculpture and begin once more?
We as western believers can continue in the journey to follow Christ personally and collectively as we have sculpted it up until now. We can admire our handiwork and tell ourselves that we are imperfect but our ecclesiastical structure is a reasonable representation of the life, ministry, and Person of Jesus Christ. We can tell ourselves that, but we would be speaking a lie. So what do we do?
If we are serious in serving and reflecting the will of God through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, then we must be willing to begin again. And most of the present day models must be discarded, and before we can create another sculpture we must first place in front of us the eternal model. And that living model can only be found and extricated from the living Scriptures of Almighty God. Not some of the Scriptures, but a powerful mosaic that brings to life the Person of Jesus and the fullness of His gospel, and we must decide then and there if we will go back to our own sculpture or if we are willing to let this eternal Model sculpt us into a living reflection of Himself.
The stone of our flesh does not sculpt easily. And when the rifflers and chisels of the Spirit begin to shape us, our flesh recoils and demands its former shape back again. During this process, both painful and glorious, the flesh will strongly suggest that the Sculptor is removing far too much flesh. And many times during this process we will passionately contend that He should leave us alone for awhile and let us recover. In fact, can’t we just stop here and glory in the past victories without moving forward to more pain and discomfort? We seem to be a better sculpture than we were, and much better than most other sculptures.
And yet we have begun to realize that the Model is also the Sculptor, and even though we suffer pain and discomfort, it is miraculously assuaged by how it pleases our Sculptor. And even more than being comforted, we sense a profound spiritual power that both emanates from and returns to this Sculptor Model. We have found what we were created for and our eternal destiny.
If we wish to participate in that scenario, we must break the sculpture we have created and return like a little child to the Scriptures again. Without preconceived ideas or personal reservations, we must search this mirror with the impressionability of a child and the passion of a thirsty man.
What will we be looking for in our search? Him, Jesus. In the gospels and in the epistles and in the prophetic and in the narrative we are looking for Him. And not just the particulars about Him, but the deepest revelations of Him in all His fullness. And if we are looking like someone who searches for treasure without caring for his everyday needs, then will come across many astonishing and disturbing things we have seen before and yet not seen.
We will come across the Incarnate One standing with spit dripping from His face. We will see the Creator of the Universe washing the feet of vile sinners. We will see Him who has all power refusing to block the fist that will claim His face. We will see the One who can execute justice offer redemption to those who will take His very life. We will see the One to whom all glory honor and Majesty belongs, lower Himself with unspeakable humility and die at the hands of wicked men.
And if we spend time and meditate upon this Messiah with a fresh look inside and out at our own sculpture, we must be awakened by the Spirit to the unsettling but resurrecting challenge that lies ahead. The dying sacrifice draws a living sacrifice from those who have eyes to see Him. And if the things of this world do not grow strangely dim…stop and look again…because you are still missing His glory.

But if the fire is too hot, and if the chisel seems too sharp, and if the sacrifice is too much, then return from whence you came, dust off the old sculpture, and tell yourself again how marvelous it is in your sight.

That is if you can…