The Peacock

by GRIERSON,G. | Category: N/a | Apr 2008

I stepped out of the front door into the garden for a few minutes of stress-busting fresh air just to relieve the tension that creeps up on you almost imperceptibly when working on something that is particularly demanding mentally. It makes you realise that breaks in the working day are not just there for the fun of it, but serve a very necessary function. If you are privileged, as I am, to be able to step out into the fresh country air, breathe deeply, and let the quiet restfulness of a garden, park, or even a tub of flowers calm the spirit, and there be reminded that from everlasting to everlasting God is God and that resting in Him is an essential to peace of mind, then that is a blessed break indeed.

I spent a moment or two looking at the honeysuckle � such beauty and fragrance and yet all it is doing is growing where it has been planted. I wonder if there will be such wonderful perfume in heaven? I then crossed the lawn to the buddleia bush, with its heads of purple-blue blooms. That's when I saw it! A butterfly resting motionless on a flower head. What colours, what beauty � it must be a peacock!

For a few moments I stood motionless drinking in its beauty and harmony of design while it remained still, feeding on the flower. I noted the lovely balance of the 'peacock' colours, shades of red and yellow, blue and purple, and darker marks on both wings. Just time to observe the sensitive antennae, and then, it was gone, leaving only a memory of its brief appearance.

It reminded me of another lovely appearing: a perfect Man from heaven, eternal and invisible, yet briefly seen amongst the things that are temporal, by the grace of God; something eternal manifested in the flesh and capable of being looked at and wondered at. He settled for a selected moment in the spans of time, just long enough to give the ardent seeker a glimpse of the invisible God; the Creator of all beauty; the great Designer of the peacock butterfly whose artist's palette is infinite in the variety of its resources, far beyond the range of human perception.

What balance there is in that Man: meekness and majesty; absolute holiness with approachable lowliness; kingly authority, but suffering servant-hood; hatred of sin, yet love of the sinner; the Lion and the Lamb,

'Meekness and majesty,

Manhood and deity

In perfect harmony,

The Man who is God.

Lord of eternity

Dwells in humanity;

Kneels in humility

And washes our feet.' (Graham Kendrick)

He came and went, a sensitive Saviour bearing sin on the cross for our sakes. What will it be when He comes to reign! How like the peacock butterfly and yet how unlike it. 'The peacock, once summer is over, hibernates until spring comes again, and it re-appears, by which time it is often torn and faded,' my book on butterflies tells me.

Not so with our Lord Jesus; He was glorified with the glory He had with the Father before the foundation of the world. Despite the cross, His beauty is eternally undiminished and is perfectly in place in the beautiful mansions above. The dark marks of the cross only increased His beauty for it added what had not been there before, the marks of Calvary. These reveal the visible hue of the height and depth of the love of God, seen in the fullness of suffering, and the drinking of the cup of suffering that could not have been fuller, for the One in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. When He is manifested a second time, at His coming to reign, His beauty will be unsurpassed, with no fading, eternally glorious.

GRIERSON,G. | Apr 2008
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