Florence Cathedral, known as the Church of Saint Mary of the Flower, is a building that cannot be there. According to the physical laws of nature, it should have fallen down 700 years ago.
When the cathedral was started in 1296, common construction techniques of the day demanded flying buttresses for any large building project to keep the building from collapsing due to its own weight. In Florence, flying buttresses were considered ugly, and they were banned.
How would the massive dome the architects planned hold itself up? When the foundations were laid, the builders had no real solutions for finishing the massive project they had embarked on. However, it would be nearly a hundred and fifty years before the main structure was completed and another four hundred on top of that before the exterior finish work was in place, so they didn’t worry too much about it. Someone would figure something out.
Several architects and multiple redesigns later, one of the most brilliant men in history, Leonardo da Vinci, was partially instrumental in successfully applying the finishing touches to the cathedral’s dome in 1472.
Florence Cathedral was an impossible edifice, doomed to fail, one that we still do not entirely understand how it was successfully constructed. Yet it stands over Florence today in magnificence and glory, where it remains the largest masonry dome in the world.
Luke 3:12 tells of another impossible design. To the Jews, publicans were considered traitors to the Jewish people. They were the tax collectors, essentially Roman employees, and no one believed a word they said. In this verse, the publicans came in response to Jesus’ exhortations, and they wanted to do their part for the kingdom. This was tantamount to a member of the Roman senate asking to participate in a Jewish holy day. It was impossible to conceive.
To put it in the vernacular of the day, any words from a publican’s mouth, no matter how well-oiled and promising, would soon collapse under the weight of truth.
Yet Jesus had faith in the publicans’ hearts. In man’s eyes, they might be doomed to fail, but with Jesus as their architect, they would stand in magnificence and glory as a testament to the brilliance of Christ’s message.
For many of us, our walk with Jesus is the same. Our footsteps are unsure, and we have to take every day on faith. Just when we think we have found the sure path, the stones begin to slip, and we are convinced we are about to fall.
Yet Jesus is our architect. He has faith in us. What we cannot do on our own, he can do through us. We will become an impossible edifice, standing not because man thinks we can, but rising above the world because the master architect believes we can.
When Jesus is our architect, we stand on a solid foundation, and we will never crumble under the weight of the world’s disbelief.
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