This article was originally published in a shorter form on ArtWay.eu. All photos are courtesy of the Keiskamma Trust; click to enlarge.

Created by about 130 Xhosa—mainly women—living along the Keiskamma River in South Africa’s Eastern Cape [1], the monumental Keiskamma Altarpiece is a memorial to community members who died of AIDS and an homage to the strength and agency of the women left behind. Consisting of embroidery, beadwork, wire sculpture, and photography, the altarpiece mourns loss, but more important, it prophesies hope and redemption for the village of Hamburg, providing a vision for residents to live into.

The project was spearheaded by Carol Hofmeyr, a medical doctor and fine artist who moved from Johannesburg to Hamburg in 2000. Struck by the area’s high unemployment rate and lack of adequate healthcare, she established the Keiskamma Trust, an organization that sponsors dozens of community-upliftment initiatives. Wanting to improve the quality of life for her new neighbors, many of whom were infected with HIV, Hofmeyr knew that medicine, though imperative, was not all that would be needed; people must also be given a reason to live. That’s why along with running an AIDS hospice and treatment center, the Trust commissions locals to create art. This holistic approach to AIDS treatment honors both the body and the soul. The planning and making of the Keiskamma Altarpiece, for example, was an act of communal therapy; it provided an opportunity for Hamburg’s women to talk openly about AIDS and to work through their grief and confusion over the loss of loved ones or personal diagnoses as well as to ponder the role their faith plays in suffering—all while learning new skills [2], earning an income, and producing a thing of beauty for the world to behold.

South African health-care worker Eunice Mangwane presents the Keiskamma Altarpiece at the Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto, the first stop on its North American tour in 2006. Mangwane is commemorated in the central panel of the altarpiece’s fully open view, pictured above.

At the height of the AIDS epidemic in Hamburg in late 2004, Hofmeyr conceived the idea of creating an altarpiece modeled on the famous Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthais Grünewald, itself a response to a horrifying epidemic in sixteenth-century France known then as St. Anthony’s Fire (and today as ergotism). This disease caused arterial constriction, sores, and gangrene and killed its victims slowly and agonizingly. Grünewald was commissioned by St. Anthony’s Monastery in Isenheim, France—which functioned as a hospital specializing in treatment of the disease—to create a piece for its chapel’s high altar, an image that would provide hope and comfort to patients. He responded with a complex, multipaneled altarpiece that features biblical and extrabiblical saints known for their fortitude in the face of suffering, most prominent of which is Christ, shown as a victim of St. Anthony’s Fire.

Matthais Grünewald, Isenheim Altarpiece (closed view), 1515. Oil on wood.

The Keiskamma Altarpiece draws on the Isenheim’s imagery of suffering, death, and resurrection but adapts it to the local context of Hamburg and its experience of the modern AIDS epidemic. In making this work the artists sought to draw a parallel between AIDS and other diseases that once seemed hopeless but that are now no longer a threat.  

Like Grünewald’s, the altarpiece is constructed as a series of hinged panels—fourteen in all—that open to create three different configurations.

Predella

The one panel that remains constant in all three views is the predella at the bottom. This long supporting plinth depicts the funeral of Dumile Paliso, 35, echoing the Lamentation over the Dead Christ panel of Grünewald’s original.

Detail of the predella depicting the funeral of AIDS victim Dumile Paliso.

Detail of an AIDS sufferer covered with pustules, lying in the ward where Dumile was treated.

View 1: Crucifixion

Keiskamma Altarpiece (closed view), 2005. Mixed media, 4.15 × 6.8 m (13.6′ × 22.3′). Click to enlarge.

The central panel of the altarpiece in its closed view shows a Xhosa widow standing in front of a cross, mourning her husband’s death by AIDS. On either side of her are others who have been similarly affected—children who lost one or both parents to AIDS, and a grandmother (seated at right) who steps into this void to help raise them. AIDS is the cross they bear together as a community.

Detail of AIDS orphans. I wondered whether the light tone of their faces signified some kind of ritual (Xhosa boys do paint their faces white during their initiation into manhood), but Hofmeyr told me that no, it’s just difficult to render facial features on dark colors!

While the representations in the center are meant to be generic, those on the wings are of specific figures in the community. Lagena Mapuma (now deceased [3]) is dressed in the red, white, and black uniform of the Methodist Women’s Prayer and Service Union [4]; the grandmother of a large family, many of whom are HIV-positive, she remained stalwart in the face of devastation and was a great support to those in need. On the other side is Susan Paliso, who at age 82 took on the responsibility of raising her grandson Lihle after her son Dumile died of AIDS.

These elder women, pillars of the community, are pictured where Grünewald placed Saints Sebastian and Anthony the Great.

View 2: Resurrection

Keiskamma Altarpiece (first open view), 2005. Mixed media, 4.15 × 6.8 m (13.6′ × 22.3′). Click to enlarge.

The theme of new life, of deliverance, expressed by the Annunciation, Nativity, and Resurrection panels of the Isenheim Altarpiece is expressed here by a colorful vision of life without AIDS. On the left birds and butterflies—symbols of freedom and transformation—flap about over cattle-strewn pastures. On the right a vortex of fish—a traditional Christian symbol of Christ—forms around a map of Hamburg, taking the village up into another realm where suffering is no more.

The center left panel shows the union of Christian and traditional Xhosa belief systems. [5] At the top a group of people from different denominations gather outside a church for prayer and worship in the company of angels. Below them villagers gather inside a kraal to witness a bull slaughter, a multipurpose ritual that in this context connotes thanksgiving and celebration.

Detail of worshipers from various Christian denominations, all of which have representation in Hamburg, the two most popular being Methodist and Anglican.

The center right panel features a Christian man of local fame, Vuyisile Funda—known more commonly by his clan name, Gaba (“the prophet”)—who communes with God regularly before dawn by running up and down the village sand dunes, making geometric patterns with his footprints. “When I wake up I have words telling me to go down [to the beach] and worship for the day He is giving me,” Gaba says. “And after that, I give thanks by making those patterns.” [6] While some consider this behavior eccentric, he insists that it is his way of praying for the world and drawing attention to its beauty. [7] Gaba is presented here as one whose vision of the New Hamburg is realized.

Detail of crazy-for-God Gaba, who casts a massive red-skirted shadow behind him.

An ephemeral sand drawing, or sand prayer, by Vuyisile “Gaba” Funda, danced out before dawn.

Coincidentally, the making of this layer of panels corresponded to the large-scale introduction of antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) in Hamburg. For the first time ever, people here with AIDS were getting up and walking, eating, working, playing, giving the artists a tangible hope that infuses this section.

View 3: Reality

Keiskamma Altarpiece (second open view), 2005. Mixed media, 4.15 × 6.8 m (13.6′ × 22.3′). Click to enlarge.

The innermost layer of the Keiskamma Altarpiece features photographs [8] of Susan Paliso, Eunice Mangwane, and Caroline Nyongo—local heroines of the faith who model Christ through acts of nurture and sacrifice. Shown with their grandchildren, these women replace the images of Saints Augustine, Anthony, and Jerome in the Isenheim prototype.

Mangwane is a community health educator and counselor in Hamburg. Known locally as “Mama AIDS,” she has been instrumental in urging people to get tested for HIV, disclose their status, and accept medical treatment, as well as teaching them preventative measures. She has a daughter and a grandson (in the picture, the one with the striped shirt) who are HIV-positive. [9]

Nyongo has five daughters and many grandchildren (only four are pictured here), all of whom live with her in Hamburg. A gifted artist, she led the group that created the wire sculpture and beadwork above the photographs in this section, which update the lime wood latticework of Grünewald’s altarpiece. Here zoomorphic emblems of the four Gospel writers—also present in the Isenheim—perch on a coral tree, and birds roost on neighboring acacias.

Detail of a winged ox, a traditional symbol of the evangelist Luke (because his Gospel emphasizes the theme of sacrifice).

The outer panels feature the Keiskamma River and mountains, inscribed with the names of the artists and their relatives who have died of AIDS. This serene imagery, which echoes that of Revelation 22, indicates that the deceased community members have been laid peacefully to rest; they have entered the afterlife and are free from suffering.

Detail of the Keiskamma River, which is thought by locals to have healing powers, it being the supposed dwelling place of their ancestors. The beaded names signify those who have died of AIDS, whereas the embroidered names are those of the artists.

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By using a religious format—the altarpiece—the artists have dignified their community’s experiences, have suggested that their story contains shades of the holy. It links particular Hamburg women to Christian saints of ages past who likewise endured great trials, inviting others to gaze on and follow these tangible examples of living faith. Ten years ago when the altarpiece was created, HIV carried a stigma in Hamburg, and affected individuals tended to hide any associations they had to it. The Keiskamma Altarpiece thus serves as a bold means of disclosure; it proclaims that there is no shame in the virus and moreover insists that the suffering it wreaks will one day be redeemed.

The altarpiece chronicles a painful part of Hamburg’s recent past, of which the effects still linger. But it not only declares where they’ve been as a community; it declares where they’re going . . . and progress has already been made. Ten years later, the AIDS crisis in Hamburg has de-escalated; education about transmission has led to fewer new diagnoses and the birth of almost no HIV-positive children in the last seven years, and antiretroviral therapy has made living with AIDS much more manageable. Hofmeyr says that AIDS is a part of life that the community has learned to deal with and that there are many HIV-positive individuals there and elsewhere throughout the country who are well and have normal lives.

The Keiskamma Altarpiece was first unveiled at the Anglican Cathedral in Grahamstown, South Africa, in July 2005. Since then it has traveled to England, Canada, and throughout the United States. It was purchased by a private collector, who has loaned it for the time being to Hamburg, where it is being housed in a government building dedicated to the arts.

To see video footage of the altarpiece’s unveiling and to learn more about the context of its creation, watch the fifteen-minute documentary The Art of Healing, embedded below:

NOTES

1. ^ Most of the artists are from Hamburg, but some came from the neighboring villages of Bodium, Ntilini, and Bell. Of the approximately 130 people who contributed to the altarpiece, only a handful were men, including Justus Hofmeyr, Carol’s husband, who created the wooden framework.

2. ^ Embroidery and appliqué in the form of beading, buttons, and strips or shapes of other material were already common art forms in Xhosa society prior to the establishment of the Keiskamma Trust. But the Keiskamma Altarpiece project introduced new, related techniques to artists: Jan Chalmers and Jacky Jezweski were brought in from the UK to teach stump work, a type of raised embroidery, and Ardwork Eddie Jange from the Cape Town organization Streetwires taught them how to create three-dimensional forms using beaded wire.

3. ^ Lagena Mapuma passed away in 2005 shortly after the altarpiece was completed.

4. ^ The Methodist Women’s Prayer and Service Union is one of several Manyanos (a name derived from the Xhosa verb ukumanyana, to join together) in South Africa, a class of voluntary associations dedicated to preaching, prayer, and fund-raising. In Christianity and Xhosa Tradition (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1975), B. A. Pauw writes, “The heartbeat of many a local church [in South Africa] is in the women’s Manyano, and it is here that the predominant trends in Xhosa churches find their fullest expression: emotionalism, other-worldly orientation, emphasis on prayer, and having a direct relationship with God as caring Father who gives strength to bear the burdens of this world.” (94)

5. ^ In an e-mail to me dated September 13, 2015, Hofmeyr wrote that most people in Hamburg belong to a Christian church of some kind and have deep personal faith in Jesus but also maintain traditional beliefs about ancestors, who are said to maintain relations with the living and serve as a source of good or bad fortune. For more on the interplay between the two religious systems, see B. A. Pauw, Christianity and Xhosa Tradition (Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1975).

6. ^ Quoted secondhand in Brenda Schmahmann, “A Framework for Recuperation: HIV/AIDS and the Keiskamma Altarpiece,” African Arts 43, no. 4 (Autumn 2010): 47.

7. ^ Keiskamma Songbook: Aquarium (Keiskamma Trust: Hamburg, Eastern Cape, South Africa, 2010), 40. For more on Gaba, see The Dune Runner, a short film by Carol’s sons, Graeme and Robert Hofmeyr.

8. ^ Tanya Jordaan took these three photographs and worked as a supervisor on the project.

9. ^ For more about Eunice Mangwane, see season 1, episode 16 of the SABC television documentary series I Am Woman, Leap of Faith.

An ancient Jewish blessing supposedly goes, “May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.” The idea is that a rabbi’s disciples—those who took on his yoke, his set of interpretations of scripture—were to follow so closely behind him when they walked that they would become caked in the dust he kicked up with his feet. The blessing had a literal meaning but was primarily metaphoric, and the common Christian saying “following in the footsteps of Jesus” conveys the same idea (albeit less poetically!).

This blessing for religious learners is expounded on in the short film Dust by Rob Bell, embedded below, which is part of the NOOMA series. Its content evolved into what became chapter 5 of the book Velvet Elvis.

(I am aware that since making this video Bell has veered far off-center of orthodox Christianity and has thus lost the esteem of evangelical leaders, but that doesn’t mean we need to reject all of his teachings. Dust was my first introduction to Bell—almost ten years ago!—and while I am disappointed with the direction he has taken, I appreciate his desire to ask questions and to seek fresh ways to articulate the truths of scripture.)

In this video Bell explains what it meant to be a rabbi’s disciple in Jesus’s day, which can give us a better understanding of what compelled Peter and Andrew to drop their nets when Rabbi Jesus called them, and what it means for us to be chosen by Jesus today.

If you are interested in learning more about this traditional blessing, I commend to you the blog post “Covered in the Dust of Your Rabbi: An Urban Legend?” by Lois Tverberg. In response to a writer’s allegation that the “dust” blessing is commonly misinterpreted by Christians, Tverberg examines its primary source, the Mishnah, as well as Jewish commentaries.

Celtic has become a buzzword in today’s age, evoking romantic notions of a peaceful, inclusive, nature-loving Christianity practiced in the British Isles of the Early Middle Ages. Classicist Michael W. Herren and medieval art historian Shirley Ann Brown, however, do not indulge these popular misconceptions in their book Christ in Celtic Christianity: Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2002, 2012). On the contrary, by examining textual and artistic evidence they reveal that the Christianity that was first embraced by Celtic-speaking peoples was very much ascetic and oriented around the avoidance of hell, with salvation being conceived as the end of a life of self-effort rather than an act of God’s grace. Christ the Perfect Monk and Christ the Judge were the most common images of Christ during this period—literary images, that is, for the early British and Irish churches rejected the making of physical images. Only later in the mid-seventh century, when the Roman Church began to infiltrate the Isles, did Celtic Christology start to take on a more orthodox form, with a greater emphasis on Christ as divine, redeeming, and miracle working. This is when stone sculpture and incision, metalwork, and illuminated manuscripts of a distinctly Celtic Christian nature started appearing.

The book contains 16 halftones and 10 line-drawn figures. Because the paperback is being printed by an on-demand service, the quality of the halftones is compromised—however, most of these images can be found online, and in fact I wouldn’t recommend viewing the manuscript illuminations in any other way than in color.

A collaborative effort between two scholars of different specializations, the book is for the most part conjunctive, its voice consistent. Chapters 1–4, written by Herren, present a history of Christianity in Britain and Ireland up to the tenth century, with special emphasis on Pelagian doctrine and the relationship between the Celtic Church and Rome. Chapter 5, also by Herren, describes the four most common images of Christ found in the religious writings produced in or imported to Britain and Ireland: Christ the Perfect Monk, Christ the Judge, the Heroic Christ (Harrower of Hell), and Christ the Wonder Worker. Chapters 6–7, written by Brown, survey the various visual representations of Christ in Celtic art, including symbolic representations like the cross and the sacred monogram. I would have preferred that the literary themes were integrated with the visual rather than treated in separate chapters, as this would have eliminated some redundancy and made for better flow, in my opinion, but this is a minor criticism.  

Note that the chapters of the book are not self-contained essays; each contributes to a line of argument, so those art students wishing to skip to chapter 6 would be ill served in doing so, and likewise students of religious history or theology ought not to neglect the last two chapters, as art is an important expression—and even shaper—of religious culture. The authors describe the inextricable relationship between text and image in their introduction:

We do not necessarily see text and image in a direct causal relationship – an image need not have been a deliberate illustration of a specific text. In fact, this is seldom the case. Nor must every level of meaning have been intended by the creating artist or the ‘patron’. Our arguments are built upon the principle that, in our period, texts are ‘absorbed’ into a society and become part of the ‘collective’ way of thinking. An image can recall a number of different associations relayed by texts and culture and can carry multivalent meanings, the comprehension and interpretation of which will be reliant upon the repository of ideas in the viewer’s mind. (20)

Pelagianism in Britain and Ireland

The central claim of the book is indeed its most controversial: that the common Celtic Church was substantially influenced by the teachings of Pelagius, a British-born theologian of the fourth and fifth centuries who denied the doctrines of original sin, predestination, and special grace and thus was denounced as a heretic by the Roman Church, which espoused the theology of Augustine instead. (Acknowledging it as a term of convenience, the authors use “common Celtic Church” to refer to “a set of commonalities of theology and of some features of practice” on the British Isles from ca. 450–ca. 630, despite the absence of a centralizing institutional structure.) The main tenets of Pelagianism are as follows:

Its adherents taught the natural goodness of man, that a sinless life was possible not only for the Jewish patriarchs but for gentiles as well, that sin was not transmitted through the blood-line, that grace was not necessary for salvation, that God predestined no one, that all men could be saved if they believed, that salvation was achieved through perfect obedience to the law, and that obedience to the law was fostered by asceticism. The Christ of the Pelagians did not save men and women by dying on the cross, but by his teaching and example he made salvation possible for those who willed it for themselves. (278)

Celtic Christology, therefore, emphasized Jesus’s role as lawgiver, teacher, and model of conduct at the expense of his role as divine redeemer. The Christ of the Pelagians was nontranscendent, heavily humanized.

In this page from the Book of Kells (ca. 800) that faces Luke 4, Christ is shown perched atop the Jerusalem temple, depicted as a small Irish-type church or house-shrine. At the bottom of the illumination a smaller figure of Christ stands in the doorway of the structure holding a crossed rod and scepter, with a group of men crowded on either side–an allusion to the Last Judgment. Shirley Ann Brown interprets this image in light of the monastic ideal: if we, like Christ, resist the temptations of the devil in this life, we will receive a favorable verdict in the next.

Scholars disagree on the extent of Pelagian influence among the Celts, with many asserting that the Celtic Church was wholly orthodox in matters of faith, differing only in practical matters like the dating of Easter and the manner in which monks were to cut their hair. While the authors offer support for their controversial view, I myself remain a bit skeptical, as both written and visual records appear inconclusive, espousing (it seems to me) a range of theological views, or at least emphases. The authors do acknowledge this variety and are honest in addressing images that do not fit tidily into their thesis, but they often present these anti-Pelagian types as exceptions to the norm, or paradoxes, or reactions against the restrictiveness of Pelagianism, or products of Romanizing influence. While tinges of Pelagianism might be interpreted in some of the art and are more obviously present in some of the textual sources, the evidence presented in the book does not seem strong enough to justify the claim that Peliagianism or even semi-Pelagianism was the “foundation” or “defining” characteristic (100–101) of the common Celtic Church.

Early Celtic Christian art

As mentioned above, the common Celtic Church was hostile toward visual representations of God and even of created nature. This is due, Herren claims, to Pelagius’s strict, literal interpretation of the second commandment of Moses’s law. Therefore, all the examples of visual culture given in this book date from after the era of the common Celtic Church—that is, after the mid-seventh century. At this time the Romanizing factions within the Celtic Church had gained ascendancy, essentially uniting the Celtic Church with the Church at Rome and relegating Pelagian theology to the fringes.

South Cross, Ahenny. Late 7th century. County Tipperary, Ireland. Five bosses are placed at the spots of Christ’s wounds.

The Roman Church had already reconciled the second commandment with its practice of art making, and so with Roman influence came the beginnings of Christian art in Britain and Ireland. But having been steeped for the previous two centuries in an iconoclastic mind-set, Celtic Christians were cautious at first in their representations of Christ, preferring abstract symbols such as the cross or the Chi Rho (which represented Christ by proxy and were therefore deemed safer) to the representational figures that were popular on the continent. These are the two iconographic types that one probably thinks of when one thinks Celtic Christian art, a tradition that calls to mind the high stone crosses of Ireland, many with a distinctive “Celtic” ring, and the heavily ornamented Chi Rho page of the Book of Kells, in which spirals, peltas, and other indigenous designs beautify the name of Christ.

This Book of Kells page depicting the first three Greek letters of the messianic title “Christ”—Chi, Rho, and Iota—is considered to be one of the most beautiful illuminations of all time. “The Christological references seem to be hidden within the forms decorating the Kells monogram and invite a close contemplation by those privileged to view it at close range,” writes Shirley Ann Brown. “It incorporates images of animals which had close associations with Insular monastic life and legend: men, fish, otter, cats and mice.” (230–31)

It wasn’t until the eighth century that Christ was first directly represented in Celtic art. With vestiges of their former semi-Pelagianism still remaining, the churches on the British Isles commonly promoted images of Christ as a monk or a judge. Two other somewhat common iconographic types—ones that express a more Romanized theology—were the Harrowing of Hell and Christ the Wonder Worker; these types acknowledge the intervention of God in salvation and in life. The Crucifixion was also common, with some representations emphasizing the event as the ultimate example of self-mortification and others emphasizing the grace imparted to mankind by the shedding of Christ’s blood. With the influx of Roman (read: Augustinian) theology into Britain and Ireland came an expansion of the Celtic understanding of who Christ is and how he acted in history.

The art analyses by Brown in chapters 6–7 (which span ninety pages) were a definite highlight for me. She expertly guides the reader through the iconographic details and context of dozens of Christological works, some of which are well known and others that are lesser so. For example, she identifies a unique iconographic feature in two crosses (the one at Durrow, and the one at Clonmacnois): a bird breathing life back into the entombed Christ, likely an anti-Pelagian symbol of Christ’s divine aspect returning to his mortal body after the harrowing.

Her survey extends to the broader genre of Insular art, which includes those works produced by Anglo-Saxons, such as the famous Ruthwell cross.

I appreciate Brown’s in-depth discussion of the cult of the true cross and its influence on the Isles and its art. I also enjoyed learning more about the function of illuminated manuscripts—who used them, and for what; the Irish high crosses, which served as gathering points for public sermons as well as local sites of pilgrimage at a time when the Holy Land was under Muslim control and thus closed off to Christian pilgrims; and the incised cross-slabs, which were used mainly as grave markers.

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The authors set out to write a book that is scholarly but accessible to nonspecialists, and they succeeded admirably. A few supplements that would have been helpful as appendices are a map and a timeline—the former because several different regions and people groups are discussed that were particular to early medieval Europe, and moreover, much of the art is named after its place of origin; and the latter because the book is not organized chronologically and yet many dates are mentioned that provide an important historical framework. This would have enhanced the book’s accessibility even more.

But really, the book is excellent, full of cogent expositions of historical material and many quote-worthy passages. Although I am not altogether convinced of the wholly distinctive nature of early Celtic Christianity, I can easily agree with the authors’ thesis when stated in its softer form—that Pelagianism exerted some influence in early medieval British Isle churches, which affected the way some local communities perceived Christ and his relevance. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to explore the origins of Celtic Christianity and in particular the development of a heterodox Christology that endured for a period until becoming absorbed into the more dominant Christology of continental Europe.

“The Church of Yeezianity” by Matt Wilstein: This new religion reveres Kanye West as Yeezus, “a divine being who has been sent by God to usher in a New Age of humanity,” according to the religion’s official website. In an interview with Noisey, the anonymous founder of Yeezianity—who insists that no, this is not a joke—said, “Jesus has all this baggage and all these connotations, and Yeezus is this new thing. . . . Yeezus is when Kanye elevates to that God-level, which I feel like we all have the potential to do.” He also says that Kanye has the highest moral standards of anyone today. Oy vey.

Kanye West made Rolling Stone‘s February 9, 2006, cover story. His song “Jesus Walks” has been hailed as one of the greatest hip-hop songs of all time.

The Young Messiah: This new movie set to release next March follows Jesus at age seven as he returns home to Galilee and starts growing into his religious identity. Based on the Anne Rice novel Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt.

“Refuting 5 False Theories about Jesus” by Kyle Dillon: Jesus the Pagan Myth. Jesus the Failed Prophet. Jesus the Moral Philosopher. Jesus the Violent Revolutionary. Jesus the Ahistorical Existentialist.

“Photos of European Churches Left in Holy Ruin” by Anika Burgess: Photographer Hans van Vrouwerf has a fascination with lost faith and forgotten places of worship and has visually documented about twenty abandoned churches around Europe.

“15 Religion Treasures at Yale” by Tom Krattenmaker: Yale University houses artistic and literary treasures relating to various religious faiths, and the fifteen that Krattenmaker highlights are all available for public viewing. Those from the Christian tradition include a Gutenberg Bible, a wall painting extracted from a third-century house church in present-day Syria (which features one of the earliest depictions of Jesus! see image below), and the original handwritten text of the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Yale alum Jonathan Edwards.

Christ Healing the Paralytic, third century. Wall painting extracted from the baptistery at Dura-Europos, now housed at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.

The designer wear company Elvis Jesus was founded in 1997. According to their website, “Somewhere between the gutter and the stars lies Elvis Jesus, juxtaposing heroes with anti-heroes, rock with religion and fashion with politics. Using inky black humour, renegade design and painstaking hand applied couture detailing, Elvis Jesus portray a twisted tale of sex and drugs and sweet salvation.”

With this post I’m deviating a tad from the Jesus program to dwell on a painting that is particularly timely for me and my family, who in the wake of a cancer diagnosis are being forced to hope. My Aunt Marjie, always such a lively presence and so full of joy, has been confronted with the sudden news of a malignancy that’s spreading through her body. And so she—and we who love her—are hunched over in twilight, plucking the last string the doctors have left us, striving to hear music.

George Frederic Watts (British, 1817-1904), Hope, 1886. Oil on canvas, 142.2 x 111.8 cm. Tate Britain, London.

George Frederic Watts painted two versions of Hope in 1886—the first with a star in the distance, which is in a private collection, and the second, the more famous of the two (pictured above), without the star. Painted after the death of his granddaughter, it shows a blindfolded woman sitting atop a globe, clutching a wooden lyre that has only one string intact. Instead of using the more obvious allegorical device of light to signify hope, Watts uses music: his figure leans in toward her instrument and tiredly plucks its remaining string, resting in its resonance.

(It reminds me of a photo taken by Julie Adnan for National Geographic, of a little Iraqi boy playing a violin in a music hall ravaged by war, looting, and neglect.)

Perhaps the mood of the painting seems too melancholy to you to suggest hope. Where’s the rising sun on the horizon, or the soaring bird, or the blooming flower? Not here. Instead there is the suggestion of a faint song—invisible, intangible. We tune our ears to it, and it sustains us.

Those who are forced by circumstances to hope are in a misty, dark, uncertain place. Watts knew it well; he was there. And his portrayal of that state is raw, honest; it avoids platitudes. When we hope, we don’t move out of the darkness or the mist. We sit in it still, but we incline ourselves toward favorable possibilities.  

The twentieth-century theologian and art critic G. K. Chesterton discusses this painting in his book G. F. Watts (London: Duckworth & Co., 1904). At first glance, Chesterton writes, a viewer might be likely to think the title is an error, and that the painting should more aptly be titled Despair. But if he were to gaze at it for a longer period of time, he might perceive the truth that

there is something in man which is always apparently on the eve of disappearing, but never disappears, an assurance which is always apparently saying farewell and yet illimitably lingers, a string which is always stretched to snapping and yet never snaps. He perceives that the queerest and most delicate thing in us, the most fragile, the most fantastic, is in truth the backbone and indestructible.

The personified Hope of Watts’s painting “is dim and delicate and yet immortal, the indestructible minimum of the spirit”; she holds to her breast “something damaged but undestroyed.” Her name is not Hopeless or Despair—for if it were, she would put down her lyre, considering it no longer capable of making music. But instead she keeps on clutching it and relishes the one beautiful note that sounds from its string.

The audacity of hope

The phrase “the audacity of hope” is familiar to most Americans, it being the theme of President Barack Obama’s address to the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and the title of his most popular book. But it didn’t originate with Obama; he said he took the phrase from a sermon he heard in 1990 by the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church in Chicago. Wright opened his sermon with an extended analysis of the Watts painting. (This wasn’t the first time the painting was used as a sermon illustration: Martin Luther King Jr. had cited it in the opening of his sermon “Shattered Dreams.”) He then went on to liken the figure of Hope to the biblical Hannah, who had “the audacity to hope,” to keep praying to God for a child even though there was no physical sign that she would ever be answered in the affirmative. “With that one string she had left,” he preached, “Hannah had the audacity to make music and praise God.”

Why is Hope blindfolded? Because she sees with the eyes of the heart what the physical eyes cannot yet perceive. Just as she hears a song that some others cannot hear.

By way of application, Wright exhorts his audience to have the audacity to hope in their own lives, whether that be for a job, healing, reconciliation, or whatever.  One minute, he says, we’re on top of the world, and then something devastating comes along, leaving us feeling isolated and in tatters. But at that time, we—like Hannah, like Hope—need to take whatever we have left and use it to play music. Wright also discusses the painting in light of global issues like war, racism, and famine.

Furthermore, he references the African American spiritual “Over My Head”: “Over my head I hear music in the air. . . . There must be a God somewhere.” Composed in the context of forced labor, abuse, and indignity on end, the song nevertheless acknowledges the existence of an unseen realm in which joy reigns. Despite our harsh circumstances, we can inhabit that space of joy, of optimism; we can call it down to ourselves, from the God who gives it freely.

Hope is hearing the music up above our heads.

Without it, sorrow becomes despair

Besides partially inspiring Obama’s political platform, Watts’s Hope is also the framing device of a 1922 fictionalized short film of the same title, starring Mary Astor.

The movie opens in Watts’s studio, where we meet a downcast model. She tells Watts that she’s sorry, but he had better find a different model, one who exudes happiness. Watts tells her to cling to hope, for “without its golden thread, sorrow becomes despair.” The artist then pulls out the painting Hope and proceeds to tell the woman the story that inspired it—one of a woman who hopefully awaited her beloved’s return from a dangerous sea voyage.

“Is it . . . Hope?” the woman in the outer narrative asks Watts, wondering at the figure in the painting and the sad-looking instrument she holds. “All the strings are gone, save one.”

“Yes, that is love,” says Watts. “As Hope bends low to catch its single note she counts the rest well lost if that remains.”

In other words, love hopes all things (1 Corinthians 13:7).

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So during this time of anguish my family and I channel Hope, bending low to catch the sweet sound of victory over cancer, to inhabit that 5 percent chance. We anticipate the best of all possible outcomes, knowing that although Marjie will likely grow fragile and thin and may very well be stretched close to her breaking point, she—like that harp string—is indomitable. And love will bear her up.

My brother, husband, and I have similar tastes in music. We like a folksy sound. We like banjos but not too much twang in the vocals. We like harmonies.

So we all like the Avett Brothers.

Hailing from my native North Carolina, Seth and Scott Avett (along with fellow band members Bob Crawford and Joe Kwon) are known for such songs as “I and Love and You,” “Live and Die,” “Murder in the City,” and others about love, loss, and regret. But they also occasionally sing songs from the church hymnal, paying homage to their spiritual roots. (Their paternal grandfather was a Methodist minister.)

Here are a few of my faves that center on Jesus.

“In the Garden”: Songwriter C. Austin Miles said he was inspired to pen these lyrics by his reflections on what it must have been like for Mary Magdalene to be alone in the garden with the resurrected Christ on that first Easter morning. The song describes the sweetness of those quiet times we spend alone with Christ, communing with him in prayer.

“Just a Closer Walk with Thee”: As we sing this hymn we beg Jesus to bind us close to himself in life and in death. The lyrics acknowledge Jesus as our guide and our burden bearer.

“Jesus Lifted Me”: This African American spiritual praises Jesus for lifting us out of trouble and bondage.

“Stand By Me”: Not to be confused with the more famous song of the same title by Ben E. King (“Darlin’, darlin’, stand . . .”), this hymn by Charles Albert Tindley was a brand-new discovery for me, and I absolutely love it. In the midst of one of life’s storms, the speaker cries out to Jesus: “Thou who rulest wind and water, stand by me.” Each of the other four verses calls to account some trait or name or past act of God, asking him to be that person in a particular way today. In the video below, Seth Avett sings it solo on a tour bus. You can read the full lyrics at Hymnary.org.

Other religious songs that the Avett Brothers sing—many along with their dad, Jim, and sister, Bonnie—span the topics of salvation (“Amazing Grace”); communal prayer and lament (“Down in the Valley”); trust in Jesus (“Learning to Lean”); casting off violence and aggression (“Down by the Riverside”); dying and going to heaven (“Peace in the Valley”; “Angel Band”; “Walking in Jerusalem”; “I’ll Fly Away”); and Christ’s second coming (“When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder”). The Avett Family recorded several of these in 2008.

This Saturday, October 31, is an important commemorative date in the Protestant calendar: on this day in 1517 Martin Luther nailed a written protest to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, listing ninety-five ways in which the church had departed from its gospel core and thus initiating a major reform movement whose supporters eventually split from Roman Catholicism.

Though I think it sad that Christ’s church is divided, I stand in solidarity with the reformers, who saw that Truth had become so muddied by church practices and teachings that it was at the time unrecognizable. It needed a thorough wash-down.

One aspect of the Protestant tradition that I’m ashamed of is its generally negative opinion of, or at least indifference toward, images. Though this has been changing slowly through the efforts of artists, arts writers, liturgists, and well-rounded clergy, the Protestant legacy has instilled in its inheritors a natural hesitance to embrace the visual, for fear—I guess—of appearing “too Catholic” or “too Orthodox.”

Iconoclasm was a major feature of the Protestant Reformation, accompanied by widespread destruction of church art under the sanction of Andreas Karlstadt, who denounced all images as idolatrous. This view was supported by Ulrich Zwingli, and although John Calvin’s views were less severe, he rejected the use of images as aids to worship and wanted them out of the sanctuaries.

Martin Luther, however—the reformer par excellence—distanced himself from this agenda item, holding a more tolerant stance toward images. In a 1525 essay written against the radical efforts of Karlstadt and the image breakers, Luther claimed that images of Christ’s Passion, for example, were not intrinsically objectionable, for “it is impossible for me to hear and bear [the Passion] in mind without forming mental images of it in my heart. . . . If it is not a sin but good to have the image of Christ in my heart, why should it be a sin to have it in my eyes?”  

What needed reform, according to Luther, was how such images were used. Their function had indeed become corrupted in the majority of churches: they had morphed into objects of superstition and/or veneration. But destruction was not the answer, said Luther:

Do not suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused. Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit wine and abolish women? The sun, the moon, and stars have been worshiped. Shall we then pluck them out of the sky? Such haste and violence betray a lack of confidence in God. (qtd. in Here I Stand, p. 213) **Can anyone find me the primary source of this quote?**

Retraining in proper use was the answer.

Luther was not a staunch advocate for art in churches, but he did acknowledge the didactic value of images. To this end he commissioned his friend Lucas Cranach to make an altarpiece that would lay out the core tenets of the Christian faith as he and his fellow reformers understood it. The result was Law and Grace (sometimes referred to alternately as Law and Gospel).

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472-1553), Law and Grace, 1529. Tempera on linden wood, 82.2 × 118 cm. Castle Museum Schloss Freidenstein, Gotha, Germany.

The painting is divided in half by a tree whose left side is devoid of leaves but whose right side is verdant—which suggests the barrenness of a life lived outside the state of grace, of the heart that has not received Christ, and by contrast the spiritual lushness brought about by grace received. The left and right sides can’t be classified strictly as old covenant versus new, or law versus grace, since not all the scenes fit into such a program. Instead, the imagery communicates Luther’s view of the law (drawn from the Book of Romans) as a measuring stick that reveals our need for a savior, a role filled by Christ. In Lutheran theology, the law is not an agent of justification; it only condemns, whereas Christ justifies. The interpretation of the painting is aided by the inscriptions, taken from scripture, along the bottom.

The left panel, middle ground, shows Adam and Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit, unleashing sin and death into the world. Beside them is a Hebrew camp in which a bronze serpent has been erected on a pole, per God’s instructions to Moses; those who looked on this raised serpent were saved from the death that had been spreading through the camp (Numbers 21:4-9; cf. John 3:14-15). At this early stage of salvation history God was already teaching the Israelites how to exercise faith in his saving power rather than in their own merit.

Above these two scenes Christ sits upon the earth in judgment. From his right ear protrudes a lily, symbolizing mercy; from his left, a sword, damnation. The latter end befalls the naked man in the foreground, who is being prodded to hell by a skeleton (Death) and a demon (Sin) while Moses and other prophets point accusingly to the tablets of the law. The implication is that this man trusted in his own ability to meet God’s standard of righteousness, but he fell tragically short.

Enter the gospel.

In the middle ground of the right panel is the Annunciation to the Shepherds, that familiar episode from the Christmas story in which an angel announces that the long-awaited messiah has been born to bring joy, peace, and salvation to the world.

In the foreground John the Baptist, prophet of the New Testament, draws our attention to another plot point in this messianic narrative: the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. At the foot of the cross the Lamb of God—an emblem of Christ—tramples Sin and Death, those two ungainly creatures who terrorize the man on the opposite panel. Higher up, a stream of blood shoots with laser precision from the wound in Christ’s side to the man who stands before him in humble repentance. Naked, vulnerable, with no good deeds to recommend him, the man relies wholly on the saving work of Christ.

Together these two panels convey the sola fide doctrine that’s so central to Protestant theology: we are justified, made right with God, not by works but by faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9)—faith in the God who graciously took on the punishment of sin that the law demanded, dying in our place.

Like Luther, not all Protestants were averse to images, but they did redefine their function. The art that came out of the Reformation had one main purpose: to teach doctrine (or to accuse opponents of false doctrine by means of satire). By no means should it stir the imagination or the emotional faculties, which is where, the reformers believed, the Catholic church had gone wrong.

Though I do not share the sixteenth-century Protestant fixation on didacticism in art nor its rejection of imagination and emotion, I appreciate how Luther and others, despite several very vocal (and vandalizing) opponents, recognized the value of the visual and took the initiative to adapt the old, old practice of art making rather than cast it off entirely.

Partner with an arts missionary: My friend Scott Rayl has joined Wycliffe Bible Translators as an arts specialist and is in the process of raising money to start training for service in West Africa. Scott is the person who first got me interested in non-Western Christian art—I’m sure you can see his influence across my blog. If you’re interested in donating toward his mission, click here and fill out the “Give” box. Be sure to watch the short video he put together to explain what an “arts specialist” is and why he feels called to that role.

“Aubade-Harlem” by Thomas Merton, illustrated by Andre Racz: One of my assignments as assistant editor of ArtWay.eu is to seek out artistic responses to poems and vice versa as well as poet-artist collaborations. I found this one in Christian Art by Rowena Loverance (perhaps the best introduction to Christian art I’ve read), and ArtWay got permission from New Directions to publish it online. The poem—by one who has been named one of the most famous theologians of the twentieth century—likens Jesus’s crucifixion to the life of the children of Harlem, martyred by the exploitation of the white professional class. Drawing on the brilliant visual interpretation by Romanian American artist Andre Racz, Loverance explains that the children’s prayers of a better life, like kites floating upward, have been crucified on the ghetto’s lines and wires.

Deeper Well Records: In its latest e-newsletter Image journal linked to “Twelve Cascadian Arts Organizations to Know About,” which led me to discover the Christian music collective Deeper Well, birthed out of Door of Hope church in Portland, Oregon. The several talented artists who make up this entity offer an alternative to mainstream CCM, representing genres like folk, country, and funk. I found that I really like the songwriting of Wesley Randolph Eader. Below is a video of him performing the original song “Of Old It Was Recorded” with Ben Michel and Eric Earley; it’s the title track of his first studio album, which you can download for free from NoiseTrade.

Vincent Van Gogh’s lost Jesus paintings: I’ve done a bit of research on Van Gogh and the influence of Christianity on his art (which is waiting in the wings of this blog), and this summer another book on him came out that I look forward to reading, titled Van Gogh’s Ghost Paintings: Art and Spirit in Gethsemane. By poring over correspondence, author Cliff Edwards has uncovered evidence that Van Gogh had created two paintings of the Agony in the Garden—which he then destroyed. The book explores why. “The answer to the mystery of the lost paintings,” writes the publisher, “illuminates the relationship of joy and suffering, discovery and creation, religion and the arts in van Gogh’s life and work.”

Quiz on Christ: Tim Challies and Mark Jones have created thirty questions to test your knowledge about Jesus according to scripture, councils, and creeds. Though different Christians, even within the evangelical fold, may contest some of the answers (and Challies said he has received push-back on some via e-mail), for the most part this is the orthodox understanding of the nature and roles of Jesus. I got a 28/30 . . . how did you do?

The Madonna and Child—Virgin Mary holding her infant son, Jesus—is a subject as old as the second-century Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome. The Byzantine Church, for whom this subject held central importance, developed a standardized iconography for it, and it rose to popularity in the West in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the cult of the Virgin took root there.

Wherever Christianity travels and is received, the host culture tends to adapt the church’s iconography to its own context. The Māori—the indigenous people of New Zealand—are no exception.

Wood carvings by indigenous artists

Unfortunately, missionaries didn’t always approve of indigenous visual expressions of the gospel. Such was the case with two nineteenth-century Madonna and Child figurines, carved by new Māori converts to the faith and presented to, but rejected by, the local parish priests for chapel use.

The earlier of these two tekoteko (carved figures) was made around 1845, seven years after the first Roman Catholic mission was established in New Zealand. The artist has indicated Mary’s spiritual status by giving her a full-face moko (tattoo)—a distinction typically reserved for men. This likens her to an ariki tapairu, the firstborn female in a Māori family of rank, who was invested with sacred attributes and given the respect due to a princess or queen.

As is traditional in Māori carving, the eyes are made of pāua (abalone) shell.

Pataromu Tamatea (disputed), Madonna and Child, ca. 1845. Auckland Museum, New Zealand. For a close-up, see Flickr user Nick Thompson’s photo.

Madonna and Child, ca. 1890. Te Papa museum, Wellington, New Zealand.

The other tekoteko was carved around 1890. It too shows Mary with a full-face moko, but unlike its predecessor, the bodies of the figures are smooth, and they stand on a grotesque head with a protruding tongue.

Because such objects were unfamiliar to the European settlers, they tended to denigrate them as primitive and idolatrous. Out of concern for how the pakeha (non-Māori) in the parish would react to the Christianized tekoteko, the priests reluctantly declined the gifts. [1]

However, both tekoteko have ended up in New Zealand museums for a wider audience to enjoy, and the 1845 one was even featured prominently in the ceremony to welcome Pope John Paul II to the country in 1986.  

Stained glass window by Martin Roestenburg

Stained glass window by Martin Roestenburg, south wall, Church of St. Werenfried, Waihi Village, Lake Taupo, New Zealand. Photo: Ellen Andersen, for Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

Another Māori Madonna and Child is found in the Catholic Church of St. Werenfried in Waihi Village, Lake Taupo, New Zealand. On the south wall (that is, the wall on the left if you’re facing the altar) is a stained glass window by Dutch immigrant Martin Roestenburg (1909–1966) that shows Mary wearing a korowai cloak and a huia-feather headdress. She crosses her arms in humility, a gesture common in solo portraits of Mary but rare in portraits of her holding Jesus. Both she and her babe in arms confront the viewer with a strong, dignified gaze.

At the base of the window is a Māori inscription that reads E MARIA E TOKU WHAEA (“Mary, my mother”).

The artist based his representation of the Madonna and Child on a portrait of the late Mamae Pitiroi, wife of the well-known Māori orator Heemi Pitiroi of the Ngāti Tūwharetoa tribe. [2]

This is one of two stained glass windows by Roestenburg that were installed in the church in 1957. (The other shows the resurrected Māori Christ displaying his wounds—more on this in the next post.)

Heritage New Zealand has declared St. Werenfried’s a historic place of outstanding cultural significance. “A symbol of the village, . . . an icon of the region,” the church has played an important role in the community since its construction in 1885. Its prominent display of biblical figures in Māori dress and its adoption of Māori designs on the rafters and wall panels make it an inviting space for Māori to worship.

Oil painting by Julia Lynch

Julia B. Lynch (1896–1975) was the daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants to New Zealand. After studying abroad at the Slade School of Art in London, Lynch returned to her native New Zealand and joined the Sisters of Mercy (RSM), a worldwide religious congregation of women committed to serving those in need.

Lynch frequently turned to religious subjects in her art. In one of her Madonna and Child paintings, Mary wears a moko kauae (chin tattoo)—as was traditional for Māori females—and amokura feathers in her hair. For jewelry she wears kuru (ear pendants) and a pekapeka (neck pendant) made of tangiwai pounamu.

Julia Bridget Lynch (Sister Mary Lawrence, RSM) (1896-1975), Tangiwai, ca. 1945. St. Joseph’s Church, Hiruharama (Jerusalem), Wanganui River, New Zealand.

Pounamu—typically called greenstone by English speakers—is the name Māori give to various kinds of nephrite jade and bowenite found in southern New Zealand. Tangiwai (literally, “tear-water” or “river of tears”) is a type of pounamu that is nearly transparent; Māori legend claims it originated from the tears of a lamenting woman.

In titling the work Tangiwai, Lynch invokes the mythology of this treasured gem and grafts Mary into it.

Why does Mary weep? Because she knows a sword will pierce her heart, and the anticipation hurts. She considers along with Simeon’s words all the other messianic prophecies given throughout the history of her people and wishes there were another way for salvation to be achieved—a way other than the suffering and death of her little boy.

One could even extend the interpretation of the work to say that Mary, in her great compassion, weeps for the suffering of the Māori people, or of all humanity.

Quilt by Ku Bailey

The previous two art examples are by non-Māori individuals who nevertheless had a deep respect for the Māori, having had lived and worked among them. Mother and Child, on the other hand, was created by a Māori artist, Ku Bailey.

Ku Bailey, Mother and Child, 2004. Machine-appliquéd and -quilted cottons with polyester batting, 150 x 108 cm. Photo: Helen Mitchell.

In this quilt Mary sits cross-legged on the ground, staring down at Baby Jesus as she rocks him in her arms. New life bursts forth from the pair of them, as represented by the kowhaiwhai patterns that swirl and pulse around their heads. The kete (basket) in the foreground holds a calabash of water and a loaf of rewena (Māori potato bread), allusions to Jesus as the Living Water and the Bread of Life; he refreshes, he sustains.

Bailey created Mother and Child from photos of her daughter and newborn grandson. Like the other Marys we’ve seen, this one wears a pekapeka around her neck and feathers in her hair. Even though the figures aren’t haloed their sacredness is evident.

Coming next week, a post on Māori depictions of an adult Christ.

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1. ^ See Roger Niech, Carved Histories: Rotorua Ngati Tarawhai Woodcarving (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2001), 197, and http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/1079.

2. ^ Elizabeth Cox and Ellen Andersen, “New Zealand Heritage List / Rārangi Kōrero: Report for a Historic Place St Werenfried’s Church (Catholic), Waihī Village.” Last amended June 4, 2015. Accessed September 3, 2015.

Last week we looked at the subject of the Madonna and Child translated into a Māori idiom. Today we’ll look at artistic depictions of Jesus as a full-grown adult Māori.

Head of Christ

Māori Jesus by Sofia Minson—a New Zealand painter of Māori, Swedish, English, and Irish descent—depicts Jesus with a full-face moko (tattoo) and a pōhoi (ear and neck ornament) made from the skin of the native but now extinct huia bird.

Sofia Minson (New Zealand, 1984–), Māori Jesus, 2014. Acrylic and flashe paint on loose canvas, 148 x 97 cm.

In Māori culture, tattooing is a way to loudly declare who you are. This aspect underlies tattooing in most cultures, but whereas tattoos are many times chosen in the West simply for the attractiveness of their design or to promote some kind of vague philosophical ideal (like “Peace,” or “Love,” or “Be yourself”), in Māori culture the moko—traditionally—communicates specific information about the wearer’s lineage, tribe, occupation, rank, and exploits. Every moko is unique to the individual and tells about his or her life and history.

According to an enlightening Q&A on www.media.newzealand.com, “A moko on the face is the ultimate statement of one’s identity as a Māori,” as the head is believed to be the most sacred part of the body. To wear the moko on the face is a bold move that bespeaks your pride of self and heritage, because think about it: wherever you go, your face is the one part of your body that is likely to always be on view.

I’m not sure how to read the moko on Jesus’s face—that is, I don’t speak the language of Māori tattoo. But I can imagine it contains much of the genealogical information recorded in Matthew 1, telling how Jesus descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through the royal line of David, and how he was born of the Virgin Mary. It likely proclaims his role as messiah, his relationship to the other two persons of the Trinity, his preaching prowess, and some of the miracles he performed. (Whether there is a Māori design vocabulary to articulate such things, I don’t know!)  

Three artists bore influence on Minson’s painting. The first two are the nineteenth-century painters C. F. Goldie and Gottfried Lindauer, who specialized in portraits of Māori—especially chiefs and dignitaries—in oils on canvas. (You can see, for example, a precedent for wearing a huia bird in this fashion in Lindauer’s painting of Tukukino.) Like Goldie and Lindauer, Minson has frequently turned to contemporary Māori as subjects for her paintings, with the aim of recording certain tangible aspects of their culture and presenting them in all their dignity to the world. But unlike her artistic predecessors, who believed the Māori were a dying race, Minson shows them as a vibrant and evolving people.

The other artist is Warner Sallman, whose 1940 painting Head of Christ cemented the image of Jesus as a meek and mild white American in the minds of millions. Minson took this ubiquitous image as her starting point but made significant modifications in giving Jesus the physiognomy of a Māori: dark skin, dark hair, a flat nose, and full lips. She also makes him more masculine, with a bigger build and harder features. Māori Jesus challenges the popular conception of what Jesus looked like—not by suggesting that the historical Jesus was actually Māori but by raising awareness of how all cultures contextualize him. Sallman imaged forth a Jesus for white Protestant America, and now Minson has done it for her own people—all those indigenous New Zealanders who have lacked a photorealistic image of Christ in their own ethnicity, until now.

Jesus Walking on Water

St. Faith’s Anglican Church was the first church to be established in the Rotorua region of New Zealand, dating back to 1885. As it serves a mixed population of pakeha and Māori, its interior decoration program draws on both European and indigenous art traditions.

Its Galilee Chapel is designed to look like the interior of a chief’s house. The room features an etched glass window depicting Jesus dressed in a korowai (tasseled cloak) with a tāniko border, bearing a regalness much becoming a Māori chief. Lake Rotorua is visible just outside the window, so from inside the church, depending on your vantage point, it appears as if Jesus is either walking on the surface of the water or has just stepped off and is approaching you.

Etched glass window, 1965–67. Galilee Chapel, St. Faith’s Anglican Church, Ohinemutu, Rotorua, New Zealand. Photo: MaryLou Driedger.

Though I went down many avenues to track down the name of the artist, I had no success; the church itself was not responsive. If you happen to know the answer or have any connections that could help me out, please do share. I was also not able to confirm the date of installation, but I’m fairly certain it was part of the church expansion of 1965–67; a photo of the window appears in a 1969 booklet, so it has to at least predate that. Judging by the style and the medium itself, my guess is that the artist was not Māori.

In his discussion of this window, blogger Ted Schroder points out a passage from Emil Brunner’s 1934 book The Mediator that puts forward a relevant theological conception—that of Christ as a window that the light of God penetrates:

Jesus Christ is the window through which we can see God. When the Christian message says with emphasis, “Look to Christ,” it does not mean “look away from God,” but “look away to God where God really is,” for if God is contemplated apart from Christ, if Christ is ignored, then God is not seen as He really is. Zeal for Christ is zeal for the true God. . . . Christ is really simply the window through which “the eternal Light streams in”; this is His significance, and His alone. (401)

Christ Crowned with Thorns

Another New Zealand church that houses a Māori representation of Jesus—three, in fact, counting the previously discussed Tangiwai by Julia Lynch—is St. Joseph’s Church in the village of Jerusalem (or Hiruharama, as the Māori call it). The carved altar frontispiece centrally features a head of Christ crowned with thorns and wearing a full-face moko—sort of a reductive Ecce homo image. His eyes are made with pāua (abalone) shells, which gaze on us with a deeply sad gleam.

Main altar in St. Joseph’s Church, Hiruharama (Jerusalem), Whanganui River, New Zealand. Photo: Jocelyn Mary Faith.

Detail. Photo: Robert Thomson.

Christ with His Cross

I was hopeful to receive some interpretive aid for this piece, but unfortunately my lead fell through. I was wondering whether there’s any precedent for this kind of stylization in Māori culture—or rather, if it’s due mainly to the artist’s creative imagination. It does have a very modern look. Some other questions I have: What are the things at the tips of Jesus’s hair? What is the implement he’s holding? Is the expression on his face one of anger or pain? If you have any ideas or definitive answers, please do share them below!

Painting (acrylic on three boards?) inside St. Joseph’s Church in Hiruharama (Jerusalem), Whanganui, New Zealand. Photo: Michael Klajban (cropped from original, shown below).

The figure is identifiable as Jesus because of the bloody wound on his wrist and the three nails that are pinned to different extremities of an abstracted cross. He is shown as Māori, with feathers in his hair and moko on his face, upper arm, buttocks, and thigh. A chaos of spirals and light-beams circles around him as he groans loudly, laboring to bring to birth the new creation.

I’m not sure whether this picture is supposed to represent the Crucifixion (or some other stage of the Passion) or the Resurrection; I tend toward the former, but then again, it could be representing both at once, as one unified event, as there is precedence for this in Christian iconography. Because of the semiabstract style, it’s hard to tell whether Jesus is carrying the cross or has broken free from it. If you read his face as anguished, then you could say this is the second Station of the Cross—Jesus taking up his cross, making his way to Calvary. But if you read his face as wrathful, perhaps the image is meant to reference the Harrowing of Hell, in which Christ militantly stormed its gates and issued a preliminary defeat of Satan. (The Harrowing is the canonical image of the Resurrection in the Orthodox Church.) Again, it’s possible it’s not meant to be an either/or.

The inscription under Jesus’s foot reads, HAERE I RUNGA I TE RANGIMARIE O HEHU KARAITI: “Go in the peace of Jesus Christ,” or “The peace of Jesus Christ be with you.” An odd choice, given the decidedly nonpeaceful appearance of Christ’s face! However, Christians know that Christ’s suffering, and his trampling of death and sin, were necessary to grant us the peace we enjoy in him today. This popular Christian benediction is well placed above the church’s exit door, reminding parishioners that as they go out and encounter all manner of assault against their spirits throughout the week, they have, through Christ, eternal security and rest.

West end of St. Joseph’s Church. Photo: Michael Klajban.

Would love to know the artist and year of this painting . . .

The Resurrected Christ

The Church of St. Werenfried in Lake Taupo features a more straightforward image of the Resurrected Christ by Dutch artist Martin Roestenburg (1909–1966). Robed and haloed, he holds his palms out to show us the wounds that bought our redemption. His heart, staked through with a cross, burns with love, and light breaks out all around him in myriad colors. The inscription at the bottom reads, E TE NGAKAU TAPU O HEHU, “The Sacred Heart of Jesus.”

Stained glass window by Martin Roestenburg, 1957, north wall, Church of St. Werenfried, Waihi Village, Lake Taupo, New Zealand. Photo: Ellen Andersen.

Though the dress of this Jesus figure doesn’t appear to me to be particularly Māori, his darker features suggest that he is ethnically so. Plus, he is shown opposite an unmistakably Māori Mary, discussed in the previous post.

Additional Works

Other relevant artistic depictions I did not cover include Julia Lynch’s The Maori Christ and The Risen Christ and John Stuart’s Kingitanga. I’m also aware of a contextualized Christian carving in St. Michael’s Church in Palmerston North, which is photographed and described in the March 1985 issue of Image: Christ and Art in Asia.

Furthermore, the secretary at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Wellington sent me a scanned copy of the brochure from a 1999 exhibition it hosted of Māori Christian art. In it you can find photos of liturgical vestments and objects, as well as the two Lynch paintings listed above.

And lastly, as you will surely discover if you google “Maori Jesus,” the celebrated poet James K. Baxter wrote a provocative poem on the topic, which tells the story of a dungaree-wearing, fishy-smelling Jesus who calls his disciples from among the down and out of New Zealand and then eventually gets lobotomized for proclaiming, “I am the Light in the Void.”

Text sculpture by Catherine Griffiths. Part of the Wellington Writers Walk along the Wellington waterfront in New Zealand. Excerpt from the poem “The Maori Jesus” by James K. Baxter.

Artists who are Christian need not confine themselves to depictions of biblical characters and narrative, but because that is where my particular interests lie as an art viewer and blogger, that is what I am most on the lookout for: artists (whether Christian or not) with large bodies of work directly inspired by the Bible. As I discover such artists from the present era, I add their name to the Artists tab at the top of this website. I plan on one day reaching out to all of them—or their estates, if deceased—as I seek to create an online biblical art gallery.

Lately I’ve been announcing these additions through The Jesus Question’s Facebook page, but seeing as perhaps not all of you are Facebook users, and also as I’ve recently run across A LOT of great artists, I thought I’d signal you here to the seven names I added today.

Françoise Bissara-Fréreau

François Bissara-Fréreau works primarily in sculpture but also in painting and stained glass. She has carried out many church commissions. You can see her in her Paris studio here:

And being interviewed on KTOTV (Catholic television in France) here:

Unfortunately I can’t understand a word in either of these videos, because I do not speak French! I’m also not sure how to translate the title of the work below (“Legend of the Way”?), but it looks to me like a Resurrection image, with the figure’s strong, wide stance, and his grave clothes unraveling.

François Bissara-Fréreau, La légende du chemin. Bronze, 170 cm tall.

Sister Marie Boniface

Born Maria Elisabeth Stolberg, Sister Marie Boniface was a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Saint Bathilde, a Catholic congregation of women headquartered in Vanves, France. Although Sister Marie was a white Austrian, she chose to depict Jesus and his disciples as black. She passed away in 2012.

Painting by Sr. Marie Boniface. © Bénédictines de Vanves

Peter Koenig

As a painter, Peter Koenig seeks to translate gospel stories into modernized settings—much in the vein of James B. Janknegt and Dinah Roe Kendall. In that respect his Good Shepherd Resurrection is a bit of an anomaly, but it does give you a sense of his unique re-visioning of biblical material.  

Peter Koenig, Good Shepherd Resurrection.

Stephen Holmgren over at Toward Beauty has written a skillful commentary on this piece, which he integrated into his Easter sermon earlier this year. (Pastors sometimes ask me for ideas on incorporating art into their sermons; Holmgren provides one very effective example.)

Koenig’s paintings are displayed periodically within the Roman Catholic parish of St. Edward’s in Kettering, Burton Latimer, Desborough, and Rothwell, England.

Maggy Masselter

Maggy Masselter is a Luxembourg-born abstract painter living and working in France. Last year she did a Stations of the Cross series inspired by the 1996 murder of seven Trappist monks from the monastery Notre-Dame de l’Atlas of Tibhirine in Algeria by Islamic militants. She incorporated quotes from these monks into the paintings.

Pietà painting by Maggy Masselter, 2014.

You can see Masselter in her studio, describing her process, here. (The video is in French.)

Paulo Medina

Also an abstract painter—from Chihuahua, Mexico—Paulo Medina maintains that being an artist “has meant for me the possibility of transcending and reaching certain spaces that are intangible, but lived daily.”

As those of you who follow this blog have probably surmised from its content, I don’t tend to connect as well with pure abstraction. But Medina does have a few quasi-figurative works. Here’s one I really like, which has an expressionist quality.

Paulo Medina, Ecce Homo, 2006. Acrylic on canvas, 70 x 60 cm.

Other biblical subjects he’s painted include the burning bush, the Annunciation, the Nativity, Jesus with his disciples, the Crowning with Thorns, the Crucifixion (several times), Christ in his tomb, the Ascension, and the Holy Spirit.

Natalya Rusetska

Ukrainian artist Natalya Rusetska graduated from the Lviv National Academy of Arts in 2008. She is inspired by the Russian icon tradition but has developed her own style, characterized by small-headed, elongated figures.

Natalya Rusetska, Crucifixion. Tempera on board, 20 x 13.5 cm.

Judith Tutin

Another abstract painter! Hailing from Ireland, Judith Tutin says her work “explores the action of paint in various fluid states and the search for a light source which lifts the mind and spirit.”

Judith Tutin, Nativity, 2011.

In Tutin’s Nativity, Mary adores the newborn Christ Child, lying in a manger, as does an angel (or God the Father?) from above. The linear orange strokes that cut down the center, and across, demarcate the corner of the room, but they also—with their cruciform shape—forebode Jesus’s death.

After much consideration I have decided to discontinue The Jesus Question and to launch in its place a new blog dedicated to theology and the arts. Thus, I will be phasing out this website over the next two months (I’ll be here at least through Christmastide, so don’t leave me yet!), after which point I will be replacing it with ArtandTheology.org. I will explain my decision for this in a final post.

All the content on this site will still be available to you, though at some point down the road I may stop renewing the domain, which means it would revert back to thejesusquestion.wordpress.com.

I want to thank all of you who have journeyed with me this far, and I hope you will enjoy equally as much—if not more—my new baby. Until that go-live date I will remain committed to developing thoughtful content for The Jesus Question, even as I also plan out posts for the new blog.

Theologian and art collector G. Walter Hansen has organized a four-part series of lectures this month titled “God in the Modern Wing.” Taking place each Sunday at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, and free to the public, it aims to explore the spiritual significance of the modern and contemporary art one can encounter at the famous Art Institute of Chicago.

The November 8 lecture—which I highly commend to you—was given by Matthew Milliner, assistant professor of art history at Wheaton College. In it he covers Marc Chagall (one of my favorite artists, and apparently the pope’s as well!), Renée Magritte, and Salvador Dalí.

Here is an outline of the talk.

4:21: Introduction

13:00: Marc Chagall: influence of Russian icons; twentieth-century religious persecution and Christ as the supreme Jewish martyr; the fiddler on the roof; commentary on The Praying Jew | Dedicated to Christ | White Crucifixion | The Crucified | Descent from the Cross | Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation

31:17: Renée Magritte: from trompe l’oeil (trick of the eye) to trompe l’esprit (trick of the spirit); selfie culture; Constantine V and Theodore the Studite on iconoclasm; the hopeful Magritte; commentary on The Lovers II | On the Threshold of Liberty | The Human Condition | The Treachy of Images | The Freedom of Worship | The Tune and Also the Words | The Maimed | The Fair Captive | Favorable Omens

41:28: Salvador Dalí: from atheist to mystic; the Nicene Creed using Dalí images; the hypercube as a symbol of the Incarnation; commentary on Venus de Milo with Drawers and Visions of Eternity (in conversation with his Divine Comedy series) | Invention of the Monsters | Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man | Temptation of Saint Anthony | Christ of St. John of the Cross

49:08: David Adjaye’s Sea of Galilee

51:21: Q&A

Milliner makes a lot of great connections in his talk, but most revelatory to me was his use of Magritte’s Treachery of Images as a response to the iconoclastic controversies that have beset the history of the church (see 37:34). He takes up the famous painting of the pipe that bears the inscription “This is not a pipe” to teach Christians how to look at paintings of Jesus.  

Renée Magritte, The Treachery of Images (This is not a pipe), 1948. Oil on canvas.

The point of Magritte’s painting was not to be cheeky; it was to make viewers realize that pictures can only represent a thing—they are not the thing itself. The pipe in Magritte’s painting is not a pipe; it is an image of a pipe, one artist’s interpretation of pipeness.

In the same sense, paintings of Jesus are not Jesus himself; they (usually) aim to represent his composite person—human and divine—but they can only ever indirectly reflect him. To illustrate, let’s apply Magritte’s catchphrase to a few different images of Jesus:

(Inscription added digitally; not part of original) Attributed to Rembrandt and Studio, Head of Christ, ca. 1655. Oil on oak panel, 23.8 x 19 cm. For original, see here.

(Inscription added digitally; not part of original) Jesus Blessing the Children. Detail of Himalayan thangka, 19th century. For original, see here.

(Inscription added digitally; not part of original) Christ Crowned with Thorns. Ethiopic illumination, 17th century. For original, see here.

People will always find something to object to when it comes to images of Jesus: his skin is too light (or too dark); that’s too sentimental (or not sentimental enough); he looks too sad (or too happy); he’s too ugly (or too pretty). If it’s a Crucifixion image, some would object, “But he’s not on the cross anymore.” If it’s a Resurrection image, some would object, “But that glosses over the suffering of the cross.” This is why it is absolutely integral for us to have a wide variety of Jesus pictures stored up in our mental image bank—taken together, perhaps they can tell the full story of who he is and what he’s done, can portray all his myriad qualities. I am ever grateful to artists who open me up to new images of Jesus, images that I wouldn’t have conjured up on my own.

Magritte understood the power of images to deceive; it was such deception that he fought against with his art. Iconoclasts too worry about the deceptiveness of images. But if we could just understand that an image is merely a sign that points to the reality—and that visual artists, like poets, often employ figurative language—maybe we wouldn’t have such a hard time embracing images of Christ, which have the potential to pass on wisdom to us, if only we would take time to gaze.

Greg Boyd’s description of the church’s marital engagement to Christ on pages 121–26 of his book Benefit of the Doubt is one of the best I’ve read. Under the heading “Betrothed to the Beloved,” he explicates the meaning of the new covenant in terms of marriage, using ample scripture references from both Testaments. To illuminate the analogy, he describes in detail ancient Jewish marriage practices, comparing the church’s two main sacraments to two such customs: baptism as our betrothal ceremony, and communion as our betrothal feast.

Engagement was taken much more seriously in ancient Israelite culture than it is today in the West, where it is easily gotten into and out of. Boyd writes that in ancient Jewish marriages a couple was legally married for a year or two before they had a wedding and became fully married, at which point they consummated their marriage through sexual intercourse. The liminal space between the initial ceremony to declare the engagement and the definitive marriage ceremony, with the most magnificent feast to follow, was known as the betrothal period. This is the period the church is in now: we know our beloved, but not fully; we anticipate our life together, but this, here, is not quite it.

As did those Israelite fiancés, Jesus has gone away to prepare a home for us (John 14:1–3), and in the meantime he has left us with a betrothal gift, a promissory pledge that he will return: his Holy Spirit. As we wait to consummate our marriage with him—to enter into that “one flesh” relationship—we are to be readying ourselves to be a wife worthy of him.  

Christ and the Church, from The Alardus Bible, ca. 1097, held in the Bibliotheque Valenciennes, France.

Boyd spends so much time teasing out this analogy because he believes Christians dangerously overemphasize the Bible’s legal imagery when it comes to articulating the message of salvation. Conceiving of Christ as a judge who has acquitted us of our crimes has different implications than conceiving of him as our soon-to-be spouse—a relationship characterized by mutual longing and commitment. The Bible does use both images, but the latter much more pervasively, Boyd argues:

This, folks, is what it means to be “saved.” When we place our trust in Christ and pledge our life to him, we are saying, “I do!” to his marriage proposal, offered to us on the cross. We are made members of his corporate bride who is destined to share in the love of the Triune God throughout eternity and to co-rule with her husband in the age to come. We won’t consummate this marriage until Jesus returns to establish God’s kingdom on earth in its fullness, but until this time we aren’t to merely be waiting around for this to happen. No, in this betrothal period, we’re to be learning how to be the faithful, radiant bride Jesus came to redeem. . . .

How impoverished the acquittal concept of salvation looks by comparison! This is why the way that the New Testament talks about salvation is so different from the way contemporary Christians tend to talk. Christians today typically talk about salvation in the past tense. “When were you saved?” I often hear people ask. But the New Testament talks about it in three tenses: we were saved (e.g., Rom. 8:24; Eph. 2:5), we’re being saved (1 Cor. 1:18; 2 Cor. 2:15), and we shall be saved when the Lord brings this age to a close and sets up the full reign of God (Rom. 5:10; 1 Cor. 3:15).

This makes no sense if you think of salvation as a contract, but it makes perfect sense once you realize that salvation is about our marriage to Christ. We were saved when we initially responded to Christ’s proposal, made on the cross, by saying, “I do,” as we pledged our life to him. We are being saved as we learn how to yield to the abundant life of God abiding within us and as we are being transformed into the radiant bride Jesus is coming back for. And we shall be saved, in the fullest sense of the word, when he returns and we appear with him “in glory” (Col. 3:4). At this time, John declares, we will finally “see him as he is,” for “we will be like him” (1 John 3:1–3).

The first two lines of George Herbert’s poem “Gratefulness,” a petitionary prayer to God, are often quoted at this time of year: “Thou that hast given so much to me, give one more thing: a grateful heart.” It’s a sweet quote, and it does capture the poem’s main thrust, but it deserves to be looked at it in the context of the eight-stanza whole to which it belongs.

“Gratefulness” by George Herbert

Thou that hast giv’n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a grateful heart.
See how thy beggar works on thee
By art.

He makes thy gifts occasion more,
And says, If he in this be crossed,
All thou hast giv’n him heretofore
Is lost.

But thou didst reckon, when at first
Thy word our hearts and hands did crave,
What it would come to at the worst
To save.

Perpetual knockings at thy door,
Tears sullying thy transparent rooms,
Gift upon gift, much would have more,
And comes.

This not withstanding, thou wentst on,
And didst allow us all our noise:
Nay thou hast made a sigh and groan
Thy joys.

Not that thou hast not still above
Much better tunes, than groans can make;
But that these country-airs thy love
Did take.

Wherefore I cry, and cry again;
And in no quiet canst thou be,
Till I a thankful heart obtain
Of thee:

Not thankful, when it pleaseth me;
As if thy blessings had spare days:
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.

_______________________________

In the poem the speaker boldly asks God to give him yet another gift: a spirit of gratitude. He then engages in lofty rhetoric in an attempt to convince God of the rightfulness of his request.

Here’s my paraphrase of Herbert’s words:  

Stanzas 1–2. You who have already given me so much, give me just one more thing: a thankful heart. Observe my clever reasoning: The gifts you’ve given require something additional (i.e., thankfulness); if you don’t give that to me, then you may as well not have bothered giving me anything else.

Stanzas 3–4: You knew that when you created man, we would be forever reliant on your gifts. You knew it would mean our constant petitioning, lots of pleading tears, for more and more.

Stanzas 5–6: You graciously tolerate all our sighs and groans—more than that, you are happy to hear them, because they give you the opportunity to bless. So even though there are choirs of angels available for your listening pleasure, you tune in instead to our whining choruses. Out of love you receive us, despite our unrefined ways, into your throne room to make our case.

Stanzas 7–8: I beg you, please. I won’t shut up until you give me a thankful heart—and I don’t mean thankful only once in a while, as if your blessings were sparse and thankfulness, therefore, only sparsely needed. I mean a heart that pulses, every beat, with praise of you.

Perhaps the scenario of this poem seems a little ridiculous to you: no one need spend so much vigor on trying to persuade God of the virtues of gratefulness, as it’s a gift that’s so obviously within his will to give. But such farfetchedness was one of the hallmarks of seventeenth-century metaphysical poetry. In this case, it opens up space for praise.

In America every fourth Thursday of November—so this Thursday—is set aside as a day of thanksgiving on which we consciously acknowledge all the good things in our lives, and (at least the religious among us) their divine source.

Sometimes it’s hard to concede that all the blessings we enjoy originate from God. We like to think our financial security is the result of our smart investments and self-control; our latest job promotion or high test score, countless hours of hard work; our well-adjusted children, great parenting; and so on. If you ever find yourself with that attitude—and I often do—Herbert’s request is something you could pray: God, make me grateful to you; help me to see your hand at work in my life.

This Sunday marks the first day of Advent, a season in which, in addition to commemorating the birth of Christ in the flesh and in our own hearts, we look forward to his second coming.

In 2011 musicians from the Chicago Metro Presbytery collaborated on the Advent album Proclaim the Bridegroom Near. The title comes from a line in the hymn “Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers,” originally written in German by Laurentius Laurenti in 1700 and translated into English by Sarah B. Findlater in 1854. Paul van der Bijl made slight modifications to the words and set them to new music. The result can be heard below.

Rejoice, rejoice, believers,
and let your lights appear;
the evening is advancing,
and darker night is near.
The bridegroom is arising,
and soon he draweth nigh.
Up, pray and watch and wrestle;
at midnight comes the cry.

See that your lamps are burning;
replenish them with oil.
Then wait for your salvation,
the end of earthly toil.
The watchers on the mountain
proclaim the bridegroom near.
Go meet him as he cometh,
with alleluias clear.  

O wise and holy virgins,
now raise your voices higher,
until in songs of triumph
ye meet the angel choir.
The marriage feast is waiting;
the gates wide open stand.
Rise up, ye heirs of glory:
the bridegroom is at hand. 

Our hope and expectation,
O Jesus, now appear.
Arise, O Sun so longed for,
o’er this benighted sphere.
With hearts and hands uplifted,
we plead, O Lord, to see
the day of earth’s redemption
that brings us unto thee!

Ye saints, who here in patience
your cross and sufferings bore,
shall live and reign forever
when sorrow is no more.
Around the throne of glory
the Lamb you shall behold,
in triumph cast before him
your diadems of gold.

This hymn references a popular Advent text: Matthew 25:1–13, the parable of the ten virgins. In this story ten bridesmaids wait for the groom to retrieve them for the marriage procession back to his home with his new bride, where a magnificent feast will be served. Because the procession takes place at night, each bridesmaid is expected to bring her own lamp. Five of them are prepared with an ample supply of olive oil to fuel their lamp fires until the groom comes and through the duration of the festivities. The other five, however, do not bother to buy any extra oil, thinking that the bit they started with would be sufficient, and as a result their lamps burn out before the arrival of the groom. The groom ends up coming while the five foolish bridesmaids are out looking for more oil, so they miss the procession, and the doors to the feast are shut before they can get there.

The lesson: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (v. 13) when Christ will return. In the meantime you must keep your light shining, ever expectant that he’s on his way to lead you to the feast of heaven.

Jungun Park (Korean), Maranatha: Lord Jesus, Please Come Soon, 1994. Oil and acrylic on canvas, 160 x 130 cm.

For an object of visual reflection to kick off the season, I’ve chosen Jungun Park’s painting Maranatha: Lord Jesus, Please Come Soon. It shows the five wise women of Jesus’s parable confidently standing with their lamps alight as they wait and pray for the Lord’s return. An orb of light crowns them collectively, like a halo, proclaiming their holiness. The shapes of their individual flames are reminiscent of Christmas bulbs, which further links the image to Advent.

Marana tha (“Our Lord, come!”) was a prayer of the early Aramaic-speaking church. Paul prays it in the conclusion to his first letter to the church at Corinth (16:22), and John prays a variation of it—“Come, Lord Jesus!”—in Revelation 22:20, the second to last verse of the Bible. It’s a heart-cry that I share, especially in response to horrifying acts of evil, such as we saw this month with the terrorist attacks in Paris—which is really only the tip of a large, large iceberg of evil that lives in our world.

Returning to the parable, let me note that commentators disagree on how to interpret the symbolism of the oil/lighted lamps.

Most of those who subscribe to the doctrine of eternal security (that is, the idea that you cannot lose your salvation) will say that the lights represent Truth, which the foolish may brandish about but never personally receive or commit to. They think themselves part of the wedding party—they have their lamps, they keep company with the other bridesmaids—but when the groom comes he exposes them for what they are: spiritually dark. A related interpretation is that the lights symbolize the commandments of God, or the written revelation of his will, which are linked elsewhere in scripture through metaphor (e.g., Proverbs 6:23; Psalm 119:105). A person may hear or read the teachings of scripture but never actually take them to heart.

Those who believe instead in conditional security (that is, the possibility of apostasy, or falling away from grace) say that the lights represent one’s faith, one’s relationship with Christ, especially as expressed through good works, the fruits of repentance (cf. Matthew 5:14–16). You may be spiritually on fire for a while, but if you’re foolish, you let your faith peter out and die; you stop feeding it with fuel until it is no more. And as John 15:1–6 says, if you stop producing fruit, Christ cuts you off—just as the groom shut out the lightless bridesmaids from the wedding feast. Following a similar line of reasoning, one might interpret the oil as the Holy Spirit, who departs from those who renounce Christ.

However you interpret this element of the story, the point is clear: Be prepared, constantly tending to the fire that you hold. That is, remain steadfast in the faith, persevering until Christ returns to call you home.

“Seven Reasons to Celebrate Advent” by Ryan Shelton: Many Protestant churches, including the one I grew up in, forego the celebration of Advent and other seasons of the church year, unconvinced of their value. Like Mathis, I wasn’t introduced to Advent until my early twenties, and also like him, I’ve grown to love it. Here are seven reasons why.

New Advent album for kids: Last month Rain for Roots released Waiting Songs, a collection of (mostly original) Advent songs for the whole family. Including tracks like “Isaiah 11” and “Every Valley (It’s Hard to Wait),” the album goes beyond a narrow focus on the Nativity to encompass ancient messianic prophecies and the present-day anticipation of the church for Christ’s kingdom to come in full: “These songs are about making time for waiting. The King is coming and He is already here. So we practice listening, quieting ourselves, celebrating, whispering good news, and yelling shouts of joy. In the Rain for Roots family, we practice most of all by singing to ourselves, to each other, and to our children about true things. He is coming—the Joy of Every Longing Heart. Our longing hearts. Grown-ups and children; we are the same in this. Through these songs, may God call us closer into conversation with Himself while we wait and hope with expectation. He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.”

“The Annunciation: A Really Weird Story” by W. David O. Taylor: I can’t speak highly enough of David Taylor; everything he writes or says is gold. In this article he reminds us that at the edge of every part of the Christmas story is a dark shadow, which many celebrants conveniently ignore, preferring its sweet and sentimental aspects instead. As a church we need to embrace the weird and haunting quality of the Incarnation and the events that surrounded it.

The Great Christ Comet by Colin Nicholl: This book has been getting a lot of positive attention since its release in September. The fruit of four years of research, it posits a new theory of the Star of Bethlehem: that it was actually a comet. At first I was hesitant to consider the findings of a biblical scholar on such a specialized topic in science, but actually several astronomers have endorsed it, calling it “a remarkable achievement,” “erudite,” groundbreaking, “a significant contribution . . . worthy of serious consideration,” and certain to “stimulate important new lines of scientific enquiry.” If you’re interested in finding out more, click on the hyperlinked title above (which will take you to the book’s Amazon page), or check out Tim Challies’s book review, Christianity Today’s printed interview with the author, or the video interview below given by radio host Eric Metaxas (discussion of the book starts around 0:22:39).

“Let Us Adore Him” by David Mathis: Mathis holds up the magi (sorcerers) as a model of how to worship God in spirit and in truth.

Let Jesus light up your life with one of these nifty night-lights.

So handsome.

Way to go; Jesus gives you two thumbs up.

Good Shepherd.

His Sacred Heart burns passionately for you.

Now allow me to introduce you to Cyclops Jesus . . . Jesus of the All-Seeing Eye. (He’s watching you.)

And Vampire Jesus . . . ?  

For you sophisticated types, here’s a chic night-light inspired by a still from the 1977 miniseries Jesus of Nazareth. Unlike the other ones on this page, this one is actually still on the market, so click on the image if you’re interested.

If you’re not the night-light type, what about a Jesus-in-a-seashell lamp—which was apparently a thing back in 1950s and ’60s.

This one reminds me of the “Daughters of Triton” number from Disney’s The Little Mermaid.

(A similar-looking one is available for sale on eBay.)

This one is more Ursula the Sea-Witch. Jesus’s Sacred Heart could totally double as that evil voice-containing neck charm. (“Sing to me!”) All that’s missing is the eel garden—though the crucifixes are just as creepy.

And this one is so “Part of Your World” reprise.

You’re welcome.

In 2013 I wrote on Mynheer’s etched-glass screen of St. Nicholas and St. Edward the Confessor, which I had the privilege of seeing in situ. ArtWay has just published an adaptation of that article today, St. Nicholas’s feast day: http://www.artway.eu/artway.php?id=670&lang=en&action=show&type=imagemeditations.

We’ve grown accustomed to thinking of St. Nick as a secular figure—rotund, rosy cheeked, with a train of reindeer carrying him in tow. He invites wishlists but dispenses gifts based on the recipient’s degree of “niceness.” The historic saint, on the other hand, is characterized first and foremost by his Christ-like love and generosity, given regardless of merit. As bishop of Myra, he was also an attendee of the Council of Nicaea, where his theological rigor allegedly came to a head in a somewhat humorous encounter with Arius.

To learn more about the man and the legend, read “The Real Saint Nick.”