Easter Mystery by Maurice Denis (painting)

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Last year when I was at the Art Institute of Chicago, I was transfixed by the pointillist painting Easter Mystery by the French artist Maurice Denis.

Denis, Maurice_Easter Mystery
Maurice Denis (French, 1870–1943), Easter Mystery (Mystère de Pâcques), 1891. Oil on canvas, 41 × 40 1/8 in. (104 × 102 cm). Art Institute of Chicago. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones. [object record]

It shows three women dressed in mourning clothes arriving at Christ’s tomb (one ascending the hill, one kneeling, and one prostrate), only to find an angel at its entrance, announcing that Christ has risen. In the midground, visible through a veil of trees, the hand of God bends down to feed a group of white-clad women the body of Christ, a consecrated wafer that gives them eternal life.

Jesus’s teaching in John 6:48–58 is instructive here:

“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day, for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which the ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

The Art Institute audio guide (#841) provides the following commentary on the painting:

Maurice Denis belonged to a group of young French artists who called themselves the Nabis after the Hebrew word for prophets. The Nabis were interested in imbuing their subject matter with a sense of mystery and otherness. For Denis, a devout Catholic, an ordinary landscape could be loaded with manifestations of the divine. Denis sets this scene in the village of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, west of Paris, where he lived. The large house in the background would later become his home. In the foreground, an angel emerges from a cave, as if to announce Christ rising, to the mourning Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. Behind them are white-clad figures who hasten toward an astonishing sight, the hand of God himself, appearing miraculously from the trees to offer the Eucharist.

Denis strived for simple, flattened forms that sometimes verge on abstraction. He believed this process reflected spiritual purification, and he looked to the work of early Italian Renaissance art, and especially to the work of the painter monk Fra Angelico for inspiration. But he and the other Nabis were also deeply influenced by avant-garde French art. Here, Denis explores the effects of the pointillist technique of building up the picture surface with tiny dots of paint.

A 1994 exhibition catalog for Maurice Denis, 1870–1943 at the Musée des beaux-arts in Lyon expands on the artist’s technique in Easter Mystery. “By treating the surface with a kind of pointillist technique,” it reads, “he accentuates the gentleness of the curves, increases the light everywhere as in a mosaic, and endows the whole composition with an effect of airy lightness. . . . A spring landscape seems to be scattered with regularly spaced dabs of green paint, which work like a prism, breaking the light up into coloured particles. Denis used this method widely in order [in the words of Jean-Paul Bouillon] ‘to embody the truths of love and faith in perceptible form – making a surface quiver.’”

The quivering surface contributes to the mystical quality of the painting, in which mortality is taken up into immortality. By our partaking of the Eucharist, Christ assimilates us into his risen, living body, over which death has no dominion.

Photo by Victoria Emily Jones
Photo by Victoria Emily Jones
Photo by Victoria Emily Jones

This painting is in the public domain, and you are free to use my photos if you wish. To view them in full resolution, right-click and open in a new tab (if viewing on a computer) or pinch to zoom (if viewing on a phone).

“An Easter Carol” by Christina Rossetti (poem)

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Woman gathering flowers (Stabiae)
Woman gathering flowers, first century CE. Detached fresco, 38 × 32 cm, from the Villa Arianna in Stabiae, Campania, Italy, now in the Collection of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples, Italy. The woman may be Primavera (a personification of spring) or Flora (the Roman goddess of flowers, fertility, and abundance), or simply a generic maiden at leisure.
Spring bursts today,
For Christ is risen and all the earth’s at play.

Flash forth, thou Sun,
The rain is over and gone, its work is done.

Winter is past,
Sweet Spring is come at last, is come at last.

Bud, Fig and Vine,
Bud, Olive, fat with fruit and oil and wine.

Break forth this morn
In roses, thou but yesterday a Thorn.

Uplift thy head,
O pure white Lily through the Winter dead.

Beside your dams
Leap and rejoice, you merry-making Lambs.

All Herds and Flocks
Rejoice, all Beasts of thickets and of rocks.

Sing, Creatures, sing,
Angels and Men and Birds and everything.

All notes of Doves
Fill all our world: this is the time of loves.

This poem was originally published in A Pageant, and Other Poems (London, 1881) and is in the public domain.

One of the most celebrated poets of the Victorian era, Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894) was an English writer of Romantic, devotional, and children’s poems. She was the youngest of four siblings, among them the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, several of whose paintings she sat for, famously modeling for the Virgin Mary. A devout Anglican whose verse gives vivid expression to the life of faith and to spiritual longing, she is recognized as a saint by the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, who celebrate April 27 as her feast day.

Playlist: The Lord Is My Shepherd (Psalm 23, etc.)

Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

Tomorrow’s readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, for the fourth Sunday of Easter, include what’s probably the most famous passage in the Bible, Psalm 23:

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

In characterizing God as a shepherd, the psalmist expresses how God leads, protects, rescues, feeds, and cares for his own. The author of Psalm 95 uses the same metaphor when he writes, “For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand” (v. 7)—as do Isaiah and Ezekiel. During his teaching ministry, Jesus described himself as “the good shepherd [who] lays down his life for the sheep,” and whose flock knows his voice and follows him (John 10:1–18).

There are hundreds of metrical paraphrases and musical settings of Psalm 23. I’ve compiled some three dozen of the best into a Spotify playlist, along with a handful of other songs that reference or adapt other biblical passages that speak of God as a shepherd. There are settings by Philippe Rogier, Franz Schubert, Antonin Dvořak, Noel Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul and Mary), John Michael Talbot, Val Parker, David Gungor, Luke Morton, and others. Besides English, languages include Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, French, German, Czech, Arabic, Mandarin, Urdu, Swahili, and Sotho.

Rae, Ronald_Shepherd
Ronald Rae (Scottish, 1946–), Shepherd, 1988. Granite, 4 × 5 × 4 ft. Private collection, Peak District, Scotland.

The Psalm 23 settings that are most widely reproduced in modern English-language hymnals are:

  • “The Lord’s My Shepherd,” written by Francis Rous but extensively revised by committee and published by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in the Scottish Psalter (1650). This text is most commonly matched with the 1872 tune CRIMOND by Ms. Jessie Seymour Irvine of Scotland, but I really like it with the early American folk tune PISGAH, as recorded, for example, by the William Appling Singers. However, both melodies, I feel, are difficult to sing congregationally.
  • “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need” by Isaac Watts, from The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (1719). This text is traditionally paired with the tune RESIGNATION, first published in the fifth edition of the shape-note hymnal The Beauties of Harmony (Pittsburgh, 1828), compiled by Freeman Lewis, but first appearing with the Watts text in The Valley Harmonist in 1836. My playlist features a performance by the female a cappella quartet Anonymous 4 (the music arranged by Johanna Maria Rose; see video embed below), as well as by folk singer Claire Holley, who recorded the hymn at the request of a friend who told her it was the song that helped her get sober for good. I also like the minor-key setting by Stephen Gordon.
  • “The Lord Is My Shepherd (No Want Shall I Know)” by James Montgomery (1822), with music by Thomas Koschat (1862). Here’s the Lower Lights:
  • “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” [previously] by Henry Williams Baker (1868). This hymn is most often sung to a traditional Irish tune known as ST. COLUMBA (my playlist features both a choral performance by the Choir of Kings School, Canterbury, and a folksy solo by Luke Spehar) and occasionally to MCKEE, also from Ireland, as recorded by Redeemer Knoxville.

At my church we use Wendell Kimbrough’s musical adaptation of the psalm, “His Love Is My Resting Place.” Do you sing Psalm 23 at your church, and if so, what version?

Probably my favorite choral setting is by Bobby McFerrin, “The 23rd Psalm,” performed below by his VOCAbuLarieS, featuring SLIXS & Friends, live in Gdansk, Poland, at the Solidarity of Arts Festival on August 17, 2013:

Some people are thrown off by McFerrin’s use of feminine pronouns for the Divine in this song. God has no literal sex because God does not possess a body, so our gendered binaries are inadequate—but scripture and church tradition refer to God using masculine pronouns. I’m not bothered by the “She” throughout, or even “Mother,” but the substitution of “Daughter” for “Son” in the Trinitarian doxology at the end is theologically confusing, since Jesus was a man. But I get what McFerrin is doing.

How does the change in gender impact your reception of the psalm text? We’re used to seeing religious imagery of a man with a sheep slung over his shoulders to embody the metaphor of God as shepherd—but what happens when you picture a shepherdess in the role? Note that it was not unusual in the ancient Near East for girls and women to tend their family herds (think of Rachel and Zipporah in the Old Testament, for example), and still today across the globe there are many female shepherds.

McFerrin dedicated his “23rd Psalm” to his mother.

(The above artworks, sourced from Instagram, are from the 2019 series The Shepherd by Laura Makabresku, a fine-art photographer from Poland whose work is influenced by her Catholic faith and by fairy tales.)

Here is a selection of other songs from the playlist:

>> “Adonai Ro’i” is a setting of the original Hebrew of Psalm 23 by Jamie Hilsden of Misqedem, a band from Tel Aviv, Israel, that is heavily influenced by Middle Eastern and North African music styles, often utilizing microtonal scales, irregular time signatures, and regional instruments. The song is sung by Shai Sol. (Available on Bandcamp.)

>> “The Lord Is My Shepherd” by Paul Zach of the United States:

>> “El Señor es mi Pastor” by Omar Salas of the Dominican Republic, a salsa song:

>> “Ke Na Le Modisa” by the Soweto Gospel Choir, sung live at the Nelson Mandela Theatre in 2008. The song is in Sotho, an official language in South Africa and Lesotho.

>> “The Shadow Can’t Have Me” by Arthur Alligood:

>> “Done Found My Lost Sheep,” an African American spiritual sung by Lucy Simpson [previously] for Smithsonian Folkways, based on Jesus’s parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:1–7):

Lost sheep found (British Library)
Illustration by the nun Sibylla von Bondorf (German, ca. 1440–1525), from a copy of the Clarrissan Rule, Freiburg, ca. 1480. Opaque pigments on parchment, 15 × 10 cm. London, British Library, Add. MS 15686, fol. 30v. The banderole reads, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost” (Luke 15:6). [HT]
Watanabe, Sadao_Good Shepherd
Sadao Watanabe (Japanese, 1913–1996), Good Shepherd, 1968. Katazome stencil print.

>> “Our Psalm 23” by Gabriella Velez, Kevin Dailey, Justin Gray, and JonCarlos Velez of Common Hymnal, featuring Sharon Irving:

Roundup: Coventry Cathedral HENI Talk, dilapidated migrant boats transformed into musical instruments, and more

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SONGS:

>> “Empty Grave” by Zach Williams: Some southern rock!

>> “Overcome with Light” by Bowerbirds, performed by Daniel Seavey and Liz Vice:

>> “Look Who I Found” by Harry Connick Jr., performed by the Good Shepherd Collective, feat. Charles Jones: This song cover premiered at Good Shepherd New York’s online Easter service last month. The original is from Harry Connick Jr.’s 2021 album Alone with My Faith, a mix of new songs he wrote (like this one) and classic hymns.

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ART VIDEO: “Coventry Cathedral: A Journey Through Art” (HENI Talks), written and presented by James Fox: While my husband was presenting at a science conference at Oxford in 2013, I took a train to Coventry and spent the whole day at the city’s cathedral, wandering through its chapels and grounds, sitting in front of its various artworks as the light changed, praying, and even talking with a few locals, including one man who had lived in Coventry since before its bombing in World War II. That bombing destroyed the original St. Michael’s from the fourteenth century, but when the cathedral was rebuilt after the war, it provided the occasion for new commissions from modern architects and artists. Here’s a wonderful video introduction to the history, art, and design of Coventry Cathedral:

In it the art historian and BAFTA-nominated broadcaster Dr. James Fox explores some of the cathedral’s modernist masterpieces: St. Michael’s Victory over the Devil by Jacob Epstein; the West Screen by John Hutton; the Tablets of the Word by Ralph Beyer; the stained glass windows in the nave by Lawrence Lee, Keith New, and Geoffrey Clarke; the lectern eagle by Elisabeth Frink; the high-altar cross of nails by Geoffrey Clarke; the monumental tapestry Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph by Graham Sutherland (which I wrote about for ArtWay); Angel of Agony by Steven Sykes; the Crown of Thorns by Geoffrey Clarke; the Chapel of Unity floor mosaics by Einar Forseth; and the Baptistery Window by John Piper. The latter Fox calls the pinnacle of the entire complex, and I agree—it’s extraordinary. Explore more at www.coventrycathedral.org.uk.

Coventry Cathedral interior
Coventry Cathedral in the West Midlands, England. Photo: David Iliff (CC BY-SA 3.0).
West Screen by John Hutton
Detail of the large glass “west” screen at Coventry Cathedral, designed and hand-engraved by John Hutton, 1962. This view looks out over the ruins of the Old Cathedral. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.

For more HENI Talks, see heni.com/talks. See also a feature I ran about this video series back in 2021.

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SONG: “See What a Morning (Resurrection Hymn)” by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty, sung by the Coventry Cathedral choirs and congregation: Although Coventry Cathedral attracts tourists, it’s also an active church, home to a regular worshipping community! Here’s a video of the beginning of the entrance rite on Easter Day 2012, a procession carried out to the 2003 hymn “See What a Morning.” I appreciate the versatility of Stuart Townend and the Gettys’ hymns, which tend to work equally well if led by a contemporary worship band or a traditional choir with piano/organ accompaniment. I’m used to hearing their hymns sung in low-church contexts (“low church” refers to Christian traditions, such as evangelicalism, that place less emphasis on ritual and sacrament, as opposed to “high church”), so it was a delight to see one used as part of the Anglican liturgy and in such a majestic space!

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ARTICLE: “La Scala concert features violins that inmates made from battered migrant boats” by Colleen Barry, AP News, February 13, 2024: “The violins, violas and cellos played by the Orchestra of the Sea in its debut performance at Milan’s famed Teatro alla Scala carry with them tales of desperation and redemption. The wood that was bent, chiseled and gouged to form the instruments was recovered from dilapidated smugglers’ boats that brought migrants to Italy’s shores; the luthiers who created them are inmates in Italy’s largest prison. The project, dubbed Metamorphosis, focuses on transforming what otherwise might be discarded into something of value to society: rotten wood into fine instruments, inmates into craftsmen, all under the principle of rehabilitation . . .” This is a beautiful story of repurposing, of new life—for weathered wood that carried families out of danger zones, and for men who have been convicted of crimes but who seek to engage their hands and hearts in creative projects.

Reclaimed violin
February 9, 2024: A violin made from the wood of wrecked migrants’ boats lies in the instrument workshop at Opera maximum-security prison outside Milan. Photo: Antonio Calanni / Associated Press.
Reclaimed cellos
Two members of the Orchestra of the Sea play cellos made by inmates from reclaimed wood at the orchestra’s debut performance in Milan on February 12, 2024. Photo: Antonio Calanni / Associated Press.

“Fishers of People” by Andrew Roycroft (poem)

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Mynheer_Nicholas_The Calling
Nicholas Mynheer (British, 1958–), Jesus Appears on the Shore: The Calling, 2007. Oil on canvas, 31 × 25 cm. Final painting from the thirteen-piece Sarum Cycle on Christ’s passion. [read artist profile]

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore;
yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. (John 21:4)

Lap lulled by lifeless waters,
ill-cast nets bearing no weight,
the fishermen see against
charcoal dawn
the lone figure of the Lord—
come to draw them in again,
and launch them out.

This poem is No. XXXII from 33: Reflections on the Gospel of Saint John by Andrew Roycroft (Baltimore: Square Halo Books, 2022). Used by permission of the publisher.

Roycroft’s poems from the collection 33 are remarkable for their concision, especially this one based on John 21. There’s so much richness packed into these seven spare lines, about resurrection, restoration, plenitude, calling. The rabbi Jesus whom they had followed for three years and staked all their hopes in had died; he was executed by the state. Disappointed and forlorn, and some perhaps ashamed by their abandonment of him in his hour of deepest need, the disciples return to their livelihood as fishers. But their first night back at sea proves fruitless, yields no catch; the waters are dead, like their Lord. Or so they thought.

A voice from the shore yells out to them, telling them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. Skeptically, they do, and the nets fill with such an abundance of fish that the men can barely heave them up. It’s then that they recognize the voice as that of their beloved Jesus. Peter cannot contain his joy and jumps into the sea, splashing his way to reunion with the one he had denied knowing just the previous week.

Jesus and friends then have a fish barbecue breakfast on the beach. He redeems Peter and removes his guilt by asking him three times, “Do you love me?,” giving him the chance to respond triply in the affirmative, counteracting the three no’s he had spoken the other night outside the house of Caiaphas. “Then feed my sheep,” Jesus says. Peter would go on to show his love for Jesus by doing just that, playing an instrumental role in the early church.

Luke places the episode of the miraculous catch of fish at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, when Jesus calls his very first disciples (see Luke 5:1–11). That this episode bookends the Gospels speaks of second chances and the persistence of God’s promise to make fruitful his word. In both versions, the call is the same: “Follow me.” Through life and in death and out the other side.

At the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus calls his disciples back into ministry, to teaching and healing and spreading the good news of resurrection. The abundance teeming below the surface of the Sea of Galilee hints at the life and heft of the new movement Jesus was launching—the imminent multiplication of followers of the Way. Having reeled them in from their feelings of lostness and imbued them with fresh hope, Jesus casts his disciples back into the waters of the world, commissioning them to draw others into God’s kingdom of love and grace.

Andrew Roycroft is a poet and pastor from Northern Ireland who blogs at Thinking Pastorally. His poetry has featured in a variety of journals in the UK and Ireland, in Arts Council for Northern Ireland projects, on BBC Radio, and in the work of composer Anselm McDonnell, and he has received several commissions from New Irish Arts. 33: Reflections on the Gospel of Saint John (Square Halo, 2022) is his first poetry collection.

Roundup: New Easter songs, joint Easter-iftar dinner, and more

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Here’s my new (nonthematic) playlist for the month of April!

But also, because Easter lasts through May 18, be sure to check out the 184 songs I handpicked for the season, which includes some new ones mixed in since the playlist’s original publication.

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NEW SONGS:

>> “He Lives” by Emma Nissen: Emma Nissen is a Latter-day Saint singer-songwriter from Arizona known for her gorgeous jazz vocals. Here she performs an original song about God the Father giving his Son, Jesus, to redeem the world through his life, death, and resurrection. “Let there be light, let there be love . . .”

>> “Living Among the Dead” by Caleb Stine: Alt-country singer-songwriter Caleb Stine, based in Baltimore, released this Johnny Cash–esque, resurrection-themed song just before Easter. The title and chorus come from the words the angels spoke to the women who went to Jesus’s tomb the Sunday after his death, looking for his body. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” they asked. “He is not here but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to the hands of sinners and be crucified and on the third day rise again” (Luke 24:5–7).

The first verse narrates that momentous visit to the tomb. The second verse fast-forwards to the present day and raises issues of poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, culture warring, and militarism, some caused and others exacerbated by the death-dealing policies or neglect of the government. Many people look to politicians for salvation, trusting in their often empty promises, embracing their divisive rhetoric, and ignoring major character flaws for the sake of power. This song cautions us not to go to a dry well for sustenance—not to quench our thirst for living water in places that cannot give it.

The third verse tells of a “thin man in a dusty hat” who regales the story of a carpenter who healed and fed people, who drove out demons from bodies and greedy opportunists from temple courtyards, who befriended those of little means and those who were ostracized. He addressed human suffering head-on with tenderness and self-sacrifice. When the chorus comes in a final time, I hear in it that this loving, serving, reconciling Christ is still living, his Spirit is still moving, and that we ought to get behind that movement, practicing resurrection where we live. “Be not of fear, be of light, lift your head.” As the body of Christ, we should follow him in doing the same deeds and proclaiming the same good news of liberation.

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BLOG POST: “50 Ways to Practice Resurrection during the 50 Days of Eastertide” by Tamara Hill Murphy: Spiritual director and writer Tamara Hill Murphy of Connecticut shares fifty simple ideas for celebrating the Easter season in your day-to-day, including retelling baptism stories, visiting a botanical garden, watching a movie that makes you laugh, swinging on the playground, cooking a new veggie recipe, building a new piece of furniture, or washing your car by hand. “I find a lot of joy . . . in seeing these ordinary choices during my day as ways to practice a life that trumps death, a resurrection kind of life,” Murphy writes.

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PODCAST EPISODE: “The Beauty—the Poetry—of Christian Experience” with Benjamin Myers, Faith & Imagination: I listen to at least a dozen podcast episodes a week, and this one has been one of my favorites of the past few months. Dr. Benjamin Myers is a literature professor at Oklahoma Baptist University and the former poet laureate of Oklahoma. Here, host Matthew Wickman interviews Myers about two of his six books: A Poetics of Orthodoxy: Christian Truth as Aesthetic Foundation (2020) and the poetry collection The Family Book of Martyrs (2022). They talk about the incarnation and its implications on art; the disclosure of the extraordinary in the ordinary; the inherently unsecular nature of all good poetry; how beauty mirrors grace; the importance of the humanities in Christian education (how it “thickens up” the soul); the obligation of Christian art to capture both the “something good” and the “something missing” of our lives; and how love calls us to the things of this world.

A few additional highlights for me:

  • Myers came to faith after attending a Lessons & Carols service, compelled by the beauty and truthfulness of the story it told.
  • “Beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder but also in the being of God.”
  • At 37:24, Myers reads a poem he wrote for his youngest daughter: “Elizabeth Discovers Rock and Roll.”

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INSTAGRAM VIDEO: from AJ+: On March 31 in the Borgerhout district of Antwerp, a mile-plus-long table set up along the Turnhoutsebaan brought together city residents for a joint Easter-iftar dinner. Easter is the most sacred feast of the Christian year, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus; on Easter Sunday, Christians break the forty-day fast they’ve held for the duration of Lent. Lent almost always overlaps in part with Ramadan, a Muslim holy month of fasting that commemorates the prophet Muhammad’s first revelation. On each day of Ramadan after sunset, the fast is broken with an evening meal called an iftar.

Easter-iftar dinner
Christians and Muslims in Antwerp broke their fasts together at an outdoor Easter-iftar dinner on March 31. Photo: Sanad Latifa.

Borgerhout carried out this interfaith initiative in collaboration with the FMV cultural association and other partners in the hopes of promoting dialogue, social cohesion, and connection. I love this idea of gathering folks together across lines of religious difference to enjoy community, good food, and spiritual celebration! For more information, see https://www.2kmsamenaantafel.be/.

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NEW ALBUM: Three Gifts by Liturgical Folk and Jon Guerra: Ryan Flanigan of Liturgical Folk and Jon Guerra have teamed up to release an EP of three songs, one for each of the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and love (1 Cor. 13:13). Here’s “the greatest of these”:

Easter, Day 8: Stay with Us

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Now on that same day two of them [to whom the women had reported the empty tomb] were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them. . . .  As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them.

—Luke 24:13–15, 28–29

LOOK: Road to Emmaus by Duccio

Duccio_Road to Emmaus
Duccio (Italian, ca. 1255/60–ca. 1319), Road to Emmaus, 1308–11. Tempera on wood, 51 × 57 cm. Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena.

In his Road to Emmaus painting, the Sienese master Duccio portrays Jesus as a typical medieval pilgrim, wearing a woolen cloak, a satchel, and a wide-brimmed hat and holding a walking stick. This artistic choice was probably made in part to explain why his two traveling companions, Cleopas and an unnamed other, do not recognize him until later. Those two had been in Jerusalem for Passover and thus heard of the prophet Jesus’s being put to death and, just that morning, an angel supposedly appearing to a group of women saying he had risen. It was a wild week. Weary now from their seven-mile journey, they gesture toward the village of Emmaus. “Let’s get some food,” they suggest.

This panel is part of an enormous polyptych (multipaneled altarpiece) that originally stood at the high altar of Siena Cathedral in Italy. It’s called the Maestà (“Majesty”) altarpiece, after the primary panel of the enthroned Madonna and Child with saints and angels, and it’s one of the most significant artworks of the fourteenth century. Unfortunately, it was cut up in the eighteenth century and individual panels sold for private purchase. Therefore, several panels are now lost, and the rest are dispersed internationally across twelve museum collections, though many are held at the Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana in Siena.

The following two images are conjectural digital reconstructions that place the surviving paintings into the probable framework, based on documentary evidence. The front of the altarpiece contained fourteen scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary, and the back contained twenty-six scenes from the life of Christ. The Road to Emmaus is the last in the narrative sequence on the back (see arrow).

Maesta Altarpiece (front)
Conjectural digital reconstruction of the front of Duccio’s Maestà altarpiece, 1308–11. Tempera and gold on wood, height 16 1/2 ft. Source: Italian Art Society.
Maesta Altarpiece (back, Emmaus)
Conjectural digital reconstruction of the back of Duccio’s Maestà altarpiece, with an arrow pointing to the Road to Emmaus

LISTEN: “Stay with Us” (Bli hos oss), op. 87, no. 3 by Egil Hovland, 1978 | Performed by the National Lutheran Choir, dir. David Cherwien, 2018 [HT]

Stay with us, Lord Jesus, stay with us.
Stay with us; it soon is evening.
Stay with us, Lord Jesus, stay with us.
It soon is evening and night is falling.

Jesus Christ, the world’s true light!
Shine so the darkness cannot overcome it!
Stay with us, Lord Jesus, it soon is evening.
Stay with us, Lord Jesus, for night is falling.
Let your light pierce the darkness
And fill your church with its glory.

“Bli hos oss,” or “Stay with Us” in English, is the third of six choral pieces that comprise opus 87 of the Norwegian composer Egil Hovland (1924–2013). The main part of the text is based on Luke 24:29, where two pilgrims to Jerusalem are traveling back home after the feast of Passover in the company of, unbeknownst to them at the time, the risen Christ. When they reach the village of Emmaus, it’s time to turn in for the evening, and the two invite their fellow traveler to dine and lodge with them. (The text is ambiguous as to whether they live there or are merely stopping overnight at an inn or the home of a friend to rest.) He accepts. And it is at the dinner table there that Jesus reveals to them who he is.  

This song is used in many churches for Vespers (evening worship) services during Eastertide. It invokes Christ’s presence, asking him to be with us through the night and to shine his light into places of spiritual or emotional darkness.

As we continue our journey through the liturgical year, may Christ be glorified in our hearts, in our homes and neighborhoods, in his church, and in the wider world, granting us the illumination, the awed recognition and joy, that he granted the two pilgrims who supped with him at Emmaus after his resurrection.

Easter, Day 7: Hallelujah Day

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LOOK: Voice of the Bell by Lumen Martin Winter

Winter, Lumen Martin_Voice of the Bell
Lumen Martin Winter (American, 1908–1982), Voice of the Bell, 1965. Oil on board, 18 × 52 in. Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages, Stony Brook, New York. This was a design for a mosaic mural for the entranceway of a school on Staten Island.

LISTEN: “Hallelujah Day” | Music by Abe Janowitz and Julius Grossman, 1955 | Performed by the Deep River Boys, accompanied by Sten Carlbergs kvartett, 1955

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding

Sing, sing the whole day long
Sing the hallelujah song
This is Hallelujah Day!

Sing, sing till early dawn
A great new chorus will be born
On this hallelujah holiday

Hallelujah, have a little lujah
Sound that magic melody
Everybody’s singing
You can feel it in the air
Celebrating, congregating
From the mountains to the sea
Everybody’s singing
Hallelujah everywhere

Hallelujah (3×)
What a joyous holiday
Hallelujah (3×)
This is Hallelujah Day!

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding
(Repeat)

Sing, sing the whole day long
Sing the hallelujah song
This is Hallelujah Day!

Sing, sing till early dawn
A great new chorus will be born
On this hallelujah holiday

Hallelujah (3×)
What a joyous holiday

Bells are ringing
(Ding-dong, ding)
We’re all singing
Hallelujah
This is Hallelujah Day!
Hallelujah Day!

This swing song was originally released in Norway in 1955 by the African American gospel group the Deep River Boys, which at the time consisted of Harry Douglass (baritone), Edward Ware (bass), Jimmy Lundy (first tenor), and Vernon Gardner (second tenor). They attained quite the popularity in Scandinavia and even recorded some songs in Swedish and Norwegian. Here they’re accompanied by an instrumental jazz quartet led by Sten Carlberg of Sweden.

The song makes me laugh with its silliness, particularly the bell imitations! But I dig it. “Hallelujah” is a Hebrew word meaning “God be praised!” (Hallelu = praise; Yah = Yahweh.) I found no statements from the artists involved about what occasion is being celebrated in the song, but it seems that it very well could be Easter. A day when church bells all around the world call believers—like every Sunday, but today with special vigor—to gather together in worship of their risen Savior.

Easter, Day 6: Mfurahini, Haleluya

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

LOOK: The Resurrection by André Kamba Luesa

André Kamba Luesa (Congolese, 1944–1995), La résurrection (The Resurrection), 1992. Peinture grattée on canvas, 45 × 58 cm. © missio Aachen.

The risen Christ bounds victoriously over the abyss—using his cross like a pole vault!—in this scratched painting by the Congolese artist André Kamba Luesa (1944–1995). The flaming pit of hell has been conquered, cleared. And crossing over from death to life, Christ brings us with him. That’s why the men, women, and children lift high their hands in celebration. His victory is ours!

The Gospel of Matthew describes the Crucifixion-Resurrection event as causing a geological quaking; “the earth shook and the rocks were split” (Matt. 27:51; cf. 28:2). Kamba Luesa portrays this frightening phenomenon in his Resurrection. And yet he also uses warm reds, oranges, and yellows to convey the radiant joy of resurrection. The sky is awash in a soft glow. The Son rises with the sun, its orb a halo behind his head.

As is common in Christian art, the artist connects the Resurrection to his own cultural context. His Jesus is African and wears traditional printed cloth, just like those who praise him from the sides. As much as Jesus’s rising was a historical happening that took place some two thousand years ago outside Jerusalem, it is also an ongoing reality whose implications continue to reverberate as the life of God is made manifest in believers all over the globe.

I originally wrote this art commentary for the Daily Prayer Project’s Easter 2023 prayer periodical.

LISTEN: “Mfurahini, Haleluya” (Christ Has Arisen, Alleluia) | Words by Bernard Kyamanywa, 1966 | Traditional Tanzanian tune | Performed by the Azania Front Lutheran Cathedral Main Choir (Kwaya Kuu), Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 2018

Mfurahini, haleluya,
mkombozi amefufuka.
Amefufuka, haleluya,
msifuni sasa yu hai.

Refrain:
Tumwimbie sote kwa furaha.
yesu ametoka kaburini.
Kashinda kifo, haleluya;
haleluya, Yesu yu hai.

. . .

[I can’t find the Swahili lyrics to verses 2–5]

This Easter text was written in Swahili by the Rev. Bernard Kyamanywa (born 1938), a Tanzanian Lutheran pastor, while a student at Lutheran Theological College Makumira (now Tumaini University Makumira). He set it to a tune from the Haya people of northwestern Tanzania, an ethnic group he belongs to.

The English version of the song, “Christ Has Arisen, Alleluia,” is relatively popular throughout the world. Here’s a video of Christ the King Choir in Molyko Buea, Cameroon, singing the song in English:

Christ has arisen, alleluia!
Rejoice and praise him, alleluia,
For our Redeemer burst from the tomb,
Even from death, dispelling its gloom.

Refrain:
Let us sing praise to him with endless joy;
Death’s fearful sting he has come to destroy,
Our sins forgiving, alleluia.
Christ has arisen, alleluia!

For three long days the grave did its worst
Until its strength by God was dispersed.
He who gives life did death undergo;
And in its conquest his might did show. [Refrain]

The angel said to them, “Do not fear!
You look for Jesus who is not here.
See for yourselves the tomb is all bare;
Only the grave cloths are lying there.” [Refrain]

“Go spread the news: He’s not in the grave;
He has arisen this world to save.
Jesus’ redeeming labors are done;
Even the battle with sin is won.” [Refrain]

Christ has arisen; he sets us free;
Alleluia, to him praises be.
Jesus is living! Let us all sing;
He reigns triumphant, heavenly King. [Refrain]

Trans. Howard S. Olson, 1977 (admin. Augsburg Fortress)

There are many more examples on YouTube of church choirs performing the song, in locales ranging from India to Nebraska in the US. It also appears on the Art & Theology Eastertide Playlist.

Easter, Day 5: Glory to the Risen Lamb!

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

Then I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a scroll written on the inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals, and I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, with seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne. When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sing a new song:

You are worthy to take the scroll
    and to break its seals,
for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God
    saints from every tribe and language and people and nation;
you have made them a kingdom and priests serving our God,
    and they will reign on earth.

Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice,

Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them, singing,

To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might
forever and ever!

And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the elders fell down and worshiped.

—Revelation 5 (NRSV)

LOOK: The Vision of the Lamb in the Midst of the Four Living Creatures, from a medieval English apocalypse

Lamb Upon the Throne (Getty)
The Vision of the Lamb in the Midst of the Four Living Creatures and the Twenty-Four Elders, made in London, ca. 1255–60. Tempera, gold leaf, colored washes, and pen and ink on parchment, 12 9/16 × 8 7/8 in. (31.9 × 22.5 cm). J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. Ludwig III 1 (83.MC.72), fol. 5.

LISTEN: “Glory to the Risen Lamb!” | Words compiled by Jean Anne Shafferman, 2007, from traditional sources (William Saunders and Hugh Bourne, 1821; Job Hupton, 1805; F. R. Warren, 1878) | Tune: INVITATION (New), from William Walker’s Southern Harmony, 1854 | Performed by musicians at Byford Parish Church, Georgetown, Massachusetts, 2020

Hear the gospel news resounding: “Christ has suffered on the tree;
streams of mercy are abounding; grace for all is rich and free.”

Refrain:
Hallelujah, hallelujah! Glory to the Risen Lamb!
Hallelujah, hallelujah! Glory to the great I AM!

Grace is flowing like a river from the Savior’s wounded side.
Still it flows as fresh as ever; all may live, for Christ has died. [Refrain]

On the cross for our redemption, see him all his lifeblood pour!
There he wins our full salvation, dies that we may die no more. [Refrain]