DIAMONDS
Diamonds are Joey’s livelihood … he’s a jeweler. And Joey sees something profound in a diamond ... they make an insightful statement about their Creator.
I have been actively involved in education programs for adults and young people over the years. I am also a jeweler by trade, and gemstones fascinate me, especially diamonds. And when I hold a diamond in my hand, I have come to believe that I am holding a tangible expression of God's creative genius. This portion of chapter 16 is drawn from my observations about how He speaks to us in ways we often don't hear ... or see. And that we often don't fully understand the real meaning of what we see on the surface ... or appreciate it's hidden value.
“God has an interesting habit, one we often miss. He takes that which is common or ordinary and makes it extraordinary. And in doing so, He sanctifies it, makes it holy, and pleasing to Himself. By His life here on earth, Jesus took all of creation and all of our humanity, lifted it up to His Father, and made it holy … He made our world sacred. That truth came home to me one night while I was setting a diamond into an engagement ring for a young couple coming in to pick it up the next morning.
A diamond ring is traditionally used to signify the engagement of a couple. Now a diamond is nothing more than pure crystallized carbon, and carbon is maybe the earth’s most common element. From pencil lead to your basset hound to the oak tree in the back yard, carbon is the common building block of virtually all living things. Yet in His creative genius, God takes ordinary carbon, exposes it to incredible extremes of pressure and heat, and turns it into a diamond, something man finds extraordinarily valuable ... in some instances, worth millions of dollars. And man then takes what God Himself has made extraordinary and uses it to signify the value of that profound relationship between and man and a woman … a marriage … a union that, itself, will be subjected to the heat and pressures of life’s trials and tribulations … A union that God treasures as sacred.
Water is vital to all living things, yet, like carbon, something quite common. In the gospel account of the best-known wedding reception of all time, we see that habit of God at work again. At the wedding feat at Cana, Jesus is confronted by His mother with a dilemma. The wine is gone. So, at His mother’s request, Jesus takes water, simple, common, ordinary water, and turns it into wine, a vintage at which the stewards marvel. An extraordinary vintage.
Now look at marriage itself. In the Roman Catholic Church, marriage is called the sacrament of matrimony. For Catholics, a sacrament is a life experience where Christ lives and is truly present. Others embrace the idea of covenant, a sacred and living bond between man and God. In any marriage ceremony where God is an invited and distinguished guest, two very common things come together. A man and a woman. Face it; there are over six billion of us walking around this planet. Yet in the sacrament or covenant of matrimony, God lives and dwells in those two souls. Thus, He creates a union of eternal and infinite value. And in doing so, they become a light and a hope to the world, a union that no one or nothing on earth has the right, or the authority, to tear apart.
Nice idea you say, but how does it apply to us single men? Where is the sacred found in the commonplace in our lives? It’s a fair question. Okay, how about the ground we walk on? Consider the creation account of Genesis. God takes dirt, ordinary dirt, breathes His life into it, and, in doing so, He creates man, a male human being created in His own image and likeness. Talk about taking the commonplace and making it sacred! From ordinary dirt, God creates a being He infinitely loves … Adam, man, us!
Yet even given the endless bounty of creation, still the man, Adam, is incomplete. So God creates for him a partner, woman, Eve. But this time God chooses to do something different. He creates Eve, not out of something common or ordinary such as dirt, but from something that is already eternally precious to Him … Adam, man, us. If precious things are created from the common and ordinary, what is God saying to us men in the manner in which He created woman? Think about it.
Many believe literally in the biblical account of creation as found in the book of Genesis. Other, in the theory of evolution. And there are those who believe that mankind was “seeded” on the earth by extra terrestrials from the galaxy Delta Tau Xi (oops sorry, that’s a fraternity at Faber College). Let’s say, Beta Omicron IV or some such place. Regardless of our individual vision, the lesson we men need to understand is that God created man and, from us, He created woman. Both are precious and sacred in His sight. And accepting that, ask yourself, shouldn’t a woman hold a loftier position in a man’s life than a mere plaything in the back seat or on the sofa late on a Saturday night? Do you wonder what God thinks ... or do you suspect that you already know?
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