Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Psalm 51:8
Can a greater miracle take place than to feel the pain
in another’s head, if only for an instant?
Tony Tost, The man’s Vision begins with the child’s Sob
We are the first culture to be surprised by suffering.
Tim Keller
let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
Psalm 51:8
Can a greater miracle take place than to feel the pain
in another’s head, if only for an instant?
Tony Tost, The man’s Vision begins with the child’s Sob
We are the first culture to be surprised by suffering.
Tim Keller
ABOUT THIS PROJECT
Through these paintings, I wrestled with the complex reality of pain and suffering. Aesthetically, I was particularly inspired by the Japanese practice of Kintsugi and the philosophy of Wabi-sabi, both of which are defined for you following this short essay.
I sought to create personal artifacts of brokenness, and the only thing that could make me brave enough to do so was to filter it through my understanding of why pain exists. I have come to realize that, personally, suffering only becomes unbearable to face if I feel that there can be no deeper meaning beyond it.
Talking about suffering is difficult because it is at once intimate and universal. No matter what you say about it, it lacks some facet or depth of human experience, because it is an individual soul that suffers. As Nicholas Wolterstorff says in his profoundly moving Lament for a Son, “The dynamics of each person’s sorrow must be allowed to work themselves out without judgement. I may find it strange that you should be tearful today but dry-eyed yesterday when my tears were yesterday. But my sorrow is not your sorrow.” I have felt that profound loneliness in my own suffering. In those moments, it feels like no one else could possibly understand what I am going through, and there is some truth to that. No human being can possibly understand another soul’s suffering completely.
I come to the Passion of Jesus Christ here because in Christ my loneliness in my suffering is diminished. Christ’s suffering through the passion corresponds in some aspect to practically any kind of human suffering imaginable. The cross acts as a prism in this way, through which all suffering is split into its many facets. I find that there is no facet he cannot enter, not just because he knows me completely but also because of the life he lived and the death he died. Christ endured a kind of suffering that is the worst I can imagine: he was fully alone, he had no consolation, and God was silent. There was no one to defend him; he could not save himself without compromising those he loved most. He endured agonizing physical pain. And worse than that, many theologians describe the spiritual agony into which Christ descended as one that felt infinite and unending.
More important to me than the eradication of loneliness is the eradication of all suffering itself, which is the whole point of the horrific death of Jesus. Because of Christ’s work on the cross, my journey through the valley of death has an end. The painful process has context and meaning that it didn’t have before. I have often found myself wanting to escape from or ignore my pain in an attempt to speed up my healing process so I can go back to the way I was before, with no scar to remind me of the pain, in an imagined state of perfection. This project has helped me to begin to understand suffering as a process, and to see scarring as a mark of the healing. It is important to note that Christ, the God-man, whose death reworked the very fabric of the cosmos, forever changing the material of the universe, chose to keep his scars after his resurrection.
Kintsugi
(keen-tsung-ee)
The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold.
As a philosophy, Kintsugi treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
The object, after being broken, becomes more valuable than when it was whole.
Wabi-sabi
A Japanese aesthetic worldview centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It values the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes.
Aesthetic objects or even persons marked by age, history, and suffering are therefore to be valued as much as the clean, slick, and untouched perfection that the modernist aesthetic so often values.
I sought to create personal artifacts of brokenness, and the only thing that could make me brave enough to do so was to filter it through my understanding of why pain exists. I have come to realize that, personally, suffering only becomes unbearable to face if I feel that there can be no deeper meaning beyond it.
Talking about suffering is difficult because it is at once intimate and universal. No matter what you say about it, it lacks some facet or depth of human experience, because it is an individual soul that suffers. As Nicholas Wolterstorff says in his profoundly moving Lament for a Son, “The dynamics of each person’s sorrow must be allowed to work themselves out without judgement. I may find it strange that you should be tearful today but dry-eyed yesterday when my tears were yesterday. But my sorrow is not your sorrow.” I have felt that profound loneliness in my own suffering. In those moments, it feels like no one else could possibly understand what I am going through, and there is some truth to that. No human being can possibly understand another soul’s suffering completely.
I come to the Passion of Jesus Christ here because in Christ my loneliness in my suffering is diminished. Christ’s suffering through the passion corresponds in some aspect to practically any kind of human suffering imaginable. The cross acts as a prism in this way, through which all suffering is split into its many facets. I find that there is no facet he cannot enter, not just because he knows me completely but also because of the life he lived and the death he died. Christ endured a kind of suffering that is the worst I can imagine: he was fully alone, he had no consolation, and God was silent. There was no one to defend him; he could not save himself without compromising those he loved most. He endured agonizing physical pain. And worse than that, many theologians describe the spiritual agony into which Christ descended as one that felt infinite and unending.
More important to me than the eradication of loneliness is the eradication of all suffering itself, which is the whole point of the horrific death of Jesus. Because of Christ’s work on the cross, my journey through the valley of death has an end. The painful process has context and meaning that it didn’t have before. I have often found myself wanting to escape from or ignore my pain in an attempt to speed up my healing process so I can go back to the way I was before, with no scar to remind me of the pain, in an imagined state of perfection. This project has helped me to begin to understand suffering as a process, and to see scarring as a mark of the healing. It is important to note that Christ, the God-man, whose death reworked the very fabric of the cosmos, forever changing the material of the universe, chose to keep his scars after his resurrection.
Kintsugi
(keen-tsung-ee)
The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold.
As a philosophy, Kintsugi treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
The object, after being broken, becomes more valuable than when it was whole.
Wabi-sabi
A Japanese aesthetic worldview centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It values the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.
Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes.
Aesthetic objects or even persons marked by age, history, and suffering are therefore to be valued as much as the clean, slick, and untouched perfection that the modernist aesthetic so often values.
THE SHAPE OF THIS EXPLORATION
I. THE PROBLEM
Three kinds of human beings
II. THE PASSION
A prism that splits the suffering of man into all facets
III. THE PROMISE
The re-making of all things
I. THE PROBLEM
Three kinds of human beings
- Those who submit to healing, called The Righteous
- The great healer or the God-Man, called Jesus Christ
- Those who attempt self-healing, called The Unrighteous
II. THE PASSION
A prism that splits the suffering of man into all facets
- The Garden of Gethsemane
The agony of anxiety and depression - The Spitting and Beating with a reed
The agony of disgrace and shame - The Crown of Thorns
The agony of injustice and being misunderstood - The Scourging
The agony of cruelty and evil - The Bearing of the Cross
The agony of carrying undeserved pain - The Crucifixion
The agony of forgiveness and sacrifice - The Taunting and Jeering
The agony of loneliness - The Forsaking
The agony of grief and loss - The Death of Jesus
The agony of the mystery of the grave - The Resurrection
The eradication of agony
III. THE PROMISE
The re-making of all things
- A New Earth: inherited pain and shame is forgiven, the debt is paid
- A New Heart: the heart’s overpowering desire for created things is blotted out, cast into the depths of the sea
- A New Desire: our transgressions, or acts of omission and commission, are borne away, fully atoned for.
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ABOUT THE PROCESS
Each painting is 64” tall, which is within the range of probable heights for an average male in Palestine in the first century; in other words, it is representative of the height of Jesus of Nazareth. Each panel is the same size; and it is my hope that in this work you will sense a sort of unified bodily presence. The exhibit is broken into three parts. Part one serves as a narrative introduction to the reality of suffering, the second part explores the particular suffering of Christ as seen in his Passion, and the third part imagines the result of that Passion. In the second part, each work was created with an underpainting. This underpainting often felt finished to me in a sense in that it had a unique beauty that satisfied me. Then I inflicted upon the work an act that was like or representative of what Jesus might have experienced. For example, the painting dealing with the scourging of Christ was itself scourged with a cat-o’-nine tails whip. In another example, the painting meant to express a shadow of the moment of agony when Christ screamed his question, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was actually removed from the stretcher bars and torn apart. In the spirit of kintsugi, I have worked some measure of repair on each of the paintings, though not with the intent that they look the same way they did beforehand. Also in harmony with the philosophy of Wabi-sabi and the messiness of the process of suffering, you will find many imperfections in these paintings. Though they have been glued, sewn, woven, and gilded, I didn't make an attempt to hide the wounds, but instead chose to see them as a part of the painting’s history, a reminder of the breaking. I let them keep their scars, and this repetitive act helped to instill in me the idea that it is okay for me to keep my own scars as a reminder of my brokenness and the hands that are healing me. |
WORKS
I. THE PROBLEM
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. May not copy or download more than 500 consecutive verses of the ESV Bible or more than one half of any book of the ESV Bible.
And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3:17-19
And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3:17-19
Even the perfect one dies; he shows us his wounds
Acrylic ink, texture medium, thread, liquid leaf, and gold foil on canvas
Three 64”x24”x1.5” panels
AVAILABLE
Man who is born of a woman
Is few of days and full of trouble.
He comes out like a flower and withers;
He flees like a shadow and continues not.
-Job 14:1-2
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
-Isaiah 40:6-8
Behold! The gods weep, all the goddesses weep,
That the beautiful perishes, that the most perfect passes away.
- Friedrich Schiller, from Nänie
There are only three sorts of men that have ever lived—a good man, a bad man and the God-man. Now, on Calvary’s cross, I see three characters—I see the thief, the representative of the bad; I see the penitent thief, the representative of the righteous—and I see the God-man between them. All three must suffer...if any out of the world would have escaped, it would be the God-man. But the God-man did not escape. He shows us His wounds.
- C.H. Spurgeon, The Wounds of Jesus
Three 64”x24”x1.5” panels
AVAILABLE
- The one who is being remade, or the repentant thief
- The maker, or the God-man
- The one who is being unmade, or the unrepentant thief
Man who is born of a woman
Is few of days and full of trouble.
He comes out like a flower and withers;
He flees like a shadow and continues not.
-Job 14:1-2
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the LORD blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
-Isaiah 40:6-8
Behold! The gods weep, all the goddesses weep,
That the beautiful perishes, that the most perfect passes away.
- Friedrich Schiller, from Nänie
There are only three sorts of men that have ever lived—a good man, a bad man and the God-man. Now, on Calvary’s cross, I see three characters—I see the thief, the representative of the bad; I see the penitent thief, the representative of the righteous—and I see the God-man between them. All three must suffer...if any out of the world would have escaped, it would be the God-man. But the God-man did not escape. He shows us His wounds.
- C.H. Spurgeon, The Wounds of Jesus
II. THE PASSION
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one--
to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6
we have turned—every one--
to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6
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The Garden of GethsemaneThe agony of anxiety and depression
The sorrow unto death Acrylic ink, texture medium, and gold foil on canvas 64”x24”x1.5” AVAILABLE “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” Matthew 26:37 “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Mark 14:36 And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Luke 22:44 Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain Hematidrosis, hemidrosis and hematidrosis, is a condition in which capillary blood vessels that feed the sweat glands rupture, causing them to exude blood, occurring under conditions of extreme physical or emotional stress. |
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Jesus is spit upon and beaten with a reedThe agony of disgrace and shame
I gave my back to those who strike Acrylic ink, texture medium, liquid leaf, thread, and gold foil on canvas 64”x24”x1.5” AVAILABLE And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and strike him, saying to him, “Prophesy!” -Mark 14:65 I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. -Isaiah 50:6 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him....Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And [the LORD] said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” Zechariah, Chapter 3 (excerpts) |
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Jesus is crowned with thornsThe agony of injustice and being misunderstood
The Crown of Sin Acrylic ink, texture medium, thread, hawthorn branches, and gold foil on canvas 64”x24”x1.5” AVAILABLE Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the governor’s headquarters, and they gathered the whole battalion before him. And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” -Matthew 27:27-29 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? -Isaiah 53:8 And for the house of Israel there shall be no more brier to prick or a thorn to hurt them among all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. -Ezekiel 29:24 The coronation of Christ with thorns was symbolic and had great meaning in it, for, first, it was to Him a triumphal crown. Christ had fought with sin from the day when He first stood foot to foot with it in the wilderness, up to the time when He entered Pilate's Hall—and He had conquered it. As a witness that He had gained the victory, behold sin's crown seized as a trophy! What was the crown of sin? Thorns. These sprang from the curse "Thorns, also, and thistles shall it bring forth to you," was the coronation of sin—and now Christ has taken away its crown and put it on His own head. -C.H. Spurgeon, The Crown of Thorns, sermon #1168 |
God’s wrath against injustice
Hear this, you who trample on the needy
and bring the poor of the land to an end,
Saying, “When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the Sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals
and sell the chaff of the wheat?
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
“Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who dwells in it,
and all of it rise like the Nile,
and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?”
Amos prophesies: Jesus will bear the wrath
“And on that day,” declares the Lord GOD,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
I will turn your feasts into mourning
and all your songs into lamentation;
I will bring sackcloth on every waist
and baldness on every head;
I will make it like the mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.
Amos 8:4-10
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Jesus is scourgedThe agony of cruelty and evil
Deep Furrows Acrylic ink, texture medium, thread, watercolor, and gold foil on canvas 64”x24”x1.5” AVAILABLE Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. -John 19:1 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. -Isaiah 53:7 Our blessed Redeemer gave his back to the smiters, and the ploughers made deep furrows there. -C.H. Spurgeon, The Crown of Thorns, sermon #1486 |
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Jesus bears the crossthe agony of carrying undeserved pain
Too heavy for me Acrylic ink, texture medium, thread, and gold foil on canvas; wood 64”x24”x1.5” AVAILABLE So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. -John 19:17 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. -Isaiah 53:4 For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. Psalm 38:4 See how he fell to lift us from our fall. -C.H. Spurgeon, The Crown of Thorns, Sermon #1168 |
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Jesus is crucifiedthe agony of forgiveness and self-sacrifice
By his stripes Acrylic ink, texture medium, nails, and gold foil on canvas 64”x24”x1.5” AVAILABLE And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” -Luke 23:33-34 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and by his stripes we are healed. -Isaiah 53:5 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. -Zechariah 12:10 But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall, Sin had eternally benighted all. Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see That spectacle of too much weight for me. Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die; What a death were it then to see God die? It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink, It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink. Could I behold those hands, which span the poles And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes? -John Donne, from Good Friday, 1613, Riding Westward |
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Jesus is taunted and jeered while hanging on the crossthe agony of loneliness
As one with no friends Acrylic ink, texture medium, thread, liquid leaf, and gold foil on canvas 64”x24”x1.5” SOLD And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way. -Matthew 27:39-45 For my enemies speak concerning me; those who watch for my life consult together and say, “God has forsaken him; pursue and seize him, for there is none to deliver him.” -Psalm 71:10-11 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. -Isaiah 53:3 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the LORD inflicted on the day of his fierce anger. -Lamentations 1:12 He has put my brothers far from me, and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me. -Job 19:13 |
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Jesus is forsaken by Godthe agony of grief and loss
Like one torn to pieces in the silence of God Acrylic ink, texture medium, liquid leaf, and gold foil on canvas 64”x24”x1.5” SOLD Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Matthew 27:45-46 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief. -Isaiah 53:10 The fierce anger of the LORD will not turn back until He has performed and until He has accomplished the intent of His heart; In the latter days you will understand this. -Jeremiah 30:24 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Psalm 22:1-2 This may be applied to any child of God, pressed down, overwhelmed with grief and terror. Spiritual desertions are the saints' sorest afflictions; but even their complaint of these burdens is a sign of spiritual life, and spiritual senses exercised…’Why hast thou forsaken me?’ is the language of a heart binding up its happiness in God's favour. -Matthew Henry on Psalm 22:1-10 "Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?" The Man of Sorrows had prayed until his speech failed him, and he could only utter moanings and groanings as men do in severe sicknesses, like the roarings of a wounded animal. To what extremity of grief was our Master driven! What strong crying and tears were those which made him too hoarse for speech! What must have been his anguish to find his own beloved and trusted Father standing afar off, and neither granting help nor apparently hearing prayer. This was good cause to make him "roar." -C.H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Psalm 22 |
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Jesus diesthe agony of the mystery of the grave
Sheol, or the innermost center of creation Acrylic ink, texture medium, thread, liquid leaf, and gold foil on canvas 64”x24”x1.5” SOLD It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. -Luke 23:44-46 Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? -Psalm 88:10-12 For Sheol does not thank you; death does not praise you; those who go down to the pit do not hope for your faithfulness. -Psalm 38:18 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. -Isaiah 53:9 “We have a winding-sheet* in our mother's womb which grows with us from conception, and we come into the world wound up in that winding-sheet, for we come to seek a grave.” -John Donne, Death's Duel *winding-sheet: shroud, death sheet |
The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. …And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
-John Donne, from Meditation XVII (Devotions upon Emergent Occasions)
Because death in some way opens to man the real ontological relationship of his soul to the world as a whole, it is through his death that man in some way introduces as his contribution the result of his life into the radical, real ground of the unity of the world….Consequently, if the reality of Christ, as consummated through his death, in his death is built into the unity of the cosmos, thus becoming a feature and intrinsic principle of it, and a prior framework and factor of all personal life in the world, that means that the world as a whole and as a scene of personal human actions has become different than what it would have been had Christ not died. And so possibilities of a real ontological nature were opened up for the personal action of all other men which would not have existed without the death of our Lord. By that death his human reality and grace, definitively ratified by the real concrete human freedom of his death, became a determining feature of the whole cosmos.
The thought that Christ, in his life and death, belongs to the innermost reality of the world, would be less alien to us if we were not so prone to identify the world with the handful of crude and superficial data gathered from everyday sense-experience, or if we were better able to realize how profound, mysterious and filled with spiritual realities this world is, and how everyone draws life from the whole of the universe, which extends to such measureless depths. When the vessel of his body was shattered in death, Christ was poured out over all the cosmos; he became actually, in his very humanity, what he had always been by his dignity: the heart of the universe, the innermost center of creation.
-Karl Rahner, from On the Theology of Death
The LORD God said to the serpent,
…
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
-Genesis 3:15
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
-John Donne, from Meditation XVII (Devotions upon Emergent Occasions)
Because death in some way opens to man the real ontological relationship of his soul to the world as a whole, it is through his death that man in some way introduces as his contribution the result of his life into the radical, real ground of the unity of the world….Consequently, if the reality of Christ, as consummated through his death, in his death is built into the unity of the cosmos, thus becoming a feature and intrinsic principle of it, and a prior framework and factor of all personal life in the world, that means that the world as a whole and as a scene of personal human actions has become different than what it would have been had Christ not died. And so possibilities of a real ontological nature were opened up for the personal action of all other men which would not have existed without the death of our Lord. By that death his human reality and grace, definitively ratified by the real concrete human freedom of his death, became a determining feature of the whole cosmos.
The thought that Christ, in his life and death, belongs to the innermost reality of the world, would be less alien to us if we were not so prone to identify the world with the handful of crude and superficial data gathered from everyday sense-experience, or if we were better able to realize how profound, mysterious and filled with spiritual realities this world is, and how everyone draws life from the whole of the universe, which extends to such measureless depths. When the vessel of his body was shattered in death, Christ was poured out over all the cosmos; he became actually, in his very humanity, what he had always been by his dignity: the heart of the universe, the innermost center of creation.
-Karl Rahner, from On the Theology of Death
The LORD God said to the serpent,
…
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
-Genesis 3:15
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Jesus rises from the deadthe end of agony
Death, where is your victory? // Behold, the new Tree of Life Acrylic ink, texture medium, thread, liquid leaf, and gold foil on canvas 64”x24”x1.5” SOLD But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. -Matthew 28:5-7 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” -John 11:25-26 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, -Job 19:25-26 But God raised Him from the dead, releasing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for Him to be held in its clutches. -Acts 2:24 |
Christ on the Cross, the murdered Son of God, is the end of the story of Cain, and thus the actual end of the story. This is the last desperate storming of the gate of paradise. And under the flaming sword under the Cross, mankind dies. But Christ lives. The stem of the cross becomes the staff of life, and in the midst of the world life is set up anew upon the cursed ground. In the middle of the world the spring of life wells up on the wood of the cross and those who thirst for life are called to this water, and those who have eaten of the wood of this life shall never hunger or thirst again. What a strange paradise is this hill of Golgotha, this Cross, this blood, this broken body! What a strange tree of life, this tree on which God himself must suffer and die—but it is in fact the Kingdom of Life and of the Resurrection given again by God in grace; it is the opened door of imperishable hope, of waiting and of patience. The tree of life, the Cross of Christ, the middle of the fallen and preserved world of God, for us that is the end of the story of paradise.
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Creation and Fall
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from Creation and Fall
III. THE PROMISE
hen I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
Revelation 21:1-5
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
1 Corinthians 15: 51-55
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:18-19
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
Revelation 21:1-5
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
1 Corinthians 15: 51-55
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities underfoot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:18-19
Behold, I am making all things new
Acrylic ink, acrylic, texture medium, silver, copper, and gold foil on canvas
Three 64”x24”x1.5” panels
SOLD
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.
-Isaiah 40:1-2
And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
-Isaiah 35:10
“For behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
and her people to be a gladness.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
and the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not fill out his days...”
-Isaiah 65:17-20
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
-Psalm 32:1-2
Three 64”x24”x1.5” panels
SOLD
- A beautiful inheritance: the double portion
- Every valley exalted: covered with the robe of righteousness
- Crowned with everlasting joy: the garment of praise
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended,
that her iniquity is pardoned,
that she has received from the LORD’s hand
double for all her sins.
-Isaiah 40:1-2
And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
-Isaiah 35:10
“For behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
and her people to be a gladness.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
and the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not fill out his days...”
-Isaiah 65:17-20
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
-Psalm 32:1-2
Photos from exhibitions
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PROCESS & DETAILS
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FIRST EXHIBITION INFO:
OPENINGS
Friday, March 2, 2018
5:30-9pm
Friday, April 6, 2018
5:30-9pm
ARTIST TALK & DINNER
Monday, March 26
6:30-9:00pm
space is limited, please RSVP here
FOUR CHAPTER GALLERY
1708 Baltimore Ave
KC MO
OPENINGS
Friday, March 2, 2018
5:30-9pm
Friday, April 6, 2018
5:30-9pm
ARTIST TALK & DINNER
Monday, March 26
6:30-9:00pm
space is limited, please RSVP here
FOUR CHAPTER GALLERY
1708 Baltimore Ave
KC MO
SECOND EXHIBITION INFO:
MARCH 10 -APRIL 21 2019
View during Sunday services, by appointment (785) 843-2005, or below:
HOLY WEEK EXHIBIT HOURS
Monday - Friday 8:00 am - 7:00pm
ARTIST TALK & DINNER
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
6:00-7:30pm
GRACE EVANGELICAL PRESBYTERIAN
3312 Calvin Dr,
Lawrence, KS 66049
MARCH 10 -APRIL 21 2019
View during Sunday services, by appointment (785) 843-2005, or below:
HOLY WEEK EXHIBIT HOURS
Monday - Friday 8:00 am - 7:00pm
ARTIST TALK & DINNER
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
6:00-7:30pm
GRACE EVANGELICAL PRESBYTERIAN
3312 Calvin Dr,
Lawrence, KS 66049