Posted on: 2nd November 2022

Two years ago Beirut suffered a huge chemical explosion at its port. One of the most powerful accidental artificial non-nuclear explosions in history!

Three kilometres away a museum case displaying 74 ancient vessels shattered - mixing countless shards of Roman, Byzantine and Islamic glass with fragments from the glass case and surrounding windows.

Maybe you suffered loss during the pandemic or have been brought to doubt in your faith, or perhaps you have done something you deeply regret and which brings great shame? What happens when something shatters in your life?

In an amazing piece of work the Beirut and British Museums collaborated to salvage thousands of slivers of glass and sensitively reconstruct the artefacts – whilst allowing some scars from the damage to remain visible. And thus they are now even more beautiful than before as their blemishes and wounds tell the story of creation, shattering, rescue and restoration.

When something shatters in our own lives we may well echo the cry of the psalmist, “I am forgotten as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery”. (Psalm 31:12)

But the truth is – we’ve not been forgotten, the vessel doesn’t lie abandoned in pieces on the floor.

Because, “He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds”. (Psalm 147:3)

We are rescued by the master curator/creator and restored under His long, loving gaze. The result of this work of Jesus is not yet perfect and yet it is all the more beautiful as our rescued lives tell our own stories of creation, shattering, rescue and restoration.

Let us lift our shattered lives to the merciful One who knows all about shattering and brokenness and allow Him to piece us back together, healing mind, body and soul.

Shattered glass of Beirut | British Museum

David Flowers, Leeds Vineyard