The Maker’s Mark

Psalms 14:1, “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”

 There is a feature that most of us put a lot of stock in. This is that any maker, whether he or she be an architect, painter, sculptor, potter, metal smith, gunsmith, jeweler; any of these, will usually leave their mark upon their creations. Their seal or stamp or signature assures the owner of its authenticity and worth; it’s very quality. Usually when we know who made a thing it tells us a lot of things we want to know about the thing itself and of its standards of usefulness or quality. A valuable and very fine Rembrandt, Vermeer, or a Matisse or even a Picasso can be authenticated by the artist’s signature and if the painting lacks such an identifying mark, then it is usually worthless. We look for those identifying marks to know whose it is.

  The Lord wants us to know that He is the Creator of all things. All we have to do is look for His maker’s mark. When we realize that our Lord has left His mark, we know that He is. The mark is certainly proof that there is a God (Psalms 14:1). To deny this fact earns His condemnation and man has often absurdly revered the created thing rather than the Creator who is so worthy of our adoration (Romans 1). Nothing but wickedness can come from such a base denial of our Maker. He has styled Himself as the Great Potter and we as His clay.

  God told the Hebrews that He is the Potter and they are the clay. Of course this principle is still true under the Law of Christ in our time and we need to learn from it. Please read Jeremiah 18:2-6, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. 4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. 5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the LORD. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!” We can find the Maker’s mark if we only look and acknowledge it when we see it as evidence of Him.

  As a hobby potter for many years I have studied the marks on handmade pottery; that which is done on the potter’s wheel in particular has held my interest. These marks are sometimes called “chops” after the Chinese practice of making a small fired clay emblem impressed into the bottom of clay vessels before they harden and are permanently fired in a kiln. Sometimes the potter’s emblem is contained within a kind of frame and then pressed into the bottom of the vessel and these are called “cartouches” after the Egyptian practices of ancient times. The Japanese and the English do kind of a combination of these two things to indicate who made their pots and often these are some of the most sought after and highly priced ceramic ware currently being produced. Knowing what potter made any given pot can make a common enough piece into a valuable treasure.

  Potters who have made pots on the potter’s wheel for a long time can develop a nod not unlike a Parkinson’s type twitch. More peculiarly, they usually only do it though, when looking at their work as it turns on the wheel. But always this odd involuntary movement is in a circular, even spiral kind of motion of the neck and head. Staring at the circular motion and spiraling clay as they shape it in their hands, it even has a mesmerizing effect on some potters as they work. You can see the spiral in their finished work even after a piece of pottery has been glazed and fired into its finished and usable state as bowl or plate or coffee cup.

  Potters are not the only ones who are aware of this spiral form. Naturalists have for many years noticed that in nature there are spirals everywhere. Think of shapes we are all very familiar with like the spirals of our outer ears. Look at the whorls on your very finger tips! Or a spiraling seashell like a conch shell or a chambered nautilus and you will immediately see the shape. Think about how water spirals down a drain or the spiral of a tornado or hurricane. As twigs and branches grow out of a main branch they actually develop in a spiral around the circumference of the branch and can be seen from an axial view. The actual galaxies in the observed great distances of outer space are always in some type of spiral form (Psalms 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.”). This shape found throughout all of nature is sometimes referred to as the “the Golden Mein” or “the Golden Spiral.” It is in reality the Maker’s Mark we are looking for.

  Mathematicians refer to this as the Fibonacci Sequence. Named after the Italian, Leonardo of Pisa in 1202AD, nicknamed Fibonacci (a type of contraction of “son of Bonaccio”), his sequence, actually discovered by more ancient Indian mathematicians but lost and only in recent centuries rediscovered by European mathematicians in the Medieval period, the sequence is actually an integer series: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 35, 55, 89, 144…etc. It can be illustrated like this:

  Look around you at this marvelous and wonderful world and it will not take too long before you see the Maker’s Mark everywhere (Romans 9:21,”Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?” Isaiah 29:16, “Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; For shall the thing made say of him who made it, “He did not make me”? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding?”)!

Author: Smith, Marc