In the past few years, I’ve fallen in love with an ancient art form: mosaics. Mosaics are everywhere in the ancient world. They’re especially popular as flooring and are often discovered during archaeological excavations.
Mosaics are made using small, uniquely colored pieces of stone, glass or ceramic, known as tesserae. These tesserae are then grouped by color and arranged in such a way as to form a picture or write words and are finally set into place using plaster. If you think about our modern paint-by-numbers art, you get the general idea.
One city in particular, Madaba, Jordan, is known as the “City of Mosaics." I've been to Madaba several times, including staying there for two weeks while participating in an archaeology dig with Andrews University.
Just a short walk from the hotel in Madaba is the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George, which contains the Madaba Map. The Madaba Map is a sixth-century mosaic map of the Holy Land. It’s the oldest surviving map of the Holy Land and therefore invaluable for historical research.
The Madaba Map features many well-known landmarks and cities. Unmistakable on the map are places like the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile River delta, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea and the desert of Moab. Additionally, cities such as Jericho, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem are clearly recognizable.
Jerusalem in particular stands out. The map depicts the Old City of Jerusalem. It is clearly recognizable for the main road, called the “cardo maximus,” as well as other prominent sites like the Lion’s Gate, the Damascus Gate and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The Madaba Map is also well-known for another, tragic, detail. The city of Madaba sustained significant damage from an earthquake in 746 AD, when the region was under Islamic rule, and it was mostly abandoned for a long time after that. The map also sustained major damage. Because Madaba was abandoned, the map was basically forgotten about.
The Madaba Map was rediscovered in 1896 during a Greek Orthodox church construction project on the same site. The map has since undergone numerous preservation and restoration endeavors. Sadly, there’s no way to restore what was lost.
As I consider the mosaic art form, I’m struck by the similarity to one of the most prominent metaphors for the church found in the Bible: the Body of Christ. Paul says it this way: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For the body does not consist of one member but of many” (1 Cor. 12:12,14).
If you look closely at a mosaic, you will see many different small pieces. Each piece has unique characteristics — even flaws. Similarly, if you look closely at a church, you will see the individual members, flaws and all.
You can’t comprehend the mosaic simply by looking at the individual pieces. You have to back up and take in the whole to see what the artist intended. In just the same way, you must take a larger view of the church to see what God intended.
Certainly, we can see wonderful things when we look at an individual life transformed by the gospel. However, we see something entirely different when we look at a group of people transformed by the gospel. We see the church the way God intended it.
The church is a mosaic — God’s artwork. It’s made up of many kinds of people, from many different places, speaking many different languages. Each member of the church fills a unique and important role that makes the body function properly.
Having looked at dozens of mosaics, it strikes me that even one missing piece is easily noticed. In the case of the Madaba Map, entire sections of the map are missing, leaving the viewer longing for what was lost.
Some of the saddest stories I’ve heard as a pastor are the stories of those who used to be part of the church — and I don’t mean those who moved away. When people leave the body, it doesn’t function quite the same. The loss is felt, and we long for what is missing.
This is the way God’s artwork, God’s mosaic, is supposed to function. It’s made up of many individuals that together form a beautiful body. In God’s mosaic, each piece — each person — matters. If even one is missing, God notices and we notice as well.
I hope that you have learned something new about the mosaic art form and the Madaba Map in particular. I also hope that you will spend some time pondering the church, your church, as God’s mosaic, and that your adoration of what God is doing in this world will grow.
