We are God’s Masterpiece

“Blessed is he whose fault is taken away, ​whose sin is covered.” Psalm 32:1

During the Renaissance there were a lot of sculptures carved by masters. Marble from several locations in Italy were quarried and masterpieces made of these slabs from the area of Massa Carrara and Alta Versilia. There is one huge marble called “giant” that we will concern ourselves with today.

It had already been carved on two different occasions by two different master sculptors including the prolific Donatello. Both sculptors gave up on the project because of the marble’s many flaws and inferior quality. The slab was also brittle, weak, and had veins and countless taroli, or pinholes, riddling throughout the block. The marble was abandoned for more than twenty-six years before the authorities, the Arte della Lana, determined to have it finished. Many sculptors examined the marble, even Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the flaws, there was the work already done by Donatello and Rosellino to consider. It necessitated binding decisions as to the spacing of the legs and shoulders. Finally, it was 26 year old Michelangelo Buonarotti who convinced the guild, and was given the official  contract to undertake this challenge on August 16, 1501. 

Michelangelo extracted from this single flawed marble block his 17 feet tall, 12,000 pound David. So in love was Michelangelo with his work, that he sculpted in utmost secrecy, barely sleeping and hardly eating. He worked on David for two years, concentrating his focused attention on it, until January 1504. 

Giorgio Vasari, wrote about the magnificent David in his book, “Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects”. He said that it was “certainly a miracle that Michelangelo...” was able to “...to restore to life one who was dead," and then Vasari listed all of the largest and most grand of the ancient statues that he had ever seen, concluding that Michelangelo's work surpassed "all ancient and modern statues, whether Greek or Latin, that have ever existed." Michelangelo’s brilliant masterpiece has stood on display at Florence's Galleria dell'Accademia since 1873. 

If a mere human can make a masterpiece out of an abandoned, flawed, cold piece of stone, what can God do with the human heart? Indeed if we put ourselves in the hands of our Creator, surrender to His chiseling, hammering, cutting and carving, what might He make of us poor miserable scraps of clay? Indeed, just like Michelangelo, God loves each of us, and I can imagine Him, working on us in secret, guarding the masterpiece He is bringing out in each of us. It does not matter if we are riddled in sin. If we give our lives over to Him, He will cover our sin with His very own blood and wash it away. One day He will unveil His beloved creation and we will be in awe and rejoice!