Before the pandemic, we used to go to a restaurant where the food was just beautiful but the dishes were chipped and battered. Great care was taken with the ingredients, the seasonings, and the presentation, but the plate they put it all on would frequently have a ragged, broken edge. I mentioned it once to a waiter and he said that they would rather spend money on the food. It came to me one day as I took our everyday plates out of the dishwasher and stacked them in the cabinet that the pottery from which they were made was just baked dirt!
The second creation story in Genesis 2 makes the point that we are just dirt! God made Adam (whose name means Dusty) out of the dust of the ground, shaping him as a potter makes a bowl, pot or plate. And then God breathed Spirit into Adam, and he lived, a vessel of dirt with the breath of God in him.
Paul knew this. He wrote to the Corinthian church that while we are in the body, we are battered, cracked and mauled about like clay jars (or like the plates at that restaurant.) Read in verses 8 and 9 about all the trouble we undergo that leaves us afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. Yet because of the treasure within, the life of Jesus within us, we are neither crushed, nor in despair; we are not forsaken nor destroyed. We are like cracked and battered clay jars that glow with the treasure within, the visible life of Jesus that glows through the cracks.
Not only that, but the more mature and weathered our trust in Jesus becomes, the more that light will spill out of those cracks. As we wear out, the treasure of Jesus will be more and more visible to others.