Kintsukuroi is a ancient art of repairing broken pottery with gold.

These repaired pieces became more valuable than when they were new.

The artist would carefully take the pottery and piece by piece mend them together and join the seams between the fractures and breaks with gold, Collectors became so enamored with the new art that some were accused of deliberately smashing valuable pottery so it could be repaired with the gold seams of kintsugi.

Kintsukuroi means ‘to repair with gold’ in Japanese, and understanding that the piece is the more beautiful for having been broken.

Such restoration creates a gorgeous piece of art and makes a philosophical statement as well. Kintsukuroi asserts that breakage and repair is part of the unique history of an object, rather than something to deny or disguise.

Each of us needs more golden repair in our lives, because we so often hide our brokenness. A friend hurts us deeply, and we retreat inside ourselves. We lose a job or suffer a pay cut, and pretend like everything is really okay. A spouse abuses us, but we never speak up. We sense that we have a drinking problem, but feel too embarrassed to ask for help. A marriage begins with intimacy and anticipation, and ends with alienation and anger. We can all probably add many more of our own life breakages to the list.

In Acts, Paul traveled to Ephesus in Asia Minor – He found twelve disciples there, and asked them if they had received the Holy Spirit when they became believers. They replied, “We’ve not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” (Acts 19:2)

These disciples might not be broken, but they clearly have some cracks. Not only had they not received the Holy Spirit, they didn’t even know that it existed!

Paul was perplexed. He asked, “What baptism did you receive, then?” They answered, “John’s baptism.” Paul then understood that they needed some golden repair, some “kintsukuroi” (Acts 19:3)

The disciples were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and when Paul laid hands on them the Holy Spirit entered them. Immediately, they spoke in tongues and prophesied, just like the first Christians on the day of Pentecost. (Acts 19:6)

The gift of the Holy Spirit – that’s pure gold! Suddenly, the gaps in the lives of these disciples were filled, and they were made whole as disciples of Jesus. But notice that there was no attempt to deny or disguise their deficiencies.

Instead, God filled their cracks with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, making them stronger and more beautiful in the broken places. That’s golden repair.

It reminds me of the song by Bill Gaither that went:

Something beautiful, something good
All my confusion He understood
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife
But he made something beautiful of my life

If there ever were dreams
That were lofty and noble
They were my dreams at the start
And hope for life's best were the hopes
That I harbor down deep in my heart
But my dreams turned to ashes
And my castles all crumbled, my fortune turned to loss
So I wrapped it all in the rags of life
And laid it at the cross.

May our Lord Jesus Christ make something beautiful out of the brokenness of your life.

Blessings

Jan