Category: Music

Pentecost roundup: Invocations; Holy Spirit as “lodes-mon”; organ improv; tongues of fire in a flower patch

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

SONGS:

Here are three sung invocations of the Holy Spirit, seeking his power, liberation, comfort, light, and renewal.

>> “Holy Spirit, Come with Power”: This hymn was written by Anne Neufeld Rupp in 1970, who set it to a Sacred Harp tune from 1844 attributed to B. F. White. It’s performed here by the Bel Canto Singers from Hesston College in Kansas, featuring Gretchen Priest-May on fiddle and Tim May on acoustic guitar.

I was introduced to this hymn through the Voices Together Mennonite hymnal, where it appears in both English and Spanish as no. 57.

>> “Mweya Mutsvene” (Holy Spirit, Take Your Place) by Joshua Mtima and The Unveiled: The Unveiled is a collective of Christian musicians from Harare, Zimbabwe, founded by Joshua Mtima in 2020. Here they sing one of their songs in Shona. An English translation is provided onscreen. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

>> “Ven Espíritu Divino (Secuencia de Pentecostés)” (Come, Spirit Divine) by Pablo Coloma, performed by Chiara Bellucci: The Spanish lyrics of this contemporary Christian song from the Latin American Catholic tradition are in the YouTube video description. They ask the Holy Spirit, “sweet guest of our souls,” to come bringing healing, regeneration, growth, joy, and charisms.

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SUBSTACK POST: “Veni Creator Spiritus: A Lush Middle English Hymn” by Grace Hamman, Medievalish: Dr. Grace Hamman shares Friar William Herebert’s (ca. 1270–ca. 1333) Middle English translation of the classic Latin Pentecost hymn attributed to Rabanus Maurus (ca. 780–856), “Veni Creator Spiritus” [previously]. Herebert uses words like vor-speker (for-speaker; i.e., intercessor), lodes-mon (lodesman; i.e., journeyman or navigator), and shuppere (shaper) as titles for the Holy Spirit.

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ORGAN WORK: “Improvisation on Veni Creator Spiritus” by Alfred V. Fedak: “Your congregation will hear the rushing of the Holy Spirit in this improvisatory prelude (taken from Fedak’s and Carl P. Daw’s oratorio The Glories of God’s Grace),” writes Selah Publishing. “Fedak effectively uses sweeping whole-tone scale passages and arpeggios to indicate the Spirit’s presence, while the pedal plays phrases of the hymn tune,” a medieval plainchant. The publisher has posted the following performance of the piece (audio only), by the composer himself, along with a selection of Pentecost art from the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

There are many other works on organ (fantasias, partitas, fugues) based on the “Veni Creator Spiritus” tune; view a select list on Wikipedia.

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POEM: “Book of Hours” by Kimberly Johnson: “A pentecost of bloom: all the furred tongues / awag in the iris patch, windrush through the fireflower.” So opens the poem “Book of Hours” by Kimberly Johnson [previously], from her collection Uncommon Prayer (Persea, 2014). A book of hours is a genre of medieval prayer-book used by laypeople, which arranges prayers, scripture, and other devotional texts for reading at prescribed times of the day. Johnson’s “Book of Hours” draws on the fields of codicology (the study of manuscripts as physical objects) and botany to consider how God’s Spirit moves through and enlivens the material world, be it the irises, fire lilies, alyssum, and paperwhite narcissus in her garden, or the ink and natural pigments on calfskin—green verdigris, red cochineal, yellow curcumin—in the rare manuscripts library where she examines a book of hours whose embellished Latin text she can’t quite make out but whose beauty enraptures her nonetheless. These are but two untranslatable experiences of sensual, embodied communion with God that Johnson narrates in the collection, the paint flakes on her lips and the pollen on her wrist a chrism and a prayer.

Roundup: Tea with strangers, church forests of Ethiopia, and more

Victoria Emily Jones3 Comments

CHILDREN’S BOOK: Let There Be Light by Desmond Tutu, illustrated by Nancy Tillman: I saw this enchanting little book at my local library recently—a retelling of the creation narrative from Genesis 1 by the late South African Anglican bishop, theologian, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu. Published by Zonderkidz in 2014, it opens, “In the very beginning, God’s love bubbled over when there was nothing else . . .” Hear it read aloud, and view the illustrations, in this video from the Seuss’s Gooses YouTube channel:

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ARTICLES:

>> “Artist Traveled to Over 30 Cities to Perform Tea Ceremony with Strangers,” an interview with Pierre Sernet by Jessica Stewart: From 2001 to 2008, artist Pierre Sernet (French-born and residing in Japan) traveled to over thirty countries to spontaneously enact abbreviated Japanese tea ceremonies, inviting passersby to come sit and drink the cup of matcha he prepared in front of them. From deserts and beaches to villages and construction sites, he would set up a portable, open-air wooden cube that denoted the “tea room,” and the ensuing encounters were documented with photography. Called One (and nicknamed Guerrilla Tea), the series was meant to promote respect across cultures and “to emphasize to viewers the importance of each moment we live in.”

  • Sernet, Pierre_Denilson, Niteroi, Brazil
    Denilson, Niteroi, Brazil, 2002
  • Sernet, Pierre_Kheth and Mayndevi, Jaisalmer, India
    Kheth and Mayndevi, Jaisalmer, India, 2005
  • Sernet, Pierre_Shinya, Rockefeller Center, NY
    Shinya, Rockefeller Center, New York, 2001

View more photos at https://pierresernet.com/one/.

>> “A Teeter-Totter Style Bench Invites Sitters to Find Common Ground” by Grace Ebert: “In the Garden of Generations in Einbeck, Germany, a playful new installation asks park goers to find equilibrium with their neighbors. ‘Balance Bench” is the latest project of Berlin-based artist Martin Binder. Installed in his hometown, the interactive artwork rests on a central cylinder rather than four legs, requiring that at least two people sit on either side to level. ‘It cannot be used alone—it demands awareness, consensus, and cooperation between people to become a functional public space,’ he says.”

Binder, Martin_Balance Bench
Martin Binder (German, 1990–), Balance Bench, 2025. Steel, oak. Installation at the Garden of Generations, Einbeck, Germany. Construction by Henning Müller Sondermaschinen. Photo by Spieker Fotografie.

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PHOTO SERIES: Hierotopia by Kieran Dodds: “Kieran Dodds (Scottish, b. 1980) is a non-fiction photographer known for his research-driven photo stories and portraiture. His personal work considers the interplay of environment and culture, and the importance of spiritual belief in global conservation.” In his Hierotopia series (from the Greek for “sacred place”), carried out from 2015 to 2018, he explores the green “church forests” east of Lake Tana in Ethiopia—little islands of biodiversity scattered throughout the region’s desert landscape. “To its guardians,” Dodds writes, “each forest resembles a miniature Garden of Eden and is essential to the dignity of the building. . . . The air inside the forests is cool, fragrant and filled with a cacophony of life. This is in stark contrast to the arid silence of the surrounding land which is feeling the strain of centuries of human activity and agriculture.”

Dodds, Kieran_Hierotopia
Debre Mihret Arbiatu Ensesa church near Anbesame, Ethiopia, surrounded by woodland and fields. Photo: Kieran Dodds, from the Hierotopia series, 2015–18.

“The core Christian belief in stewardship for the environment is a powerful concept,” Dodds continues, remarking on the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church’s commitment to conservation, “and, if applied globally by people who are at least nominally Christian, could transform the world for better.”

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SONGS:

>> “Hold You in Our Circle” by Emily Roblyn: This simple song of blessing by UK-based singer-songwriter and retreat leader Emily Roblyn has been sung at the bedsides of the sick or dying, over women about to be released from prison, and through myriad other life transitions and trials, by friends and communities seeking to voice their support. “We hold you in our circle, hold you in our love.” [HT: Nadia Bolz-Weber]

>> “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” by Peter C. Lutkin: Performed by the Capital University Chapel Choir in 2020, this song is a choral setting by the Midwestern composer Peter C. Lutkin (1858–1931) of the Aaronic Blessing from Numbers 6:24–26: (in Lutkin’s rendering) “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD lift his countenance upon you, and give you peace; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you.” God instructed the Levitical priests of ancient Israel to pronounce these words over the people, and though the Levitical priesthood is no more, this particular benediction is still used regularly in Jewish and Christian liturgies.

“Easter Song” by Sedulius Scottus, trans. Helen Waddell

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment
Illustration by Virginie Cognet
Virginie Cognet, Danse, 2023. Gouache on satin-finish watercolor paper, 70 × 50 cm.
Last night did Christ the Sun rise from the dark,
     The mystic harvest of the fields of God,
And now the little wandering tribes of bees
     Are brawling in the scarlet flowers abroad.
The winds are soft with birdsong; all night long
     Darkling the nightingale her descant told,
And now inside church doors the happy folk
     The Alleluia chant a hundredfold.
O Father of thy folk, be thine by right
The Easter joy, the threshold of the light.

This English translation of Sedulius Scottus’s “Carmen paschale” originally appeared in Mediaeval Latin Lyrics by Helen Waddell (Henry Holt, 1929) and is in the public domain.

Sedulius Scottus (fl. 840–860) was an early medieval Irish monk, poet, teacher, and biblical commentator. (He is not to be confused with the fifth-century poet Caelius Sedulius, who also wrote a [much longer] Carmen paschale, consisting of five books.) Driven out of his monastery by Viking invaders, Sedulius settled in the city of Liège under the protection of Bishop Hartgar. While living in exile on the Continent, he established himself as a leading literary figure of the Carolingian Renaissance. One of his most important works is De Rectoribus Christianis (On Christian Rulers), an instructional treatise on governing and a noteworthy contribution to Christian ethics. Sedulius was at least trilingual, proficient in Irish, Greek, and Latin. Eighty-three of his poems survive, composed in a variety of classical meters and ranging from mock heroic epics and philosophical puzzles to hymns of praise and drinking songs.

Helen Waddell (1889–1965) was a medieval literature scholar, historical novelist, playwright, and translator (from medieval French and Latin to English) who was awarded the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature. She was born in Tokyo to an Irish Presbyterian missionary family, spending the first eleven years of her life in Japan. She was later educated in Belfast, Oxford, and Paris and became part of a circle of friends in London that included W. B. Yeats, Virginia Woolf, and Siegfried Sassoon. In addition to writing, she worked as a literary adviser and reader for the esteemed publisher Constable. She is the subject of an award-winning biography by Dame Felicitas Corrigan, published in 1986.

Addendum, 1/19/26: The hymn-writer Dan Damon has composed a beautiful, singable setting of this text, available from Hope Publishing Company. He told me he was inspired by reading this post.

Roundup: Ellsworth Kelly’s “Austin,” new book by Jonathan Anderson, religion in pop art, and more

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

PRINT INTERVIEWS:

>> “What Remains: The Making of Ellsworth Kelly’s Last Work,” Image interview with Rick Archer: I got to experience Ellsworth Kelly’s Austin—a modernist “chapel” containing three stained glass windows, fourteen black-and-white marble panels (Stations of the Cross), and a redwood totem—while in Texas for a CIVA conference in 2021; see some of my photos below. Kelly was an atheist inspired by Romanesque church architecture, and the architect he chose to collaborate with on Austin, Rick Archer, is a Christian. In this wonderful new interview by Bruce Buescher, Archer discusses his working relationship with Kelly, Kelly’s desire for randomization and form over meaning, the technical and architectural challenges of bringing Kelly’s vision to life, religious references, and the artist’s objective for the space. “I hope when people go in here, they will experience joy,” Archer remembers Kelly saying.

  • Austin by Ellsworth Kelly
    Ellsworth Kelly (American, 1923–2015), Austin, 1986/2015. Artist-designed building with colored glass windows, black-and-white marble panels, and redwood totem, 63 × 76 × 28 ft. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.
  • Austin by Ellsworth Kelly
  • Austin by Ellsworth Kelly
  • Austin by Ellsworth Kelly
  • Austin by Ellsworth Kelly

>> “The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art: An interview with Jonathan A. Anderson” by Matthew J. Milliner: Jonathan Anderson [previously] is one of the most important people working across the disciplines of art and theology, and I’m thrilled that his book The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art is now available from the University of Notre Dame Press!

Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art

In this recent interview for Comment magazine, Anderson explains his purpose in writing the book:

I have become increasingly convinced that so many pivotal artists and artworks over the past century are deeply shaped by religious traditions and seriously engaged in theological questioning, but this remains severely under-interpreted or misinterpreted in the scholarship about these artists. One might see these threads running through an artist’s artworks and personal writings and even discuss these topics with the artist in their studio, but when one moves to the scholarly writing and teaching about that same artist, that language consistently disappears or is transposed into another register—usually politics, occasionally a highly esoteric spirituality. I wanted to understand, at a non-superficial level, why this was the case, and I wanted to see how other ways of speaking and writing about this topic might be possible.

Don’t miss, at the end of the article, his three hopes for the field of “art and theology,” which I very much share!

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LECTURE: “The Problems and Possibilities of Visual Theology: The Ascension as a Case Study” by Jonathan A. Anderson: With Ascension Day coming up on May 29, it’s timely to share this talk given by Jonathan Anderson (see previous roundup item) a few years ago at Duke Divinity School, where he worked as a postdoctoral associate of theology and the visual arts from 2020 to 2023. Anderson explores a handful of images depicting the Ascension of Christ, a particularly challenging subject because of the spatial ambiguity. The scriptural accounts of the event (Luke 24:50–53 and Acts 1:6–11) beg the question, “What does ‘lifted up’ mean? Where is Jesus?” Attempting to work out these spatial difficulties visually can be theologically and exegetically productive, Anderson claims—even if it sometimes leads to unsatisfying results, as, Anderson says, it often does in Western art from the Renaissance onward. By contrast, when artists foster intertextual readings across the biblical canon and focus not so much on what the Ascension looks like as a historical event but rather on what it means, they are generally more successful.

Here are some time stamps, with links to the artworks discussed:

Hosios Loukas
Katholikon of Hosios Loukas monastery, Boeotia, Greece, 1011–12

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INSTRUMENTAL JAZZ: “Prayer” by Cory Wong: This video shows a live performance of Cory Wong’s “Prayer” on July 4, 2023, at Gesù music hall in Montreal. Wong, on guitar at far left, is joined by Ariel Posen on guitar, Victor Wooten on bass, and Nate Smith on drums. I learned about Wong through his collaborative album with Jon Batiste, Meditations (2020), which includes a version of this piece featuring Batiste’s piano playing.

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EXHIBITION: OMG! Reli Popart, Museum Krona, Uden, Netherlands, April 5–September 7, 2025: This exhibition at Museum Krona (housed in the complex of the still-active Birgittine Abbey of Maria Refugie in Uden, Netherlands) explores the connection between the pop art movement and Christianity through works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Corita Kent, Niki de Saint Phalle, and especially Dutch artists, including Woody van Amen and Wim Delvoye. Pop art is characterized by the use of imagery from popular culture, sourced from television, magazines, comic books, ads—and sometimes from the trash bin.

Jacques Frenken [previously], for example, built a body of work by salvaging discarded plaster sculptures of Christ and the saints—mass-produced for Catholic devotional use—and reconstructing them into assemblages. For his Spijkerpiëta, he “brought the Pietà back into our midst and accentuated the pain it radiates with nails,” the artist said.

Frenken, Jacques_Spijkerpieta
Jacques Frenken (Dutch, 1929–2022), Spijkerpiëta (Nail Pietà), 1967. Plaster, paint, iron, wood. Museum Krona, Uden, Netherlands.

Another artist represented in the exhibition is Hans Truijen, who was commissioned in the 1960s by St. Martin’s Church in Maastricht to design eight stained glass windows for their worship space. The four along the left aisle of the nave depict human and divine suffering, whereas those on the right express hope, love, freedom, and happiness. He chose photographic images from various periodicals, including ones of the Vietnam War, and transferred them to glass using a special screen-printing process.

Truijen, Hans_Stained glass
Hans Truijen (Dutch, 1928–2005), Studies for the eight stained glass windows commissioned by St. Martinuskerk, Wyck-Maastricht, Netherlands, 1966–68. Courtesy of the artist’s son, Marc Truijen.

Roundup: “Harrowing of Hades” audio drama, Easter chant in Arabic, and more

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

HYMN TEXT: “Lights” by Kate Bluett: Kate Bluett [previously] is a Catholic poet and lyricist from North Texas who frequently participates in cross-denominational music collaborations. Her work has been published by Oregon Catholic Press and GIA Publications and recorded by the Porter’s Gate and Paul Zach, among others. I enjoy following her at https://katebluett.home.blog/, where she regularly shares new metrical verses she has written, tied to the liturgical calendar. Last Eastertide she published a text called “Lights,” which muses on candle flames, stars, and other light sources as reflections of the light of the risen Christ.

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AUDIO DRAMA: Anastasis: The Harrowing of Hades by Creative Orthodox: Creative Orthodox is the moniker of Michael Elgamal, a Coptic Orthodox artist and storyteller born in Egypt and living in Canada. Last May he released an audio drama, adapted from a graphic novel, about Christ’s epic descent into the underworld to reclaim the Old Testament righteous. This theatrical medium, which relies on voice acting, sound effects, and music to tell a story, was a very popular form of entertainment in the 1920s–40s before the advent of television but is much rarer today—which is a shame, because I find it really engaging! See the YouTube description for a full list of credits (script, score, actors, etc.).

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BLOG POST: “Iconography of the Descent of Jesus Christ into Hell” by Daria Chechko: A brief history and compilation of Anastasis icons.

Dionysius_Descent into Hell icon
Dionysius (Russian, ca. 1440–ca. 1508), Christ’s Descent into Hades, from Ferapontov Monastery, ca. 1495–1504. Tempera on wood, 31.2 × 10.5 cm. State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg.

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SONGS:

>> “Christ Is Risen” (لمسيح قام) by Ribale Wehbé: Ribale Wehbé is a Lebanese singer specializing in Byzantine chant. Here she sings a traditional Easter chant in Arabic, arranged by Joseph Yazbeck.

>> “Hallelujah, Hosanna” (हाल्लेलुयाह होशन्ना) by One Tribe: Originally written in Tamil by pastors Dudley Thangaiah and Paul Thangaiah, “Hallelujah, Hosanna” is sung here in Hindi by the Indian Christian worship collective One Tribe. Turn on “CC” for closed captioning, and view the full credits in the YouTube video description. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

>> “He Did Rise” by Monroe Crossing: A bluegrass song about the women’s discovery of the empty tomb on Easter morning, written by Mark Anderson and performed here by his band, Monroe Crossing, at a music festival in Lexington, Kentucky, in 2009. Anderson is on the double bass. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

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SPOTIFY PLAYLIST: May 2025 (Art & Theology): An assortment of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, old and new. For my Easter-specific playlist from 2022 (with a smattering of new additions since, including a large batch from Cardiphonia at the bottom), see here.

Roundup: Multilingual Paschal greeting, Easter sermon by N. T. Wright, the Myrrhbearers and the Magi, and more

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

VIDEO: “The Lord is Risen! Proclaimed by people from 29 countries”: This video was put out in 2020 by ICF Rotterdam, an intercultural church in the Netherlands whose congregation consists of members from over forty nations! They asked a handful of them to recite the Paschal greeting in their native tongue, so represented here are Indonesian, Chinese, Zulu, Igbo, Urdu, Nepali, Kurdish, Romanian, and more. [HT: Global Christian Worship]

Wycliffe Bibliafordítók (Wycliffe Bible Translators) in Hungary produced a similar video last year:

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SERMON: “Let Beauty Awake” by N. T. Wright: One of the things I love about the Anglican cleric N. T. Wright’s preaching and teaching is the importance he places on beauty. (I actually met Wright once—and it was at an arts conference.) In this sermon, which he preached at Durham Cathedral on Easter Sunday 2009, he takes as his text what I’ve heard him say is his favorite chapter in the Bible, John 20, and discusses how in Jesus’s rising, the glory of God was let loose in all the world.

“Easter carries with it a strange and powerful beauty,” he says. “I hope that, by exploring the biblical roots of why this is so, I may have surprised some of you at least into asking, afresh, What can we do to celebrate, more consciously and deliberately, the reawakening of beauty which comes with the light of Easter Day? How can we take this forward, as an explicit project, so that a world so full of ugliness and functionality, and in consequence so full of unbelief or false belief, can once again be wooed into belief and love?”

He opens the sermon by quoting a stanza from a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, and near the close, he reprises it in his own words, which were developed into a song by Steve Bell:

Let Beauty awake in the morn from the cool of the grave,
Beauty awake from death;
Let Beauty awake,
For Jesus’ sake,
In the hour when the angels their silence break
And the garden is bright with His Breath.

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RECIPE: “Tsoureki: The Symbolic Greek Easter Bread”: On her blog The Liturgical Home (and on Instagram), Ashley Tumlin Wallace shares a recipe for tsoureki, a brioche-like sweet bread made by many Greek Christians on Easter. It is soft and fluffy, flavored with citrus, and decorated with red-dyed eggs!

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SPOKEN WORD + SONG: “Because He Lives” by Sharon Irving: Singer-songwriter, worship leader, and spoken word artist Sharon Irving [previously] recorded this video for City First Church Spring Creek’s virtual worship service for Easter 2020. It begins with an original spoken word piece, and then is followed by her singing the Gaither classic “Because He Lives.”

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SONG: “Sbab Dia Hidup” (Because He Lives) by Prison Akustik: The song “Because He Lives,” written in 1971 by Bill and Gloria Gaither, has made its way all around the world and has been translated into many languages. Here is the group Prison Akustik [previously] singing it in Indonesian.

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SUBSTACK POST: “Myrrhbearers & Magi” by Beth Felker Jones: In her Church Blogmatics post from last week, theologian Beth Felker Jones [previously] shares three new digital collages she made: one of the three myrrh-bearing women who discovered Jesus’s empty tomb, one of the three magi who brought gifts to the newborn Christ, and one that combines both groups of devoted witnesses. She provides descriptions of each and two original prayers, including the one below.

Myrrhbearers
Digital collage (with AI-generated elements) by Beth Felker Jones, 2025

Holy Father, who accompanied your daughters on their way to the tomb, and in the power of your Spirit, turned their sorrow into joy, bring us too into the joy of those who found the tomb empty, and incorporate us, with them, into your resurrection life. With our sisters at the tomb that day, help us to say, “I have seen the Lord!” Amen.

Easter, Day 8: Sent

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

—Matthew 28:16–20

Jesus said to [his disciples] again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

—John 20:21–22

LOOK: The Great Commission by He Qi

He Qi_Great Commission
He Qi (Chinese, 1950–), The Great Commission, 2017. Oil on canvas. [purchase giclée print]

In this painting by the Chinese artist He Qi (pronounced huh chee), Jesus holds a staff in his right hand (he is the Good Shepherd) and with the other points to the world outside Jerusalem’s gates, to which he calls his disciples to carry his all-renewing gospel. A modern cityscape rises up behind the figures, indicating that this call extends to the present era.

In the foreground, a minister baptizes a kneeling woman in red, their forms intercut with a fishing boat. The boat is a reference to Peter and Andrew’s original vocation as fishers and to Jesus’s promise, should they choose to follow him, to make them “fishers of people” (Matt. 4:19)—that is, gatherers of folks into the wide net of (proto-)Christian community, proclaiming and living out the kingdom of God in the power of God’s Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is represented as a dove sweeping down from the heavens, caressing the edge of Jesus’s halo. He’s the wind in the sails of the woman at the right, who goes forth into the darkness bearing the light of God’s word—her cheeks aglow with it, her feet eager to publish it abroad.

Her predecessors in the task of preaching the good news of Christ’s resurrection are portrayed in the background—the three women who first discovered the empty tomb and who then proceeded to “go quickly and tell” (Matt. 28:7).

LISTEN: “As the Father Sent Me” by Alana Levandoski, on Behold, I Make All Things New (2018)

As the Father sent me
So I send you

This is the final “artful devotion” post of this Easter season—but Eastertide continues until June 8! Spiritual director Tamara Hill Murphy explains on her Substack:

Easter Sunday marks the beginning of a week in the liturgical calendar known as the Easter Octave, followed by a seven-week festival called Eastertide, also referred to as the Great Fifty Days.

Beginning with the Feast of the Resurrection and including the Feast of the Ascension, Eastertide lasts fifty days, paralleling the forty days Christ spent on earth after His resurrection, plus the ten days the disciples spent waiting for the promised Spirit of Jesus. Exclamatory worship and celebratory feasting characterize the prayers and practices of Eastertide, which include invitations for baptism, thanksgiving, savoring beauty, feasting, play, and caring for creation. It is a time of celebration for the new creation that Jesus inaugurates for all of us.

So keep celebrating! I will continue posting Easter content throughout the season, just at a lesser frequency.

On this eighth day of Easter and ever forward, may you be filled with the transforming knowledge, excitement, and power of Christ’s resurrection, and go out and share it with the world.

Easter, Day 7: The Lamb Has Overcome

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LOOK: Adoration of the Lamb from Filotheou Monastery

Adoration of the Lamb (Athon fresco)
Adoration of the Lamb, 1765. Fresco in the exonarthex of the katholikon of Filotheou Monastery, Mount Athos, Greece.

LISTEN: “The Lamb Has Overcome” by Luke Morton, 2011 | Performed by Red River Hymnal, feat. Matt McCloskey, 2014

The Lamb has overcome
The Lamb has overcome
The battle’s done
And the victory is won
For the Lamb has overcome

No grave could hold him down
No grave could hold him down
Up from the ground
“He is risen!” was the sound
No grave could hold him down

At God’s right hand is he
At God’s right hand is he
Our Perfect Plea
As he lives to intercede
At God’s right hand is he

Refrain:
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Glory be unto his name
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
Glory be unto his name

The table now is spread
The table now is spread
This wine and bread
Broken body and blood shed
The table now is spread

The day is drawing near
The day is drawing near
He shall appear
And will wipe away each tear
The day is drawing near [Refrain]

The Lamb has overcome
The Lamb has overcome
The battle’s done
And the victory is won
For the Lamb has overcome

Easter, Day 6: “Let us keep the festival”

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LOOK: The Antioch “Chalice,” 6th century

Antioch Chalice (detail)
The Antioch “Chalice,” Byzantine (Syria), 500–550. Silver, silver-gilt, overall 7 11/16 × 7 1/16 × 6 in. (19.6 × 18 × 15.2 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP.

This Byzantine liturgical object was discovered in 1908 in Antioch on the Orontes (in modern-day Turkey, near the Syrian border) and is thought to be from the first half of the sixth century. Originally it was identified as a chalice, used in the celebration of the Eucharist, but more recent scholarship suggests that it was probably a standing oil lamp that was used in church.

The elaborate silver shell that encloses the plain silver bowl is covered in emblems of the renewal of life—vines, fruit, doves, a butterfly, a rabbit. There are also snails and a grasshopper! If indeed the object is a lamp, its flame would have reinforced Jesus’s self-identification as the light of the world.

Twelve seated human figures circle the bowl, two of which likely represent Christ, as each is surrounded by five figures in attitudes of directed reverence. One Christ figure (see the first photo below) is shown with a scroll draped over his left arm, representing his teaching. The other Christ, on the opposite side, is depicted as the resurrected Lord and giver of life; a lamb stands under his right arm, and beneath him, an eagle with outspread wings perches on a fruit basket.

Antioch Chalice
View 1, what I’ll call the front
Antioch Chalice
View 2, what I’ll call the back. Photo edited by me to focus on the (second) Christ figure and the lamb. Click on image for original.

The subordinate figures, all holding scrolls, may be apostles, or they may be philosophers of the classical age who, like the Hebrew prophets, had foretold the coming of Christ.

LISTEN: Christ lag in Todesbanden (Christ Lay in the Bonds of Death) (BWV 4) by J. S. Bach, 1707 | Words by Martin Luther, 1524 | Performed by Ensemble Orlando Fribourg at the Church of St. Michael’s College, Fribourg, Switzerland, 2016

Bach wrote this Easter cantata—one of his earliest works—at age twenty-two as part of his application for the post of organist at Divi Blasii church in Mühlhausen, Germany. (He got the job!) Its text and melody are taken from the hymn of the same name by Martin Luther, which was itself derived from the eleventh-century plainsong “Victimae paschali laudes.”

The twenty-two-minute cantata is divided into an opening instrumental movement, called a sinfonia, and seven vocal movements corresponding to the stanzas of Luther’s hymn. These are arranged symmetrically—chorus–duet–solo–chorus–solo–duet–chorus—with the focus on the high drama of the central fourth movement, which describes the battle between Life and Death.

Sinfonia

1. Choral
Christ lag in Todesbanden,
für unsre Sünd gegeben,
der ist wieder erstanden
und hat uns bracht das Leben.
Des wir sollen fröhlich sein,
Gott loben und dankbar sein
und singen Halleluja. Halleluja.

2. Duett (SA)
Den Tod niemand zwingen kunnt
bei allen Menschenkindern;
das macht alles unsre Sünd,
kein Unschuld war zu finden.
Davon kam der Tod so bald
und nahm über uns Gewalt,
hielt uns in seim Reich gefangen.
Halleluja.

3. Aria (T)
Jesus Christus, Gottes Sohn,
an unser Statt ist kommen
und hat die Sünde abgetan,
damit dem Tod genommen
all sein Recht und sein Gewalt;
da bleibt nichts denn Tods Gestalt,
den Stachel hat er verloren. Halleluja.

4. Choral
Es war ein wunderlich Krieg,
da Tod und Leben ’rungen;
das Leben, behielt den Sieg,
es hat den Tod verschlungen.
Die Schrift hat verkündet das,
wie ein Tod den andern fraß,
ein Spott aus dem Tod ist worden. Halleluja.

5. Duett (ST)
Hier ist das rechte Osterlamm,
davon wir sollen leben,
das ist an des Kreuzes Stamm
in heißer Lieb gegeben.
Des Blut zeichnet unsere Tür,
das hält der Glaub dem Tode für,
der Würger kann uns nicht rühren. Halleluja.

6. Aria (B)
So feiern wir das hoh Fest
mit Herzensfreud und Wonne,
das uns der Herre scheinen lässt.
Er ist selber die Sonne,
der durch seiner Gnaden Glanz
erleucht unsre Herzen ganz;
der Sünden Nacht ist vergangen. Halleluja.

7. Choral
Wir essen und leben wohl,
zum süßen Brot geladen;
der alte Sau’rteig nicht soll
sein bei dem Wort der Gnaden.
Christus will die Kost uns sein
und speisen die Seel allein;
der Glaub will keins andern leben. Halleluja.
Sinfonia

1. Chorale
Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands
for our offenses given;
but now at God’s right hand he stands
and brings us life from heaven.
Therefore let us joyful be
and sing to God right thankfully
loud songs of alleluia! Alleluia!

2. Duet (SA)
No son of man could conquer death,
such ruin sin had wrought us.
No innocence was found on earth,
and therefore death had brought us
into bondage from of old
and ever grew more strong and bold
and held us as its captive. Alleluia!


3. Aria (T)
Christ Jesus, God’s own Son, came down,
his people to deliver;
destroying sin, he took the crown
from death’s pale brow forever.
Stripped of pow’r, no more it reigns;
an empty form alone remains;
its sting is lost forever. Alleluia!

4. Chorale
It was a strange and dreadful strife
when life and death contended.
The victory remained with life,
the reign of death was ended.
Holy Scripture plainly saith
that death is swallowed up by death;
disgraced, it lies defeated. Alleluia!

5. Duet (ST)
Here the true Paschal Lamb we see,
whom God so freely gave us;
he died on the accursed tree—
so strong his love—to save us.
See, his blood now marks our door;
faith points to it; death passes o’er,
and Satan cannot harm us. Alleluia!

6. Aria (B)
So let us keep the festival
to which the Lord invites us;
Christ is himself the joy of all,
the sun that warms and lights us.
Now his grace to us imparts
eternal sunshine to our hearts;
the night of sin is ended. Alleluia!

7. Chorale
Then let us feast this Easter day
on Christ, the bread of heaven;
the Word of grace has purged away
the old and evil leaven.
Christ alone our souls will feed;
he is our meat and drink indeed;
faith lives upon no other! Alleluia!

Trans. Richard Massie, 1854

Easter, Day 5: Christ Is Your Spring

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

LOOK: Moveable Garden by Sojourn Arts

Moveable Garden (Sojourn Arts)
Moveable Garden, a community art project organized by Sojourn Arts, 2021. Mixed media on panel.

Sojourn Arts is a ministry of Sojourn Midtown in Louisville, Kentucky. As one way for their community to engage the springtime theme of Easter, on Easter Sunday 2021, Tim Robertson led a riso printing project in the church’s art gallery between services, open to all. Participants selected and arranged live flowers on the glass copier of a risograph (a type of digital printing machine that uses a process similar to screen printing to create vibrant, textured prints), printed their designs onto colorful paper, cut them out, and collaboratively collaged them into a floral arrangement on a wood panel—a “moveable garden”! View more photos here.

LISTEN: “Christ Is Your Spring” | Words by Edward A. Washburn, 1863 | Music by Andy Bast, 2024 | Performed by Bellwether Arts, feat. Emily Hanrahan, 2024

Christ has arisen,
And Death is no more!
Lo! the white-robed ones
Sit by the door.
Dawn, golden morning,
Scatter the night.
Haste, you disciples glad,
First with the light!

Break forth in singing,
O the world newborn!
Sing the great Eastertide,
Christ’s holy morn.
Sing him, young sunbeams
Dancing in mirth;
Sing, all you winds of God
Coursing the earth!

Sing him, you laughing flow’rs
Fresh from the sod;
Sing him, wild, leaping streams,
Praising your God!
Break from your winter,
Sad heart, and sing!
Bud with your blossoms fair;
Christ is your spring.

Sing alleluia!

Christ is your spring.

What a beautiful hymn text! Andy Bast found it in Jane Eliza (Coolidge) Chapman’s Easter Hymns compilation, published in Boston in 1876. In the introduction to the hymnal, Chapman’s uncle J. I. T. (James Ivers Trecothick) Coolidge, an Episcopalian minister, delights in how

[Easter’s] sun shines with fuller radiance each year upon the world, whose night of darkness it broke on the Resurrection Morning. The anthems which greet its rising are caught and repeated by increasing millions of grateful hearts of every tongue, kindred, and people, until the wide earth is filled with their sounding praise. How sacred a privilege to have part in this mighty and triumphant symphony, how sad to be out of harmony with its sublime strains!

Written by Rev. Dr. Edward A. Washburn (and given a new tune by Bast), “Christ Is Your Spring” apostrophizes the whole newborn world, enjoining it to praise God. Sunbeams, winds, flowers, streams, the human heart—all are encompassed in God’s project of renewal and invited to sing each in their own way.