Some scientists argue that glass is really a fluid, although one that flows very slowly at ambient temperatures. They substantiate their claim by taking the measurements of millennia-old cathedral stained-glass windows; after a thousand years, the glass has become thinner at the top and thicker at the bottom.
It is simply a matter of temperature and state. Apply sufficient heat, and the glass fully changes its state, becoming truly fluid, flowing easily into one shape or another.
Watch a lamp-worker (otherwise known as a glass artist) work, and we see fanciful shapes come out of those little globs of molten sand. Plump penguins pirouette with panache, tiny tree houses tremble in the slightest breeze, and unbelievably intricate sailboats spin their glittering shards of light across the room. The glass artist is surrounded by a menagerie of his own creation, all as different as the artist’s imagination, yet all the same in their beauty and mode of construction.
There is one indisputable fact in all this. Each item of fragile beauty had to become malleable in the glass artist’s hands before it could become a thing of beauty.
Colossians 1:16 tells us all the things we might find glittering in God’s glorious menagerie. After all, his menagerie is all around us every day, filling the showcases of the heavens and the earth. Everything he has created surrounds us, if only we choose to open our eyes and see.
Let’s open the showcases in God’s Menagerie.
Showcase 1: The Glories of the Heavens.
From the stars glittering in the night sky to the sun that warms our days, the heavens are nothing more than a trinket twisted out of nothing by the hand of the master glass artist. When we see a shooting star, a distant comet, or the soft glow of the Milky Way, we know we are in the midst of a vast menagerie of unimaginable proportions, all formed by the hand of God.
Showcase 2: The Things Under Our Feet.
The ground is alive, from the earth’s nickel core to the geysers of Yellowstone National Park. Poke the earth, and out erupts oil and gas. The continents shift, and earthquakes bellow the name of God our Father. The substance of our world glitters with God’s beauty and power.
Showcase 3: All Things Visible.
Those things that surround us are the visible discovery of our invisible God. We are created in his image, glass heated to a liquid state and reshaped in the form of our Creator, duplicates down to our very nature. When we view the things that exist in the world around us, we take in the beautiful visage of our God.
Showcase 4: All Things Invisible.
Some speak of the souls of man, invisible, as incomprehensible. However, they accept radio waves, magnetism, and gravity with aplomb. God has formed all things, even those we cannot see, with an artist’s touch, to glorify the very existence of his presence. These are the things that exemplify the magnificence of our invisible God.
Showcase 5: Every Mighty Throne.
The thrones of the kingdom of man clearly fall into the realm of the visible, but the right to rule is an invisible one. Also consider the angels, for in ancient Jewish writings, they are said to sit upon thrones of power, created by the hand of God. The governments of this world are also God’s to rule, for he has created each and every one. Whether kingdoms, angelic seats of power, or modern day governments, they are no more than baubles that glitter in the menagerie that belongs to the Father.
Showcase 6: Dominions, Principalities, and All the Powers that Be.
There were those who wished to argue about who had the most power in heaven; false teachers taught that there were greater and lesser angels, often dividing the body of Christ with dissension and bickering. Paul skirted the entire issue, making it clear that God was the artist, and all things in God’s creation, by any name, whether dominions, principalities, or powers, were no more than glittering trinkets in God’s celestial showcase.
When we hold up a glass figurine from a lamp-worker’s shop, it seems to sparkle with the fire of the sun, and in that fire, we imagine it to contain life. It does, but it is life given by the hands of the artist, and without the artist, it is no more than a lump of sand.
God gives all life, for all things are created by his mighty hand. There is no life without his divine will.
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