I was walking back from dinner in Chinatown in San Francisco, and as I crossed the boundary, I stopped mid-street and snapped this image.

I love contrasts. Light against dark. Old against new. Simple against complex. Here we have all three. The light striking the smooth skyscraper’s façade makes it seem like a photoshopped background. It is almost otherworldly.

Then this morning, as I sang through an old hymnbook in my personal devotions, I came across an unfamiliar hymn that reminded me of this photo. Here’s a verse:

Hail the Christ, the King of Glory, He whose praise the angels cry,
Born to share our human story, Love and labor, grieve and die,
By his cross his work completed
Sinners ransomed, death defeated,
In the glory of the Father, Christ ascended reigns on high.

The author, Timothy Dudley-Smith, a prolific hymn writer, does an amazing job summarizing the gospel, contrasting a glorious Christ with the pain that he suffered by entering our world to die for us. Jesus’s resurrection returns him to his rightful, exalted throne.

Can you see this gospel contrast in the photo? There is the impossibly brilliant vertical skyscraper that leads the eye to the shadowed complexity of the pagoda-like building with its hint of religion. In the windows, the blinds are drawn against the sunlight. The spire seems to impale the lit building behind it.

The dissimilarity is powerful. Can we sense a tension?

Yet, there is an actor, rising in the midst of the earth-bound building. A bird is caught in flight, reminiscent of the Holy Spirit’s manifestation as a “like a dove.” Its presence reminds us that the gospel is not simply a contrast resolved in ancient history, not a collection of cold doctrines for us to view from afar.

The Spirit remains to bring these truths to life. He softens our hearts by the application of grace so that we, in gratitude, might live in the wonder of this juxtaposition of Christ’s exalted glory and the squalor of his ignominious death for us.

It is he who opens our eyes to see that contrast, even as we walk back from dinner on a city street.

Father, how could you be so merciful? Jesus, how could you come to love and labor, grieve and die? And Spirit, how can you be so patient to remain in and remind our sluggish hearts? We worship and adore you, triune God, the resolver of contrast, the remover of tension.