10th June 2026

What is beauty? I think the mathematical result $e^{i\pi} = -1$  is beautiful. Your reaction is likely to be “I always thought she was odd”. It would take me a while to explain why I think this, even if your maths was at least A-level. Beautiful usually means more than it says. If you say “Isn’t it a beautiful day?”, here in Britain, you probably mean it is sunny, no rain forecast and not too hot. Most of us would understand it in the way you meant, using beautiful as a shorthand.

Beautiful is a compendium word and needs unpacking and sometimes is not so clear.

This is so in the Bible. When the psalmist says, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news…”, it is clearly not about feet which are corn-free, bunion-free, ‘sandal ready for the summer’ (as in Sunday newspaper supplements!) but is it about the joy of the news or is it about the hard work of the messengers? Or both?

The only record of Jesus saying something was beautiful is in Matthew’s gospel and is about the woman who poured expensive ointment over him. Was he talking about her wild generosity (condemned by his disciples) or was he pointing to her understanding of who he was and his mission and its end and anointing him for this? I have heard both of these in sermons.

Then we come to “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness…” I have reached the word limit so I will leave this one to you to ponder.

Margaret Clements