Theological Reflection

Beauty in the Face of Jesus

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William Holman Hunt, The Light of the World (detail)

Since the earliest centuries of the Christian era, believers have found encouraging meaning in paintings of the imagined face of Jesus. Since no such images exist from his lifetime (as far as we know), but only written depictions of Jesus’ character as displayed in his words and actions, later artists have literally drawn upon acts of imagination in how best to present him. In so many of these paintings of Jesus, we find abiding images that convey an abiding love.

Salvator Mundi, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

More than a few in our great Tradition have had an aversion to the making of these images, believing that such efforts to depict Jesus risk engaging in or promoting idolatry, a concern that is not difficult to appreciate. Yet painters, particularly in the Christian East, have believed that, in view of our Lord’s Incarnation, paintings of Jesus and of holy events in which he was involved are not only appropriate, they can be divinely inspired windows into eternity.

Christ Pantocrator, an icon in St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt

Modern Evangelicalism has played a parallel role to this in the belief that compelling contemporary images of a beautiful and winsome Jesus can aid the faithful by stirring devotion in Bible reading, prayer, and in daily living.

Warner Sallman’s 1940, Head of Christ, reprinted in many Protestant Bibles and devotionals

The face of Jesus, by R. Hook, a 1964 painting widely popular in the Jesus Movement of the 1970’s and among Evangelicals

How do we picture Jesus? Although though we may appropriately demur from referring to God by using personal pronouns or with gender-based associations, when hearing the Gospel reading on Sundays, or while reading devotional books, images of Jesus inevitably arise in our conscious awareness generated by acts of imagination.

Here we receive encouragement from C.S. Lewis, J.R. Tolkien, and other spiritually inclined writers, who have helped us recover confidence in the idea that the power of imagination can be a redeemed vehicle for conceiving holy images, both of biblical scenes and also of allegorical parallels based upon them.

Hieronymus Bosch, Christ Carrying the Cross (detail)

The popular pious suggestion that we ask ourselves, “what would Jesus do, or say about this matter,” can therefore be a helpful spiritual exercise, especially if pursued reverently and with a scripturally informed process of deliberate thought.

Christ and the Rich Young Ruler, Heinrich Hoffman

In my prior post, I shared detail of a compelling image of Jesus by the 19th century painter, Heinrich Hoffman. I love this painting, expressing the artist’s rendering of Jesus’ encounter with the so-called rich young ruler. Hoffman portrays well the love Jesus had for and showed to the man who asked him how he could enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The painter depicts how Jesus loved him and, we believe, continued to love him, both before and after this man turned away in discontent and confusion.

As we grow in our familiarity with images of Jesus, we can become sensitive to the way that Western art has tended to portray our Lord’s humanity, influenced by the European artistic tradition, which has not overlooked Jesus’ Semitic background. Nevertheless, how artists and others portray Jesus finds in him reflections of themselves, which is true to his known desire to identify with who we are. It has become more common in recent years for artists to portray Jesus in the form and appearance of other cultures, and the iconographic paintings of Brother Robert Lentz (some of which I have featured before) provide a good example. Among them is his image of Jesus set within the context of Japanese Buddhist spirituality, seen in the following image.

Turning again and again to such images can be most helpful to us in our spiritual journeys, especially when we choose well-conceived and well-executed paintings, drawings, or sculptures, that express to us facets of divine beauty, as well as the goodness and truth of God, found in the face of Jesus.

Note: Jaroslav Pelikan’s book, The Illustrated Jesus Through the Centuries, provides a ready and helpful way of finding images that can accompany our journey through Lent toward Easter living. Once again, I would like to thank Kathy Kane for my copy of this beautiful book.

In anticipation of this coming Sunday, Lent 2, Year C, I offer here a copy of a homily from a prior year, which may be accessed by clicking here.

The Beauty of Truth

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The Risen body of Christ bears the healed scars from the Crucifixion in Matthias Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece.

My commitment to writing about Beauty is evident in my ongoing posts. I have also written about the connection between Beauty and Goodness as well as Truth, the three so-called Transcendentals. To use a phrase from another context, these are three things we ‘cannot not know,’ at least in principle.

As I expressed in my most recent post, in Christ we find the icon of God. For he is the icon of God’s beauty, God’s goodness, and of God’s truth. In turn, and as we are reminded during Lent, we are all called to become icons of Christ, and to seek to embody in ourselves what we find revealed and embodied in him.

Yet, of these three Transcendentals, Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, the third may be the most difficult for us to realize in ourselves, much less to try to describe. This is one reason why since earlier times people have recognized a hierarchy among these three things that we cannot not know. Among the three, beauty tends to be most evident and accessible to us, followed by goodness. The first often leads to greater appreciation for the second, and both can lead us to search for truth, however and wherever we may find it.

It is nevertheless not uncommon for us to be unsure about the presence or the nature of beauty and goodness when viewing objects, actions, or events. And we are very capable of engaging in disputes regarding such evaluations. But here is a paradox: though we may be just as unsure about how best to characterize what is true, or how to evaluate that quality in relation to ourselves, we seem to have much less hesitancy when it comes to ascribing the apparent absence or deficiency of truth in the words and actions of others.

To paraphrase a successful nineteenth century aspirant to the Presidency, grand ideas outlive those who hold them. James Garfield expressed this view just months before his assassination. Frederick Douglas was so impressed with Garfield’s principles and potential for national leadership that he led the procession onto the rostrum for Garfield’s Inauguration. Among those abiding principles and ideals was Garfield’s voiced recognition of the truth within a difference between many white Confederate soldiers and their leaders, and the black men who served in the Union Army. The former had betrayed the flag and their country; the latter did not. Ideas that help us identify and articulate things we value, like beauty, goodness, and truth, abide.

Nevertheless, for many of us, what we reckon to be true – as compared to what is beautiful and or good – is not always so clear. And yet, we believe in Truth. Even when we despair about its instantiation in general human affairs, and in the more limited spheres of our daily involvements, we believe that what is true should guide our lives and our conduct with one another. And, when it comes to what we practice as compared to what we believe or hope for, truth seems to be a principle that we more often honor in the breach.

Another paradoxical aspect of our desire to know the truth has to do with how what is true can not only be uncomfortable but even painful. A mother waiting up for a teenage son who is hours late getting home, and a husband awaiting word from his spouse who has not returned from responding to a wildfire, are likely to have mixed emotions about what they might learn when answering a knock at the door. And yet, in these and in countless similar cases, we want to know what is true, and the truth we want to know is one that is unleavened with inaccuracy or falsehood even if it is painful to hear.

What is true can be beautiful and good, at least for those who believe in the Gospel of Redemption. This is because Christians believe that ‘facts are friendly,’ and that there is no person or situation that is outside the scope of God’s loving redemptive purposes. What personally can be hard to accept as true can still be beautiful and good. And if not so at the moment, then it can be so when we pass beyond the veil and see the embodied Beauty, Goodness, and Truth, for which we so yearn.

Heinrich Hoffman, Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler (detail)

For us, Beauty and Goodness, as the first Transcendentals, provide this experiential advantage: we find them more readily evident as they are instantiated in objects, events, and in others. Truth, by contrast, can seem more elusive and more subject to the variable preferences and uncertain powers of our apprehension. As a Transcendental, Truth – like Beauty and Goodness – has objective reality. Yet, like her sister “Graces,” Truth must sometimes, if not often, penetrate the fog of our subjectivity and experiential awareness for us to perceive it.

Additional note: I am publishing this post on Ash Wednesday, a day on which we are invited to reflect on the patterns of our lives in light of the truths we have come to know, and which have been revealed to us.

In anticipation of this coming First Sunday in Lent, I offer here a copy of a blog post with an attached homily (with related images) that I presented in a prior year, based on the Lectionary (which may be accessed by clicking here).

The Beauty of Redemption-Based Identity

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Fra Angelico, The Transfiguration, prefiguring the glory of the Risen Christ and the beauty of our redeemed humanity

There is beauty to be found when we base our identity or concept of ourselves upon the Redemption that has been freely shared with us. Yet, we can experience sadness when we rest our self-perception upon our ailments and disorders. Regardless of our feelings, these alternatives represent choices we can make on a daily basis.

We all have an innate disposition to sin, and in various ways we all enact this disposition. But, for Baptized people and all others, this is not ‘the be all and end all’ of who we are made to be. Our end is in Christ, and so our wholeness is in Christ. We may be sinners; we are also among those who have been redeemed and are being transformed by the power of the Resurrection.

Appreciative Inquiry teaches us that what we we focus on grows. This empirical fact can be seen in two readily observable ways. New soccer players, especially the youngest ones, tend to swarm around the soccer ball. And, when on a fast break to try to score a goal, almost inevitably they kick the ball toward the goalie, the apparent impediment on whom their eyes are affixed instead of upon empty areas of the net. Another example lies in how Drivers Ed instruction teaches aspiring drivers to keep their eyes on the road. Why? Because we steer toward what we are looking at, often with sad results when what catches our attention are the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle on the shoulder.

I remember an observant friend remarking about another person known to both of us, regarding how that person was “someone who dotes on his infirmities.” Not a recipe for health in light of our greater awareness about the symbiotic relationship between psychology and physiology.

These insights may have what I hope are obvious spiritual implications. They may lead us to ask, toward what end are we living? Upon what image of our humanity are we most focused?

Raphael, The Transfiguration (detail)

An ironic aspect of the way that we can associate our identity with symptoms or conditions from which we suffer is how we commonly speak about our embodiment. When we say things like, “my leg is killing me,” or “my head feels terrible,” we may unintentionally reinforce a kind of dualism. All too casually, we dismiss such statements as mere figures of speech, and we may wish to consider their further significance. If I say that ‘my leg is killing me,’ then I suggest that in some way ‘my leg’ is not ‘me.’ Because my words imply that ‘it’ is acting upon ‘me.’ In a slightly more abstract way, we make statements like, “my conscience is bothering me.”

When I am inclined to think and speak in this latter way, I suggest by my words that ‘my conscience’ is something other than ‘me,’ and that it has some power of agency over or against me. What we commonly refer to as ‘my conscience’ might better be described as my experience of ‘consciencing’ (an intentional neologism). Or about how I am the kind of being who experiences and engages in acts of conscience. As the older moral tradition recognizes, conscience must not only be followed; conscience can and must be educated.

So, to say that “I am powerless over sin” does not necessarily mean that I am powerless over my disposition to engage in the bad choices and decisions that I tend to make. Like my emotional experience, I may not be able to choose to have the various physiological conditions that I experience. But I can choose how I respond, or how I act in relation to such experiences and conditions. As John Wesley is remembered as having said about the vice of lust, “a bird may land on my head, but I don’t have to make a nest for it with my hair.”

Experientially, I can associate myself with the conditions that may ‘happen to’ me, and with which I may suffer. But conceptually, I can also choose to identify with the reality of the person I have been made to be and become. By grace, we have been made to become icons of Christ, who is the beautiful Icon of God. To seek to become so is to seek to become an icon of the goodness of God as well as of the truth of God, as these have been revealed to us in the face of Christ.

Rembrandt, The Ascension, an image prefiguring our redeemed humanity to keep in mind so that we may, as the Prayer Book’s venerable words put it, “thither thereto ascend.”

Note: The wisdom of our Holy Tradition is reflected in the fact that our Lectionary appoints Gospel readings about the Transfiguration on two occasions every year: on the last Sunday after the Epiphany (or the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and Lent, March 2 this year), and also on August 6, the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord. / In addition, readers interested in some of the ideas presented above might consider further material relevant to them in my book, Ethics After Easter, available from libraries and booksellers.

The reflections offered here may assist choosing a theme upon which to focus in preparing for and in keeping a Holy Lent.

The Beautiful Spirit of my Friend, Renee

I want to share my continuing appreciation for the beautiful spirit of a friend with whom I have been a colleague in life and work for over twenty years, and from whom I have learned much. Renee was first a mentor to me, as someone who exemplified spiritual authenticity while also demonstrating leadership gifts that have come to be recognized in the wider Church and in the corporate world. Renee truly loves people in a genuinely infectious way. It is no surprise, therefore, that she is a natural team leader who is blessed with the gift of inspiring others to become more whole, and to take the pursuit of holiness more seriously.

Renee was raised in the Midwest and the Southwestern desert, but yearned for a wider worldview than what her family and her early educational and social communities seemed to offer. This has led her to pursue a great deal of travel throughout her life, a good bit of it overseas. She has always been a seeker who has moved through life with the humility of an inquisitive learner and perceptive observer. To me, these qualities are fundamental.

I got to know her as a fellow leader at conferences in what she and I humorously might call the ‘early days,’ when she sought to share her vision for mission and ministry with a wider community. I remember her approaching the task of assembling some fifty-plus plastic transparencies to be set upon an overhead projector {remember those?}. And yet, despite these kinds of challenges we commonly faced as conference presenters, her story and personal witness were always compelling. For she quickly made meaningful connections with others in ways that encouraged us to identify with what she had come to see and know, and then as things we could take on to value in our own lives.

Some personal details of Renee’s life-journey fortify my appreciation for who she is, and the person she has been open to becoming. After her childhood and subsequent education, largely shaped by life in middle America, she adventurously responded to a ministry opportunity that took her to a rural area in the Philippines. This was likely a significant growth opportunity as well as an early indication of some emerging directions in her future vision and work. In so many ways, she has had an inclination to approach ideas about what it means to live as a spiritual being who engages with this world in all its complexity, with curiosity and a compelling equanimity. I particularly value her intentional pursuit of aspects of Asian cultural and spiritual life, and her frequent travels to the far side of the Pacific. These pursuits stand out to me given my own childhood and adolescent experience of growing up in Japan.

As a practical example, her decision for many years to risk adopting a pattern of clothing that could by some be labeled as ‘cultural appropriation,’ was yet a sign of her openness to other and non-traditional ways of living and of seeing things. Based on a spiritual principle, she has also often led worship after removing her shoes. For her, these kinds of decisions regarding how she approaches daily life are not an affectation, and call attention to what she is focused upon and to those things in which she finds value, rather than to herself.

Having lived and worked for a period of time in the humid hill country of the Philippines, Renee has also been effective in encouraging church community in the comparatively arid rural areas of Idaho, the azure coastal region of central California, as well as in the rice-growing flat land of southeastern Arkansas. Throughout her life, Renee has been drawn most to the desert, and to the spirituality that can be found in places like where Abraham perceived the nearness of God, outside his tent on a bright starry night, and where Jesus confirmed his vocation while setting aside the alluring possibilities offered by the Enemy. Her regard for the divine Spirit, who is often best found in the desert and in desert-like places, provides insight about the abiding interiority of Renee’s spiritual character.

What particularly marks Renee as a learner and as a teacher is her remarkable capacity for creative but also sincere self-remaking. She has in many ways transcended perceived attitudinal ‘boundaries,’ and has not only grown but has flourished in her life-informed path, to the joy of many others.

I offer this with thanks for my friend, Renee Miller, who embodies a wonderful appreciation for ‘the beauty of holiness.’

Here are some words from Renee that I think capture well her positive view of her life and ministry: “My primary core value is attributing the highest motive to people’s behavior. This helps me stay in the place of unconditional love, and for me, there’s nothing more theological or beautiful than the reality and demonstration of love. It can transform even the ugly and horrific, and if not transform, at least lessen its power.” Surley, these are words that we all want to live by.

A Lost Rembrandt: Is Beauty Ephemeral?

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A lost painting: Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee

In 1990, in one of the most notable art thefts in modern history, two men disguised as police officers entered the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and stole Rembrandt’s famous painting, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, and 12 other significant works of art. When one considers the loss of this painting (for it has never been recovered), as well as the many significant works of art that have disappeared through history, two related questions may arise: Can beauty be lost? Is beauty ephemeral?

In the process of reckoning with the recent Los Angeles wildfires, people who are art-minded are beginning to wonder about a particular aspect of all that has been lost, which understandably has received less attention, works of art.

After fires and earthquakes, beautiful buildings can be rebuilt, sometimes even better than before given the learning that may have come with their destruction. But what about lost paintings, drawings, and sculptures?

The Adoration of the Magi, attributed to Rembrandt and long thought to be lost but recently re-discovered, known otherwise through copies made by others.

Clearly, and as many of the examples featured in this space attest, works of art may now sometimes be best (or even only) appreciated through photographic reproductions obtained through the internet. It has not always been so. In earlier times collectors relied upon expert advisors and buyers through which they obtained artworks for their collections, for which they may at times only have had descriptions or comparatively poor reproductions – as did Gardner with the assistance of the famed historian, Bernard Berenson. And yet, especially when the originals had yet to be seen “in person,” or are no longer available for personal viewing, works like Rembrandts Storm painting have a beauty that is not transitory, and these artworks continue to exist as they inhabit the memory and imaginations of many others, as has been true in my own experience.

Yet, whether or not examples of Beauty in art or in nature are available for personal perusal, Beauty itself abides.

Another lost painting attributed to Rembrandt, The Unconscious Patient, also recently rediscovered.

To be consistent with their faith claims, those who are Christian believers should be among the first to agree that Beauty is not ephemeral, not here in one moment and gone in the next, nor of passing significance. Beauty, like Goodness and Truth, has since ancient times been recognized as one of the three Transcendentals. In terms of Christian faith claims, we might consider the witness of an example like the prayer for the Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord (August 6), found in The Book of Common Prayer:

O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you, O Father, and you, O Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Beauty of the King that is spoken of in this prayer, as with his divinity and his full participation in the Shekinah glory of the Father, is eternal rather than temporal. And so, in reference to God, to the divine nature as well as to the three persons of the Trinity who share it, we should properly speak of the source of Beauty, rather than as an example of Beauty.

Yet, as the recent Los Angeles wildfires remind us, while examples of Beauty can – at least in some respects – be ephemeral, the idea and reality of Beauty abides, continuing to inspire us even when examples of Beauty are no longer there before us to admire.

Plato, Aristotle’s teacher, continues to teach us!

Can Beauty be Found in Judgment?

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James Tissot, Jesus Looking Through the Lattice (detail). This may remind us to ask, in whose sight do we live?

One of the most widely quoted, but perhaps least understood, sayings of Jesus amounts to the admonition, do not judge. A common way these words are understood can be summed up in the instruction, do not judge others lest you, yourself, become judged (see Matthew 7:1 and Luke 6:37).

Did Jesus mean to forbid all forms of judgment?

A good way to appreciate Jesus’ teaching in this regard is to make a distinction between judging persons, and judging a person’s actions. For example, trying to appropriate his teaching on this matter may require us to make judgments about what actions would constitute faithful obedience to his words, and those which are proscribed by him. In order to follow his teaching, I may need to ask myself, would this or that act of mine (whether merely in thought, or in my spoken words and or actions) constitute an example of what he meant to forbid?

At the same time, and if following through with the above distinction, I need to consider a further question. If Jesus did have the above distinction in mind, what more precisely was he concerned to have us try to avoid doing?

When interpreting Jesus’ words on this subject, New Testament scholars tend to focus on the inherent problem of our presumption of a divine prerogative. This is evident in our predilection to be the ones who determine which actions, behaviors, and or attitudes, are characteristic of the things that will impede our (and more especially other persons’) enjoyment of eternal fellowship with our Father in heaven. According to this understanding, we are not to make judgements like these: “That person, as a result of his words or actions, is as good as ‘gone to hell!’” Or, “that person is beyond redeeming, and is no longer worthy of my attention or positive regard.”

James Tissot, Woe Unto to You, Scribes and Pharisees

On the other hand, and as I seek to think, live, and love, as a graced participant in the life of Kingdom fellowship, I need to make distinctions about what kinds of thoughts, words, and actions are characteristic of Kingdom life. To do this requires making judgments – judgments about thoughts, words, and actions, rather than about people. And Jesus, as quoted in John 7:24, appears to encourage making right judgements. Though in this context in John’s Gospel, he is asking for right judgement to be made about himself, about who he is; his encouragement to do so rests upon his hearers making such judgements based on their (or our) experience of having engaged in similar acts of prudential reasoning.

James Tissot, The Soul of the Good Thief (a reminder of the Good End toward which we are able to live)

Making good or right judgments about what is characteristic of Kingdom life, and about choices or actions within it, can not only be helpful, even crucial, but also a thing of Beauty. Seeking first the Kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness would seem not only to permit such judgments, it may require making them. Indeed, how else are we to know what patterns of life, and specific types of action, fulfill Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount? For we are able to make judgements about what kinds of thoughts or actions, and what kinds of disciplines or practices, can help us grow further into the holiness of Christ, our living icon of a beautifully redeemed humanity.

James Tissot, The Sermon of the Beatitudes (detail)

One key to understanding this implication of Jesus’ teaching about the value of right judement is provided by considering a number of Biblical and Prayer Book texts regarding the connection between our participation in the Beauty of the Lord, and our grace-enabled growth into divine righteousness. I hope to develop this idea in a subsequent post. For the moment, I will restate a maxim I like to remember: We are called to live as we pray – to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. This helps us to “see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly, day by day.”

The closing words in the last paragraph above are a quote from St. Richard of Chichester, as found in hymn 654, The Hymnal 1982, and are familiar to many of us from a song featured in the musical, Godspell.

Laetitia Jacquetton and the Art of Both-And

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Not so long ago, my friend James brought to my attention the striking glass-based sculptural work of Laetitia Jacquetton. Born in France, Jacquetton has a background in fashion design and a longterm interest in the minimalist qualities present within much of Japanese art and its Mingei (or folk art) tradition.

When I consider what I find compelling about her sculpture, I am reminded of the art of photography. A decisive factor in effective photography, especially black and white photography, is that of contrast. This is a predominant feature in Jacquetton’s work. Though this may seem obvious, perhaps too obvious for comment, I would like briefly to explore the significance of this element of contrast, and what her work might help us to appreciate regarding other spheres within our life experience. For the sculpture of Laetitia Jacquetton may alert us to an expansive question: can dissimilar and even contrasting things – as well as ideas – be brought together into beautiful harmony? And, what might asking this tell us about our concepts of nature and grace?

Photos of Jacquetton’s sculptures help acquaint us with how contrast functions in her sculptures. For example, the photo at the top displays an intentional contrast between light and dark, as well as between shiny and matte materials.

Here, we see a contrast between translucent and opaque materials.

We also see in these photos a further contrast, between smooth and textured materials. This feature, along with those previously noted, stems from the way a fluid and malleable material has been brought into relation with a static and unyielding one. Observing this allows us to infer something about the creative process involved in the production of Jacquetton’s sculptures. The artist has taken a humanly-fashioned form and adapted it to a naturally shaped object, bringing something crafted in the studio to bear upon something found in nature.

Empirically observed contrasts like these may also have a bearing upon our ideas, and how we think about concepts like nature and grace. We may have been taught to view such ideas in terms of a perceived contrast between them, even an antithetical one. Here, when thinking about objects found in relation to others that are crafted, or about nature in relation to our view of grace, we may gain insight by considering some apposite words that Eucharistic celebrants may say before consecrating the bread: “Fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the Bread of Life.”

Several contrasts already noted are also evident in photos of Jacquetton’s other works:

Reflecting on these photos that feature contrasts allows us to articulate what is most significant within Jacquetton’s work, her intentional juxtaposition of contrasting elements.

Jacquetton as an artisan, a human agent gifted with a creative vision and developed skills, has juxtaposed dissimilar materials, achieving aesthetically pleasing results. A singular focus upon one or more of the contrasting materials (or the qualities associated with their appearance), could lead us to highlight one aspect of the artwork at the expense of another, in an either/or way. Yet, it is the dynamic conjunction between dissimilar materials that Jacquetton prioritizes in her work. Evident contrast is accompanied by intentional conjunction, leading us to appreciate the interplay of the differences in a both-and manner.

Noticing this, I think once again of the Eucharist, which – like the Incarnation – is another and relatable example of what I am referring to as a ‘dynamic conjunction.’ For the Eucharist makes present together both the natural physical properties of bread, and the supernaturally graced properties of the sacrament.

Nevertheless, we tend to view many aspects of our world, and of our lives within it, in a simplistic and reductionist manner. For me, comparative reference to the influence of Plato and Aristotle helps limit this tendency toward reductionism.

For example, I credit Plato’s influence with an implicit encouragement to view things, and especially their moral value, in relation to a single reference point. According to this approach, something either possesses or manifests this or that quality – let us say beauty, or goodness – or it does not.

I credit to Aristotle’s influence a more nuanced approach, which nurtures a willingness to consider what we see and come to know in relation to several reference points. We are then better able to say (in a both-and way) how this or that object of attention has a particular quality, while also possessing something of a second quality, and how it can be aptly described by referring to other qualities or attributes.

In all this, I do not attribute my reflections to Laetitia Jacquetton, though her compelling sculptures have clearly inspired them.

Additional notes: Thanks to my friend, James Ruiz, for introducing me to Laetitia Jacquetton and her evocative sculptural work. / Regarding my references to Plato and Aristotle, I do not presume to have accurately summarized aspects of their thought, but rather cite what I think are aspects of their dual influences.

I hope readers might perceive how my reflective observations above are related to the paradoxical conjunctions of ideas upon which I reflected in my prior post, regarding how repentance may display beauty, and how painful grief may be accompanied by joyful reassurance.

A Friend’s Beautiful Repentance

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James Tissot, The Pharisee and the Publican

This past week I witnessed a beautiful act of repentance. A new friend shared with several of us that he had done something he clearly regretted. I began to see the shame and grief he was carrying within himself, despite his initial display of upbeat friendliness. I suspect that he had not joined us consciously intending to share details about what he had earlier done. But, after a bit, his sense of accountability to us, as well as his desire to reconnect with us, overcame his reluctance to be candid. His face became dark, and we could see anguish in his facial expression while – embarrassed – he described what had happened. His principal regret, he said, was that he had let himself and his family down, and he was sad that he had let us down, as well.

It was an uncomfortable few minutes, both for him, and for us. But I was struck not only by the pathos of the moment, and of his admission. I was moved by the beauty of his expression of repentance, and especially by his at-first discrete and then winsome smile as he received and responded to our assurances. We told him that he was beginning to make things well by sincerely sharing his recent experience with us.

The moment passed by all too quickly, especially given how profound it had been for several of us.

We had personally witnessed a touching illustration of what I believe Jesus was getting at in his parable found in Luke 18:9-14, often called The Pharisee and the Publican (or Tax Collector). This parable and other related Gospel sayings or stories are often described as providing us with illustrations of God’s love for us, and of what God’s love for us seeks to nurture in and elicit from us. To me, an often missing word in such characterizations of Jesus’ vision and teaching is ‘beautiful.’

I doubt I will ever forget an observation made by a young aspirant to ordained ministry, about her loss of her father following his lengthy terminal illness: “it is a beautiful thing to have someone for whom you mourn.” There is a similarly strange beauty – and ‘strange’ because it is unexpected – to be found in offering, or in being invited to receive from a friend, grief-filled repentance. Otherwise, we are rarely ever so self-disclosing, so without guile and, hence, so vulnerable. Perhaps the beauty we find here in such moments is the reflected beauty of the divine nature, in whose image and likeness we have been created.

But the loving light of that same divine nature also illumines how our created likeness with God is now marred, and often obscured. This is what can keep us holding our hurts within, while foolishly thinking we are somehow different from others.

And then, on an occasion that can be a surprise even to the one who offers a painful admission, the reflected beauty of the divine nature is briefly revealed, shared, and there before us to behold.

When we find ourselves moved to share our pain and grief by our acts of repentance, we may experience a paradox. We may find that, in the embrace and assurances we receive from those with whom we have been candid, we have received something of even dearer value to us. We may find that we have received a beautiful gift, the gift of experiencing having been found by the One who has come to find us.

James Tissot, The Good Shepherd

Additional note: Jesus’ teaching, “blessed are those who mourn,” might best be understood in relation to the grief we can experience accompanying our acts of repentance. Charles Wesley may have had this idea in mind when composing verse 2 of his text for the hymn/poem, “Lo! he comes with clouds descending.” For we are close to the Father’s heart when our grief is born of sincere repentance.

Every eye shall now behold him, robed in dreadful majesty;
those who set at nought and sold him, pierced, and hailed him to the tree,
deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing, shall the true Messiah see.

(Charles Wesley, in the words of Hymn 57 in The Hymnal 1982)

The Epiphany: Human Power Encounters Divine Authority

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James Tissot, The Magi Journeying (detail)

Instinctively, there is something we all seem to seek. We want to find purpose and meaning, and organizing principles for our lives. This desire is anchored in a larger one: we seek to discern what is real, and true.

But where does our common impulse come from? In what does this impulse consist? I think the best answer to these questions is found at the heart of the Feast of the Epiphany. On Epiphany, we celebrate how God has revealed to the world the real and true meaning and purpose for our lives. Epiphany is all about God revealing to us the divine center of everything. Epiphany highlights God’s self-revealing in the natural world, and preeminently in God’s Incarnation, which the Magi came to discover and then worship.

We are able to recognize that it is in the nature of a Creator to order reality, imbue it with purpose and meaning, and hence to bring order, purpose, and meaning to our lives. A perhaps-unexpected word that captures this broad idea is authority, in that God possesses the authorizing power to create things, and guide them. Specifically, we discern this authorizing power in God’s creation of the universe and in the divine agency shaping ongoing history. For God is the author of all that is real and true.

In human life, authority and power are not always neatly aligned, and we experience trouble when the two are at odds with one another. We see this dialectic between the two at work in the events of Holy Week, in the confrontation between divine authority (in the vocation of Jesus), and worldly power (as exemplified by Pontius Pilate). Less obvious is the way this dialectic is manifest in the events that are commemorated in our celebration of Christmas and the Epiphany of our Lord, especially in connection with the visit of the Magi from the East.

James Tissot, The Magi in the House of Herod

The Magi, also called ‘wise men,’ or ‘kings’ from the East, arrive in Israel having been guided by an authoritative power greater than themselves. Because of their witness to this higher authority and its implied power, the visitors pose a threat to Herod and his courtiers, who exercise earthly authority and its attendant power. This emerges in the interaction between people who are witnesses to divine authority and its power, and others who are possessors of worldly authority and power. The emerging conflict, later seen in the events of Holy Week, arises amidst the challenges surrounding the beauty revealed in what we call the Epiphany, the revealing of divine light to the whole world rather than to just a particular nation or the people of a particular religious tradition.

The Magi from the East, by explaining their quest, prompt Herod to act. He acts viciously and violently through orders given to soldiers under his command. The result is the series of murders we acknowledge every year on December 28, in the ‘red letter day’ we call the Massacre of the Innocents.

James Tissot, the Adoration of the Magi

What are we to make of the Epiphany of God in human form, and the tragic circumstances to which it led? At the heart of Christian belief is the conviction that God became present to us through a human birth. He revealed himself in a human person who embodied two natures, one fully divine, and one fully human, whose natures are distinguishable yet inseparable. Such a person, regardless of appearances, was and is the transcending center or heart of all that is, manifest in human form. He is, therefore, the One who truly possesses divine authority and divine power. Einstein – who was not in any sense a traditional believer – said this: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” The divine center of reality, manifest and revealed in a human being, is the most mysterious beautiful thing that we can experience.

Here is the wonder of it: in God’s mysterious Providence, the birth of the Messiah would bring death to many (in the Massacre of the Innocents). And – years later – the death of the Messiah would bring the possibility of new birth to all, through the redemption of human being from the power of sin and death.

Yet, it would be some decades later before those who proclaimed Jesus as Messiah, and the embodiment of God, could understand the connection between his birth along with those soon-resulting deaths of the Innocents, and his later death, along with its soon-resulting new births for those who came to believe in him.

Our proper response to all this — indeed our only response to all this can and should be to praise the Holy One of Israel, the one whose death brought new life to all who receive him. He has come to us. Come let us adore him. And let us receive him with renewed hope and joyful hospitality, in all his light-filled glory.

A blessed Epiphanytide to you and your loved ones.

The Arrival of the Messiah in James Tissot’s Art

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James Tissot, The Vision of Zechariah, with which Luke begins the great story (Luke 1). The priest, Zechariah receives an epiphany, telling him that he and Elizabeth will have a son, to be named John, later known as ‘the Baptizer.’

With this post for Christmas, I share with you a series of paintings by James Tissot on the theme of the Nativity of Jesus. Readers of this blog will know of my high regard for this artist’s life and work. I am pleased to share this collection of Tissot’s paintings related to the great events we celebrate for twelve days in the Church’s calendar year.

The paintings featured here, and many others, later became the illustrations in Tissot’s four volume, The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, published in English in 1897-8. The originals of these paintings were purchased by the Brooklyn Museum in 1900, and examples from this collection are periodically on display, both there and elsewhere.

May you and your loved ones have a holy and blessed Twelve Days!