Easter is the culmination of the Christian year for most confessional communities. While Christmas, in our current culture, can seem the more celebrated moment from Jesus’ life, Easter is where the deep magic, to quote C. S. Lewis, is found. If we think of all of humankind as a group of people on a journey toward something, Easter is the turning point on the path. Easter is a day that celebrates not just the rising of Jesus in a miraculous act that opposes death, and then goes on to annihilate it, but also the ushering in of the new creation, one that is not just an improvement on what was before, but a complete redesign of reality. In short: everything that was before is changed. The resurrection of Jesus is the door that allows our prayers of “on earth as it is in heaven” to be granted. Not later, not after this life, but now. And this truth is why the resurrection is the center point around which all our theology, worship, service, and devotion revolve.
But how can we remember this world-altering good news in our day to day? Understanding that this new creation is currently breaking into our current world is challenging for our brains. Art is one thing, however, that has the power to remind us of truths that are hard for our minds to grasp. We have to practice looking for the way God’s Kingdom is showing itself and to cultivate the muscle of paying attention to God’s work in all the small ways. We need help, and we need each other.
In his excellent book Simply Good News: Why the Gospel is News and What Makes it Good, N. T. Wright says that “The resurrection of Jesus is the launching of God’s new world.” That word “launching” made me think of a ship being thrust out into the sea on a new journey. In my imagination, the church is like that ship.
The art alcoves in the Sojourn Midtown worship space make me think of the porthole windows of that launching ship. They are a way we can look beyond what human eyes can see and into the unseen. This community is sailing together to a new place, gathered below deck, trusting that the Captain is aimed true. The space is protected, but the seas can still be rough. The windows bring the outside in but the view is limited. The world they show us is real, and alive, and all around us. We are not yet fully a part of it but we are on the way, together.
These Easter pieces were created in collaboration with Sojourn artists in order to emphasize the together aspect of this journey. We used a technique called mono printing. In this way of printing, you apply paint onto a surface, add water, and place the paper face side down onto the paint. For pieces this size, you need many hands to apply the paint and make the print. It can only be made together. When you peel the paper off, you are left with a completely unpredictable and new image. It’s a whole new thing. The prints are fluid, and semi-abstract, but lively and familiar in that they mirror colors and shapes we find in spring landscapes.
On a Sunday morning a few weeks before Easter, the whole community helped us finish these pieces by participating in another kind of printing. We made hundreds of Linocut prints in the shape of wings, something I’ve long used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit whose work enables us to see through into the new and coming kingdom. Leading up to Easter, the wings and the landscape were assembled together and a final layer of whitewash was applied around the circles. Through the circle of wings, the vision is more clear, but all around there is a fog that makes the view seem more dim. 1 Corinthians 13:12 says “For now we see through a glass, darkly.” That idea is embedded in these pieces and the way they were made.
I love what Eugene Peterson wrote in The Message version of that same passage from 1 Corinthians: “We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!”
The title of this collaborative piece is Alee/Aweather. Those words are used by sailors to describe the side of a ship that is sheltered from the wind (alee) and the side that is windward (aweather). As pilgrims on this long boat journey, peeking out for reminders of our true home we are headed toward, there is comfort in knowing that a good and loving Captain is steering us.
Facing into the wind, or turning in a sheltered direction, we can keep our eyes fixed on that new creation place, reminding each other of the good news of this now and not yet Kingdom. Using words, images, songs, presence, prayer, kindness, servant-heartedness, and forgiveness, we help each other live in the reality of God’s Kingdom now.
Not just 2000 years ago, and not one day in heaven, but right now, right here, in our individual lives, in the lives of our communities, and in the world at large. May these pieces of art fortify our faith in this new country, our true homeland, the place we long for, and help cultivate into existence even now, as we join our King Jesus, in his good work of ushering in more and more of his Kingdom. Happy Easter indeed.
14 monoprint backgrounds with acrylic paint, block print and stencil-printed wings.