Author: Victoria Emily Jones

Roundup: One-word poems, “Go to Hell” musical setting, and more

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

POEM SEQUENCE: “The Unfolding” by Michael Stalcup: Michael Stalcup has published a sequence of five short poems in Solum Journal that “tells the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection by unfolding five words that take us from Maundy Thursday through Easter Sunday,” he says. “I wrote these poems in a very unusual way, restricting myself to words that could be formed from the letters in each poem’s title. . . . This poetic form calls for creativity within intense limitations, which seems fitting for Holy Week—a time when Jesus crafted the most beautiful art this world has ever known within the constraints of his own suffering and death.” Stalcup has also presented them on Instagram (click on the image below).

The Unfolding by Michael Stalcup

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ARTICLE: “Don’t Rush Past Good Friday” by Brian Zahnd: Pastor and author Brian Zahnd cautions us not to shortchange the cross on the way to Easter, but rather to slow down and dwell there, beholding the crucified Christ.

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SONGS:

>> “Friday Morning” by Sydney Carter, performed by Timothy Renner: This Good Friday song by the English folk musician Sydney Bertram Carter (1915–2004) is difficult—one might even say blasphemous. That’s because it’s voiced from the perspective of the “bad” thief, who is spewing hatred and bitterness over his fate and blaming God for having created such a cruel world. But we’re aware of an irony in the refrain that the convicted man is not: “It’s God they ought to crucify / Instead of you and me, / I said to the carpenter / A-hanging on the tree.”

Read or listen to a reflection on “Friday Morning,” by Andrew Pratt, here.

>> “Go to Hell” by Nick Chambers: This song is a setting of a poem by Pádraig Ó Tuama from his collection Sorry for Your Troubles (Canterbury Press Norwich, 2013). The title is shocking, I know, but it’s derived from a line in the Apostles’ Creed, where we Christians profess that after Jesus died, he “descended into hell.” The singer-songwriter, Nick Chambers, writes in the YouTube video description: “In between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is possibly strangest day of the Christian year. On Holy Saturday, not only is Jesus, the God-Man, in the grave; traditions abound about his descent to the dead, his ‘harrowing of hell.’ What does it mean for the coming down of God-with-us not to end on earth but ‘under the earth,’ extending hope to the furthest regions of human pain and abandonment? Such a question deserves more poetry than explanation.”

“Go to hell” is a slang expression of scorn or rejection, to which Jesus was no stranger. As in the previous song, there’s an irony here, in telling Jesus to go to hell—because he did. Literally. Ó Tuama meditates on how Jesus shares in our vulnerabilities and yearnings and seeks to pull us out of the hells we’re in and redeem our stories.

Hear the poem read by the poet here, or at the end of the Stations of the Cross video below. “he is called to hell, this man / he is called to glory . . .”

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GUIDED MEDITATION: “Stations of the Cross, Good Friday, 2020” by Pádraig Ó Tuama: In 2020 the poet-theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama put together this twenty-minute video reflection for Good Friday structured around the Stations of the Cross, consisting of photos of art he’s taken and the praying of collects he’s written. (Several of the collects can be found in his book Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community from 2017.) The throughline is a set of stained-glass Stations by Sheila Corcoran at the Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven at Dublin Airport; others are by Jong-Tae Choi, Gib Singleton, Sieger Köder, Richard P. Campbell, and Audrey Frank Anastasi.

Corcoran, Sheila_Veronica's Veil
Sheila Corcoran, Station 6: Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus, ca. 1964. Stained glass, Church of Our Lady Queen of Heaven, Dublin Airport. Photo: Patrick Comerford.
Campbell, Richard_Stripped
Richard P. Campbell (Dunghutti/Gumbaynggirr, 1958–), Station 10: Jesus is stripped of his garments, 2001. Reconciliation Church, La Perouse, Sydney, Australia.

But before stepping onto Jesus’s Via Dolorosa, Ó Tuama considers Judas, sharing a stained glass panel by Harry Clarke that illustrates a medieval legend about the Irish monastic saint Brendan the Navigator. According to the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, on one of his voyages St. Brendan encountered Judas at sea, tied to an iceberg. He learned that an angel had taken pity on Judas in hell and given him a reprieve of one hour to cool himself from the flames of judgment. Ó Tuama then prays for those who, like Judas, are tormented by guilt and see no way out.

He closes with a reading of his poem “Go to Hell” (set to music in the previous roundup item).

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SONG: “For the Songless Hearts” by Jon Guerra: “There’s a lot of hubbub around Easter weekend in churches. And for good reason,” says singer-songwriter Jon Guerra. “But our hearts can’t always cooperate with the prescribed mood of the Easter season: ‘Celebrate! Be happy! Sing!’ Sometimes the last thing we are able to do is sing. Thankfully, Good Friday and Easter are not about mustering a mood. Good Friday and Easter are about remembering that there is One who meets us in our life and meets us in our death. He sings for us—and over us—when we can’t.”

That’s what “For the Songless Hearts” is about—a single released in 2017, and which Guerra sings with his wife, Valerie. In a Mockingbird blog post about it, Guerra admonishes, “Remember that before the tomb was empty, it was full. ‘When he was laid in the tomb, he laid right next to you.’” Jesus knew the depths of sorrow and the sting of death. We are not alone in such experiences.

Holy Week: Jesus Takes Up His Cross

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. . . carrying the cross by himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him . . .

—John 19:17–18

LOOK: White Mountain by Ihor Paneyko

Paneyko, Ihor_White Mountain
Ihor Paneyko (Игоря Панейка) (Ukrainian, 1957–), White Mountain, 2011. Egg tempera on gessoed board.

LISTEN: “Solus ad victimam” (Alone to Sacrifice Thou Goest, Lord) | Original Latin words by Peter Abelard, second quarter of 12th century; English translation by Helen Waddell, 1929 | Music by Kenneth Leighton, 1973 | Performed by St. Olaf Cantorei, dir. John Ferguson, on Hidden in Humbleness: Meditations for Holy Week and Easter, 2010

Alone to sacrifice thou goest, Lord,
Giving thyself to Death, whom thou hast slain.
For us, thy wretched folk, is [there] any word,
Who know that for our sins this is thy pain?

For they are ours, O Lord, our deeds, our deeds.
Why must thou suffer torture for our sin?
Let our hearts suffer for thy passion, Lord,
That very suffering may thy mercy win.

This is that night of tears, the three days’ space,
Sorrow abiding of the eventide,
Until the day break with the risen Christ,
And hearts that sorrowed shall be satisfied.

So may our hearts share in thine anguish, Lord,
That they may sharers of thy glory be.
Heavy with weeping may the three days pass,
To win the laughter of thine Easter Day.

“In Parasceve Domini: III. Nocturno,” whose first line is “Solus ad victimam procedis, Domine,” is a Latin hymn by the French scholastic philosopher, theologian, and poet Peter Abelard (1079–1142). It appears in his collection Hymnarius Paraclitensis—a major contribution to medieval Latin hymnody—and was sung in the night office (Nocturns) of prayers on Good Friday.

Today it is best known through its modern choral setting of the English by British composer and pianist Kenneth Leighton (1929–1988). Dr. David Ouzts, the minister of music and liturgy at Church of the Holy Communion in Memphis, says this is “one of the most effective musical settings of any anthem of the 1,000-plus octavos in our parish music library.” He continues:

This anthem is one of those with harmonies and sonorities that may not sound correct when they are. Worshipers will hear the sparseness of the choir singing in simple same-note octaves, and in the next moment, dissonances between the choral voices will appear.

Though this 12th century text is most certainly a Passiontide text, my favorite aspect is that it foreshadows Easter and the Resurrection.

The wordplay of the music that accompanies “laughter” in the text is notable. The choral voices are high in their tessituras, and the full choir ends literally on a high note, after which the organ accompaniment steals the show with great dissonant chords, only to land on a huge, bright E Major chord.

The hymn invites us to follow Christ to Golgotha, beholding his suffering so that we might be moved to contrition and, clinging to God’s mercy, rise to newness of life—or, as the wonderful last line puts it, “win the laughter of [Christ’s] Easter Day.” The fourth stanza alludes to Romans 8:17, where the apostle Paul writes that we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” Paul speaks elsewhere of believers being “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20)—see my visual commentaries on this passage—and “baptized into his death” (Rom. 6:3) as well as being raised with him.

Jesus may have gone “alone to sacrifice”—but the fruits of that sacrifice abound to all who would eat. Praise be to God.

As we enter the Paschal Triduum, let us weep for our sins and for the innocent Lamb who was slain to atone for them. Let us also look with hope toward daybreak.

Holy Week: Jesus Is Tried

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Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. . . .

Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This fellow said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days.’”

The high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?”

But Jesus was silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”

Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you,

From now on you will see the Son of Man
seated at the right hand of Power
and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

—Matthew 26:57–64

LOOK: Christ before the High Priest by Gerrit van Honthorst

Honthorst, Gerrit van_Christ before the High Priest
Gerrit van Honthorst (Dutch, 1590–1656), Christ before the High Priest, ca. 1617. Oil on canvas, 272 × 183 cm. National Gallery, London.

Rev. Katherine Hedderly, associate vicar for ministry at St Martin-in-the-Fields, reflected on this painting as part of the online course “Inspired to Follow: Art and the Bible Story”:

Jesus places himself totally in the place of light and truth. But we see here, and will see again as we journey to the cross, that it is a lonely place. I wonder if we’re prepared to stand in the lonely place for the sake of the truth. . . .

Opposite Jesus in the painting we find Caiaphas, seated. And in front of Caiaphas, on the table, the books of the Mosaic Law are open. All the power of the religious authority is being brought to bear. Caiaphas has all the weight and authority in the scene, the two witnesses standing arms folded behind him in cowardly judgement. Caiaphas’s finger is very prominent. He is accusing, judgmental. . . .

Jesus’ silence condemns the judge and the witnesses; and by his silence he refuses to accept the authority of the trial. In the face of this onslaught from the religious hierarchy Jesus is the one with real authority.

LISTEN: “Sanhedrin” by Nicholas Andrew Barber, on Stations (2020)

When the day had come
When the dreadful day had come
All the people gathered round
They were the powers that be

The priests, the scribes, and the elders
Took their counsel, all eyes on this king
Of a different kind
Oh, he was a king of a different kind

They asked him plain and simple
Oh, but their intentions were far more complicated
Minds and hearts are so complicated
Minds and hearts are so complicated

You are the Christ
Oh, you are the Son of Man
You are seated at the right hand of the power of God
Over all the powers that be

You needed to say no more
They’d heard enough
They heard his words
But not what he said

“El Greco: Espolio” by Earle Birney (poem)

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El Greco_El Espolio
El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos) (Spanish, 1541–1614), El Espolio (The Disrobing of Christ), 1577–79. Oil on panel, 55.7 × 34.7 cm. National Trust, Upton House, Warwickshire, England. Photo: National Trust Photo Library / John Hammond. [object record]
The carpenter is intent on the pressure of his hand
on the awl, and the trick of pinpointing his strength
through the awl to the wood, which is tough.
He has no effort to spare for despoilings
nor to worry if he’ll be cut in on the dice.
His skill is vital to the scene, and the safety of the state.
Anyone can perform the indignities; it is his hard arms
and craft that hold the eyes of the convict’s women.
There is the problem of getting the holes straight
(in the middle of this shoving crowd)
and deep enough to hold the spikes
after they’ve sunk through those soft feet
and wrists waiting behind him.

The carpenter isn’t aware that one of the hands
is held in a curious beseechment over him—
but what is besought, forgiveness or blessing?—
nor if he saw would he take the time to be puzzled.
Criminals come in all sorts, as anyone knows who makes crosses,
are as mad or sane as those who decide on their killings.
Our one at least has been quiet so far,
though they say he has talked himself into this trouble—
a carpenter’s son who got notions of preaching.
Well here’s a carpenter’s son who’ll have carpenter’s sons,
God willing, and build what’s wanted, temples or tables,
mangers or crosses, and shape them decently,
working alone in that firm and profound abstraction
which blots out the bawling of rag-snatchers.
To construct with hands, knee-weight, braced thigh,
keeps the back turned from death.
But it’s too late now for the other carpenter’s boy
to return to this peace before the nails are hammered.

From Selected Poems, 1940–1966 by Earle Birney (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966), copyright © the Estate of Earle Birney.

Earle Birney (1904–1995) is regarded as one of Canada’s finest poets. He is the author of twenty-five poetry collections, including David and Other Poems (1942), Now Is Time (1945), and Near False Creek Mouth (1964). He taught English at the University of British Columbia, where he founded and directed the first Canadian creative writing program. He was also a novelist, essayist, literary critic, and radio playwright.

Holy Week: Jesus Prays in Gethsemane

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When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Then Jesus said to [his disciples], “You will all fall away because of me this night, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.”

Peter said to him, “Even if all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.”

Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.”

Peter said to him, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And so said all the disciples.

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee and began to be grieved and agitated. Then he said to them, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not what I want but what you want.”

Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, “So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Again he went away for the second time and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” Again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.

So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Now the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. Look, my betrayer is at hand.”

—Matthew 26:30–46

LOOK: Exceeding Sorrowful by Douglas Porter

Porter, Doug_Exceeding Sorrowful
Douglas Porter (Canadian, 1949–), Exceeding Sorrowful, 2023. Acrylic on canvas, 36 × 24 in.

Doug Porter is a painter, video artist and editor, and graphic designer from Orillia, Ontario. His painting Exceeding Sorrowful portrays the religious subject known as the Agony in the Garden. The painting’s title comes from the King James Version of Matthew 26:38, where Jesus tells his inner circle of disciples (Peter, James, and John), “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.”

He had just eaten the Passover seder with them and the rest of the Twelve, pronouncing some strange words at the table: “Take, eat; this is my body,” he said as he broke the bread. And as he raised the wineglass, he commanded them, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins . . .”

Singing a hymn and going out to the Mount of Olives, he then foretold his disciples’ desertion of him. Adapting God’s words from Zechariah 13:7, he told them that he, their shepherd, would be struck, and they, his sheep, would be scattered. They all protested, but their faithlessness would soon be revealed.

Using rich hues reminiscent of stained glass, Porter shows Christ with his eyes closed as if a wave of pain is passing over him, and his brow anxiously furrowed. (The head of Christ is based on a painted wood crucifix by Coppo di Marcovaldo of Italy, from around 1260.) He is broken, shattered; the three jagged shards of him pull away to reveal a dark void. At the top the rim of the cup of suffering is just visible, which he pleads with God to remove. But as he communes with the Father, he becomes increasingly bolstered in his resolve to carry out his mission to the very end.

On the right is a shepherd’s staff, also broken, representing Christ’s words about his being struck. Three of his “sheep” are sprawled out on the ground. The figures of Peter, James, and John are based on a fifteenth-century icon of the Transfiguration by Theophanes the Greek. These three disciples on the Mount of Olives had been privileged earlier to see their Lord gloriously transfigured on another mount: Tabor. And yet despite having received that divine vision, in Gethsemane they fall asleep, failing to support Jesus in his final hours.

In a few days, Jesus’s exceeding sorrow and pain would be transfigured. But on that Thursday and Friday, he drank that cup to its dregs.

You can read Porter’s statement about this painting on his website (scroll down to fifth entry).

LISTEN: “Miracle” by Dave Von Bieker, on Bridge Songs ONE by Urban Bridge Church (2007) | MP3 provided by permission of the artist

Update, 3/28/24: Von Bieker told me my interest in the song has spurred him on to remake it! Here’s his new recording from this week:

This garden grows death
And it’s damp and it’s dark
Your three closest friends
Are asleep on the bark
Of a tree that once grew tall
Offering its shade
But it’s dead and it’s mourning
It’s black and decayed

And you search for a place
That is far enough out
So your voice won’t be heard
When you cry and you shout
Have you come here to bargain?
Have you come to ask why?
Is that fear or pure sorrow
Buried in your eyes?

And isn’t it time
To turn water into wine?
To drink a different cup?
To forget what’s on your mind?
It seems a good time
To take up Satan’s deal
To leap from tall buildings
Without bruising a heel

But now’s not the time for miracles
Now’s not the time for trap doors and way outs
Oh, now’s not the time for miracles
Everything comes in its time

It’s a strange sort of prayer
More a fight to the death
You walk back to your watchmen
There isn’t one left
They’ve all slept through this spiritual
Solar eclipse
They don’t get it, how could they
Who would have guessed this?

And you drop to your knees
There’s no way out, not yet
And your pores are still dripping
With blood, oh, with sweat
Jacob left with a limp
Moses’ tongue couldn’t find
An excuse, Paul be blinded
Why fight him when you know it’s no use?
When you know, well

That now’s not the time for miracles
Now’s not the time for trap doors and way outs
No, now’s not the time for miracles
Everything comes in its time

You sit at her bedside
And cry to the roof
I don’t know why I hold on
When I have no proof
But there’s something in knowing
You knew how this felt
Yeah, there’s something in sharing
This hand that we’re dealt

And isn’t it time to say,
“Wake up, arise! Come on,
Take up your mat! Come on
And open your eyes!”
Isn’t it time now?
He’s sick, close to death
He’s been in the grave for four days
Why not yet?

But now’s not the time for miracles
Now’s not the time for trap doors and way outs
No, now’s not the time for miracles
And everything comes in its time
And everything comes in its time

Dave Von Bieker is a singer-songwriter from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, who performs and records under the artist name “Von Bieker.” He wrote “Miracle” while part of a songwriting group connected to Urban Bridge Church, a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada church plant in downtown Edmonton that existed from 2006 to 2015. “We [were] writing songs that dance around the edges of the sacred and songs that wade right through it,” he said. “We [were] questioning and shouting with our songs.”

Starting in 2007, each year the collective shared some of their work at a live concert event they dubbed Bridge Songs and released an album. “Miracle” is from the first such album, Bridge Songs ONE. This album is no longer available, but Von Bieker gave me permission to share this song from it, which I learned about last year as a subscriber to his newsletter, Von Bieker Backstage.

The narrator of the song observes Christ’s distress in the garden of Gethsemane and questions why he doesn’t work a miracle to avoid the cross. Then the refrain comes in—perhaps in Christ’s voice, perhaps in the voice of the concessionary narrator—saying that “now’s not the time for miracles” but suggesting that the miracle of resurrection will come in its time.

A bloody crucifixion is probably not the path to victory we would have imagined, but it’s the path God in his wisdom laid out and took and by doing so showed com-passion (literally “suffering with”) on humanity. The physical, mental, and spiritual anguish that God in Christ endured speaks to God’s awesome love, which comes alongside us in our own suffering.

In the third verse “Miracle” appears to shift to a contemporary scene of a loved one (daughter? wife? mother? friend?) lying gravely ill in bed. Why doesn’t God intervene to miraculously heal? It then moves back again in time to the story of Lazarus, who died. His sister Martha chastises Jesus for his delayed arrival to Lazarus’s bedside. Upon seeing the four-days-dead body of his friend in the tomb, “Jesus began to weep” and was “greatly disturbed” (John 11:35, 38). Then, after giving space to his grief, he calls into the dark cavern, “Lazarus, come out!”—and wouldn’t you know, Lazarus comes stumbling out alive! A delayed miracle.

I love how this song enfolds the story of Christ into our own and that of the Old and New Testament saints, who wrestled with God and stammered their doubts and had their obstinacy obliterated by blinding light, or their fervent belief validated by a brother’s sudden awakening from the grave.

In addition to writing songs, in September 2011 Von Bieker founded Bleeding Heart Art Space, a community space dedicated to exploring art, faith, and justice. He served as director, or “arts chaplain,” until June 2018. Bleeding Heart started as a ministry of Urban Bridge Church, and when that church closed, Bleeding Heart was grafted into St. Faith’s Anglican Church, under whose aegis it remains active today, organizing pop-up solo and group exhibitions and hosting ArtLucks for local artists to share what they’ve been working on.

Holy Week: Jesus Washes His Disciples’ Feet

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If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. . . .

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

—John 13:14–15, 34–35

LOOK: We Are by Hyeyoung Shin [HT]

Shin, Hyeyoung_We Are
Hyeyoung Shin (Korean American, 1974–), We Are, 2010. Performance, graphite drawings on paper and paper garments, and lithographs on muslin. Big Orbit Gallery, Buffalo, New York.
Shin, Hyeyoung_We Are
Foot-washing performance by Hyeyoung Shin at the opening of We Are, April 23, 2010, Big Orbit Gallery, Buffalo, New York.

Hyeyoung Shin is a South Korean–born, Kansas City–based artist whose work explores human vulnerability, humility, intimacy, empathy, interpersonal relationships, and belonging.

We Are is the name of a solo exhibition of hers from 2010 consisting of life-size drawings and lithographs of human feet and a foot-washing performance. Shin executed thirty-four graphite drawings on paper as well as on paper garments that she custom-made. The structural anchor of the installation was five muslin panels, each ten yards long, suspended from the ceiling and draped like a hammock. On the upper reaches of each were lithographs of two pairs of legs, and in the bed of the hammock lay a mat, a pillow, and a paper dress. Leading up to the hammock was a long sheet of paper with twelve sets of footprints arranged in two rows, evoking Jesus’s twelve disciples.

Graphite drawing on handmade paper garment with hanji, 2009
Shin, Hyeyoung_We Are
Lithographs on muslin, approx. 288 × 30 in., 2009–10
Shin, Hyeyoung_We Are (drawing series)
Graphite drawings on paper, 42 × 64 in., 2009

Shin enacted the foot washings herself. She said that “through the experiences, I began to learn again how to practice love akin to holding my mother’s feet” as she lay dying of a terminal illness. The physical proximity and tender touch at that gallery event opened up channels of empathy between the artist and participants.

LISTEN: “Reverie: This is my will,” arr. Anne-Marie O’Farrell, on Easter in Ireland: Music for the Paschal Season (2020)

Rev. Dr. Anne-Marie O’Farrell, a harpist, composer, and Church of Ireland minister from Dublin, wrote this reverie on the Maundy Thursday hymn “This Is My Will” for solo lever harp in 2019. (A reverie is an instrumental piece suggesting a dreamy or musing state.) The Jesuit priest James Quinn (1918–2010) of Scotland wrote the hymn text, reproduced below, in 1969, a paraphrase of John 15:11–17, pairing it with a traditional Irish suantraí (lullaby) melody. It is that melody—which in Ireland has come to be associated with Holy Week, thanks to Quinn—that O’Farrell has arranged here. Purchase sheet music for O’Farrell’s harp reverie, or an arrangement for SATB voices and solo.

This is my will, my one command,
that love should dwell among you all.
This is my will, that you should love
as I have shown that I love you.

No greater love a man can have
than that he die to save his friends.
You are my friends if you obey
all I command that you should do.

I call you now no longer slaves;
no slave knows all his master does.
I call you friends, for all I hear
my Father say you hear from me.

You chose not me, but I chose you,
that you should go and bear much fruit.
I called you out that you in me
should bear much fruit that will abide.

All that you ask my Father dear
for my name’s sake you shall receive.
This is my will, my one command,
that love should dwell in each, in all.

Jesus speaks this discourse after washing his disciples’ feet the day before his death. The name traditionally accorded to Thursday of Holy Week—Maundy Thursday—comes from the Latin word mandatum, “command,” referencing this passage.

Holy Week: Jesus Enters Jerusalem

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

When they were approaching Jerusalem . . . they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields. Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,

Hosanna!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!

Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple . . .

—Mark 11:1, 7–11

LOOK: Palm Sunday by Kai Althoff

Althoff, Kai_Palmsonntag
Kai Althoff (German, 1966–), Palmsonntag (Palm Sunday), 2002. Boat varnish, watercolor, and tinted paper on canvas, 70 × 90 cm. Private collection, Berlin.

In Kai Althoff’s painting of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, the background pulsates with color and people from all walks of life lay down their garments to carpet his path. There’s a nun and a monk in their habits; two bishops in dalmatics, one of whom casts his mozzetta at Christ’s feet; a choirboy; folks in a coat and tails and party dresses; and others in overalls, sweaters, and wool skirts. On the left, a backpacker passes by, looking behind him with curiosity at the hubbub, while at the bottom right a crowd of haloed people point and gaze—one man even yanks the collar of a friend, trying to pull him closer to the front for a better view.

Several of those present wave palm branches and shout, “Hosanna!,” meaning “Save us!” They quote Psalm 118:25–26: “Save us, we beseech you, O LORD! O LORD, we beseech you, give us success! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.” The people recognize Jesus as their delivering Messiah and celebrate.

LISTEN: “Hosanna” by Jacques Berthier, 1978 | Performed by the Paul Leddington Wright Singers on Songs of Taizé, vol. 4 (2006)

Hosanna, hosanna!
Hosanna in excelsis!

This Palm Sunday canon (round) is from Taizé, a community of lay brothers in southern France who welcome pilgrims, especially young ones, from all over the world. The Latin in excelsis means “in the highest.”

Though the Hebrew expression that “Hosanna” transliterates was used by Jews as a supplication, a plea, today Christians often use “Hosanna” as a shout of jubilation, an acclamation of praise, in recognition of the salvation Jesus has wrought—so instead of the imperative “Save!,” it’s the exclamative “Salvation!” I think both meanings can hold simultaneously.

This is the first post in a daily series (running through Saturday) in which I’ll highlight a handful of events from Holy Week by choosing a visual artwork and a piece of music that engage with that event. The posts will all be short like this one—I imagine people spending ten minutes or so with each—and are an invitation to prayer and contemplation. For additional music, see the Art & Theology Holy Week Playlist on Spotify.

Roundup: Jesus’s surprising path to kingship, Isenheim Altarpiece video, “Varsha,” and more

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

Heads up: For each day of Holy Week (March 24–30) and the Easter Octave (March 31–April 7), I will be publishing a short post that pairs a visual artwork with a piece of music as a way of inviting you into the narrative. Here are examples from previous years:

Holy Week Series 2023 | Easter Series 2023
Holy Week Series 2022 | Easter Series 2022
Holy Week Series 2021 | Easter Sunday 2021
Holy Week Series 2020 | Easter Sunday 2020

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VIDEO: “How Jesus Became the King of the World (That He Always Was)” by BibleProject: Written and directed by Jon Collins and Tim Mackie with art direction by Robert Perez, this six-minute animated video explores how Jesus brought God’s kingdom to earth and how we can live under God’s reign today.

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SONGS:

>> “Lead On, O King Eternal” (second verse), retuned by John Hatfield: This Palm Sunday hymn was originally written by Ernest W. Shurtleff in 1887 and paired with an older tune by Henry T. Smart. It has largely fallen out of favor due to its cringey first verse, with its militant language of battle and conquest. However, John Hatfield, a singer-songwriter from Houston, calls our attention to the second verse, which reframes what comes before, turning the martial imagery on its head. Our battle, Shurtleff writes in verse 2, is waged not with weapons but with holiness, peace, and deeds of love and mercy. “Let’s be about that, my friends,” Hatfield urges. In this Instagram video he sings “the better verse” of “Lead On, O King Eternal” to a new tune he wrote for it, self-accompanied on ukulele:

>> “Anointed One of God” by Tom Fisher: Written around 2004, Tom Fisher revisited this hymn of his in 2022, updating some of the lyrics. Where he hums, he originally had the word “Hallelujah,” but he wanted to experiment with something more subdued and to honor the tradition, observed in Roman Catholicism, Episcopalianism, and other denominations, of removing the “Alleluias” from worship services during Lent in recognition of the solemnity of the season. The song exalts Jesus as the Christ, literally “Anointed One” (messiah in Hebrew), who, contrary to expectations, fulfilled this identity by being crucified. According to Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospel accounts, an unnamed woman recognized Jesus’s messiahship at a house in Bethany two days before his death, pouring oil on his head—a prophetic act that named him king. The scent probably lingered in his hair and on his body as he went to the cross. [HT: Liturgy Fellowship]

>> “傷跡 (Scars)” by Takafumi Nagasawa, performed by Ruah Worship: A sibling group from Japan covers this contemporary worship song about Jesus taking up his cross and with it the weight of humanity’s sin. “The scars on your hands are the sign of your love for me,” goes the refrain. Turn on Closed Captioning for English subtitles.

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VIDEO: “The mystical brilliance of Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece” by Smarthistory: This is one of my all-time favorite artworks—I’ve given talks on it, with a focus on its matchless Crucifixion panel—though I admit I’ve only seen it in books and on screens; it’s on my list of things to see before I die (it’s at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, France). Drs. Beth Harris and Steven Zucker have created this excellent video introduction to it, featuring wonderful photography and commentary and an animation that shows the altarpiece’s multiple configurations.

Isenheim Altarpiece (detail)
Matthias Grünewald (German, ca. 1470–1528), Crucifixion (detail) from the Isenheim Altarpiece, 1515

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INSTRUMENTAL INTERLUDE: “Varsha” by Reena Esmail, for cello or viola, from The Seven Last Words Project: Commissioned by Juilliard Historical Performance to compose an interlude between the “I Thirst” and “It Is Finished” movements of Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ, Reena Esmail wrote “Varsha” for cello, drawing on Hindustani raags that evoke rain. (She is one of seven composers who worked on the project, each contributing their own interlude.) In this video it’s performed by Madeleine Bouissou, who premiered it April 16, 2019, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City as part of The Seven Last Words Project.

Describing her artistic vision, Esmail writes, “Christ thirsts. Rain comes from the distance (Megh Malhaar). There is a downpour around him (Miyan ki Malhaar), but he grows slowly weaker. His next words make clear that even the rain is not enough: his thirst is of another sort, which cannot be quenched by water. And so, it is finished.”

Esmail is an Indian American composer living in Los Angeles, known for combining the worlds of Indian and Western classical music in her work.

A mother’s love that suffers and bleeds

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments
Nielsen, Kay_The Story of a Mother
Kay Nielsen (Danish, 1886–1957), illustration for “The Story of a Mother,” ca. 1910. Pen and black ink and watercolor, heightened with bodycolor and gum arabic, 9 7/16 × 8 1/4 in. (24 × 21 cm).

When I saw this watercolor drawing of a woman embracing a thorny shrub till she drips blood come up in my Instagram feed, I immediately thought of Christ’s passion.

The caption reveals that it’s an illustration by Kay Nielsen for Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Story of a Mother,” a fairy tale written in 1848 and published around 1910 that shows the beauty and intensity of a mother’s love for her child.

The story is about a woman whose young son is gravely ill. One evening, old man Death enters her house and takes the child. Utterly distraught, she runs out after him, seeking to save the boy from Death’s clutches. As she crosses the snowy landscape in search of her son, she is stopped by various beings who request things of her in exchange for help. Night asks her for lullabies. The blackthorn bush asks for warmth. The lake asks for her eyes, clear as pearls, so “she wept till her eyes dropped down to the bottom of the lake.” An old woman who keeps Death’s greenhouse asks for her long black hair. (Oddly, she’s a redhead in Nielsen’s drawing!) Here is the exchange with the blackthorn bush, as translated from the Danish by Jean Hersholt:

At the crossroad grew a blackthorn bush, without leaf or flower, for it was wintertime and its branches were glazed with ice.

“Did you see Death go by with my little child?”

“Yes,” said the blackthorn bush. “But I shall not tell you which way he went unless you warm me against your heart. I am freezing to death. I am stiff with ice.”

She pressed the blackthorn bush against her heart to warm it, and the thorns stabbed so deep into her flesh that great drops of red blood flowed. So warm was the mother’s heart that the blackthorn bush blossomed and put forth green leaves on that dark winter’s night. And it told her the way to go.

The mother fulfills all the demands she encounters in her quest and finally meets Death, who explains that he merely carries out God’s will, which she ought not to disrupt. She ultimately resigns herself in humility to divine providence and lets the child go.

I’m not suggesting that this fairy tale is an allegory of God’s love. That wouldn’t quite make sense, as God is invoked at the end as a character in the story—and, à la the book of Job, as one who sometimes wills death (“The LORD gives and takes away,” Job 1:21).

But the mother’s love in the story is reflective, I find, of the fierce love of God, who is willing to go to any extreme to save his children from Death. He became incarnate and embraced the way of the cross. He took unto himself the crown of thorns, the nails, the humiliation. He sacrificed not just parts of himself but his whole self.

In Nielsen’s illustration, I see a picture of Christ our mother who willingly endured pain to rescue us, the warmth of whose love reverses the curse and brings life.

Book Review: Jesus through Medieval Eyes by Grace Hamman

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

As an English major in college, I was required to take a course on medieval literature. I had not been looking forward to it—Romantic and Victorian lit were more my thing. I worried that working through Old English and Middle English texts would be a slog. But boy were my expectations upended! I was enthralled by all the imaginative theology I encountered in verse, drama, and sermons, from the Dream of the Rood on down. I went to a public university, but the saturation in Christian thought is unavoidable for students of the history of English literature. After overcoming some hang-ups I had acquired from my fundamentalist Baptist upbringing, I found my faith opened up, strengthened, and inspired by my study of medieval writers. The same has held true in my studies of medieval art.

If you missed the opportunity to study the creative outputs of the Middle Ages in school but want to wade into those waters, you must follow the work of Dr. Grace Hamman, a medieval scholar from Denver who writes and teaches on the great works of that era through her newsletter, podcast, and more recently her first book, Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages (Zondervan, 2023). The book explores seven identities of Jesus—Judge, Lover, Knight, Word, Mother, Good Medieval Christian, and Wounded God—engaging art and literature that develop these tropes, some more familiar to us as moderns than others. Mechthild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, Gregory the Great, Fra Angelico, Petrus Christus, Thomas Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury, and Richard Rolle are among the folks we meet.

The church’s writings and images from the past, Hamman says, are a gift to us in the present that can help us see beyond our time- and culture-bound limitations. “In reading these exploring, adoring, faithful witnesses from the past, we can come to know Jesus—and ourselves—better,” she writes. “What we find strange or beautiful in these medieval witnesses can reveal our concerns, hidden biases, and even new truths. They also teach us new and profound ways to love him” (6).

She continues,

I began reading medieval texts because, to my joyful surprise, I learned that medieval Christians loved Jesus. They wrote about Jesus incessantly, compulsively, athirst with love, devotion, and creativity. They possessed vast Christian imaginations, often more expansive and interesting than many of the Christians who preceded or followed them. I discovered that writers of this period were far more comfortable than we today in thinking about Jesus metaphorically, highlighting particular and peculiar attributes, and crafting new stories about him. Their narrative freedom, delight in allegory and metaphor as paths to truth, and cultural difference offer us the gift of strange new insights—the gift of surprise. (10)

To receive that gift of surprise, Hamman advises, we must approach the texts with a spirit of openness—a willingness to sit with them quietly, attentively, and humbly before making judgments, acknowledging that our own views are not necessarily superior. Then we can welcome in the discernment process, weighing the validity of the picture at hand, determining whether we want to graft it into our understanding of Christ and his work.

I appreciate how Hamman regards the medieval era with neither nostalgia nor negativity. She’s not suggesting we simply embrace medieval theology wholesale, as if it represents some kind of golden age we ought to return to. No, we can and should be critical of certain aspects—but we should first come to these works with a genuine readiness to receive and to learn, not instantly writing them off because they come from a time or tradition we’re not a part of.

Some of the pictures of Jesus that Hamman addresses are

  • a barefoot knight who jousts with the devil and storms the gates of hell, wearing human nature as his armor
  • a mother who gestates, gives birth, and breastfeeds
  • a lover who “forms us in blooming beauty through his tender desire” (53)

In chapter 3, “The Lover,” Hamman includes a woodcut illustration of one of the couplets from the late medieval verse dialogue Christus und die minnende Seele (Christ and the Loving Soul), showing the soul making herself naked before Christ her bridegroom so that they can join in spiritual union. Each gives themselves to the other in vulnerability.

Christ as Lover
“Christus beraubt die Seele ihrer Kleider, so daß sie nackt ist” (Christ strips the soul of its garments so that it is naked), Germany, ca. 1460. Woodcut illustration from a broadsheet of Christus und die minnende Seele (Christ and the Loving Soul). Albertina Museum, Vienna, Inv. DG1930/197/3.

She also walks us through the anonymous fifteenth-century poem “Quia Amore Langueo,” which brings together the language of romance with imagery of the crucifixion; its Latin refrain, taken from Song of Songs 2:5, translates to “Because I swoon with love.”

It’s important to pay attention to the places in these ancient texts and images that cause discomfort or confusion, as they are often places that helpfully challenge our assumptions today of who God is or what Christianity should look like.

—Grace Hamman, Jesus through Medieval Eyes, pp. 53–54

Jesus through Medieval Eyes introduces the reader to several important medieval texts, including the Old English poem Christ III, concerned with the second coming of Christ; Piers Plowman by William Langland, an allegorical poem in which the narrator, Will, is on a quest for the true Christian life; and the enormously influential Meditationes Vitae Christi (Meditations on the Life of Christ) and its derivative The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ by Nicholas Love, who encourages us to exercise our “devout imagination” by envisioning the events of the Gospels. The latter includes charming, homey little narrative details, like Mary using her kerchief as a swaddle for the newborn Jesus, and after his forty-day fast in the desert, Jesus craving his mama’s home cooking.

I admire how Hamman takes art seriously as a theological medium, recognizing how historically, the church has expounded its theology not only through the written word but also through painting and other visual expressions. And so she integrates art images throughout the book, weaving them into her discussion. There are sixteen total, reproduced in black-and-white near the text that refers to them, for convenience, as well as in a color insert, where they can be enjoyed more fully. I wish more theologians and church historians would follow Hamman’s example of drawing on art as a resource for understanding the development of, and for inquiring into and articulating, religious ideas.

But what really sets Hamman apart from other medievalists, in my opinion, is the balance in tone she manages to achieve between academic, devotional, and personal. (It’s something I struggle to achieve as a writer.) She writes with authority but also with an intimacy that is inviting and refreshing. She lets us into her own background and experiences and feelings and is transparent about her enthusiasms and distastes. I feel like she’s a wise old friend conversing with me over a cup of tea. Whether it’s an audio commentary she’s published on her podcast, a Substack missive, or this book, I always come away from her content having learned something, been given something to reflect on or explore further, and been drawn closer to God. She’s a wonderful teacher!

Christus, Petrus_Christ as the Man of Sorrows
Petrus Christus (Netherlandish, ca. 1410–ca. 1475), Christ as the Man of Sorrows, ca. 1450. Oil on panel, 11.2 × 8.5 cm. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England.

In Jesus through Medieval Eyes, each chapter ends with a scripture, reflection questions, one or two suggested exercises, and a prayer—some sourced from medieval authors, others original.

Each chapter opens with a whimsical line drawing based on medieval manuscript marginalia, which often feature humorous scenarios, like a knight fighting a snail or a rabbit hunting a human! (Role reversals were a favorite form of play for medieval artists.) This design element further immerses the reader in that world. The cover too, its art taken from a French book of hours illuminated by Jean Colombe, gives a sense of the shine of medieval manuscripts with its gilt lettering and halos of the saints.

Hamman has revitalized my interest in medieval literature, in all its wild beauty and strangeness. You may have noticed her influence on my blog over the past few years I’ve been following her. I encourage you to follow her on Twitter @GraceHammanPhD and Instagram @oldbookswithgrace, subscribe to her Medievalish newsletter, and BUY HER BOOK! It would be great material for a Christian book club, and would also make a great gift.

You may also want to check out the recent interview Hamman sat for on The Habit Podcast, part of the Rabbit Room Podcast Network. It’s a terrific introduction to her work: