Category: Visual Art

Advent, Day 21: All Tears

Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

—Revelation 21:3–4

LOOK: God will wipe away every tear by Max Beckmann

Beckmann, Max_And God shall wipe away all tears (Stuttgart)
Max Beckmann (German, 1884–1950), Apocalypse: God will wipe away every tear (Revelation XXI, 1-4), 1941–42. Lithograph with watercolor additions on paper, 15 3/8 × 11 13/16 in. (38.7 × 29.8 cm). Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany. [object record]

The German expressionist artist Max Beckmann created this poignant lithograph in 1941–42 while living in exile in Amsterdam, having been labeled a “degenerate artist” by the Nazi Party and stigmatized as “un-German.” It’s one of a series of twenty-seven lithographs he made on the book of Revelation. Titled Apokalypse, the series was commissioned by Georg Hartmann, owner of the Bauersche Gießerei (Bauer type foundry) in Frankfurt am Main, who privately printed it as a bound volume in 1943 in an edition of twenty-four. God will wipe away every tear is page 71. I’ve pictured here the edition in the collection of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, but there’s another one (with different hand-coloring) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

I learned about this piece from the fantastic book Picturing the Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation in the Arts over Two Millennia by Natasha O’Hear and her father, Anthony O’Hear. Natasha describes and comments on it:

A winged figure is depicted by Beckmann dressed in a golden robe wiping away the tears from a squat, human figure lying on a table (who may be intended to be Beckmann himself). Through a circular window, which resembles a port hole and which is decorated with the colours of the rainbow, lies what one presumes to be the new Heaven and the new Earth (Rev. 21.1), here represented as just the river (sea?) of life and not a city. The fact that one has to gaze through the rainbow port hole to glimpse the New Jerusalem is fascinating and reminds one of Memling’s Apocalypse altarpiece of 1474–9, which depicts the heavenly throne room as existing in a circular rainbow resembling an eyeball. It has been argued that this visualization implies that the heavenly throne room (described in Rev. 4.3 as being enclosed in a rainbow) is akin to the all-seeing divine eye. Thus, in this image, if it is Memling who is being evoked here, the viewer, like John, is in the privileged position of seeing the future through the divine eye, as it were.

However, the theological intrigue plays second string to the central image, which would surely have resonated with viewers as somewhat strange, shocking even, in the 1940s. The concept of visualizing God/Christ himself wiping the tears from human eyes is not without artistic precedent, but it is rare. Giovanni di Paolo’s illustrated fifteenth-century antiphonal depicts ‘God wiping away the tears of the faithful,’ for example. [See also this historiated initial in the fourteenth-century Antiphonary of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas.] However, this is such an intimate image, and the divine figure (perhaps God/Christ or perhaps an angel) so human (apart from the wings, of course), that one cannot help being affected by the image. This New Jerusalem is a place of consolation built on relationships and not monumental landscapes. (231–32)

LISTEN: “God shall wipe away all tears,” from movement 13 of The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by Karl Jenkins, 2000 | Performed by the Hjorthagens kammarkör (Hjorthagen Chamber Choir), dir. Karin Oldgren, 2021

God shall wipe away all tears
And there shall be no more death
Neither sorrow nor crying
Neither shall there be any more pain

Praise the Lord
Praise the Lord
Praise the Lord

This glorious piece of music is from the end of the final movement (“Better Is Peace”) of The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace by the Welsh composer and multi-instrumentalist Sir Karl Jenkins. Written for SATB choir, SATB soloists, muezzin, and a full orchestra with an enormous percussion section, the work was commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, England, to commemorate the new millennium. Jenkins dedicated it to the victims of the Kosovo War between the Serbians and the ethnic Albanians, which lasted from February 1998 to June 1999.

It has been performed around the world over three thousand times and is one of Britian’s favorite pieces of contemporary classical music.

One of the primary genres in the Western choral tradition is the mass, which sets to music the five unchanging sections of the Roman Catholic liturgy: the Kyrie (“Lord, have mercy”), Gloria (“Glory to God in the highest”), Credo (“I believe”), Sanctus (“Holy, holy, holy”), and Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God”). Bach’s Mass in B minor and Mozart’s Requiem in D minor are among two of the most famous. Composer’s masses were originally sung in the church’s corporate worship, but now they’re mostly confined to concert settings and are often adapted—supplemented with other texts, and sometimes one or more of the traditional sections is eliminated.

Karl Jenkins’s The Armed Man, named after the fifteenth-century French folk song “L’homme armé,” which opens the mass, comprises thirteen movements. Jenkins omits the Gloria and Credo but, in addition to the Kyrie, Sanctus (and Benedictus), and Agnus Dei, includes other religious texts and secular ones too: the Adhan (Islamic call to prayer); Psalms 56:1 and 59:2; poems or poetic extracts by Rudyard Kipling, John Dryden, Horace, Toge Sankichi (who survived the bombing of Hiroshima but died of radiation-induced cancer), Guy Wilson, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson; a passage from the ancient Hindu epic the Mahabharata and from Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur; and Revelation 21:4.

For a movement-by-movement discussion of the mass, including all the lyrics, see the Choral Singer’s Companion entry by the musicologist Honey Meconi. And here you can listen to the work in full, as performed in 2018 in Berlin by a choir of two thousand people from thirty countries to mark the centennial of the end of the First World War:

The “God shall wipe away all tears” finale is markedly different from the two sections that precede it within the same movement. Movement 13 starts (at 58:26 of the Berlin video) with a vigorous and cheerful return of the “L’homme armé” melody, this time sung with a line from Mallory—voiced, in Mallory’s version of the Arthurian legends, by Lancelot and Guinevere:

Better is peace than always war,
And better is peace than evermore war,
And better and better is peace,
Better is peace than always war.

The melody’s original lyrics then return:

The armed man must be feared.
Everywhere it has been proclaimed
That each man should arm himself
With an iron coat of mail.

But then the sprightly woodwinds play a Celtic dance–like interlude, leading into the choir’s “Ring, ring, ring, ring!” and a setting, with lush orchestral backing, of Tennyson’s “Ring Out, Wild Bells.” This section is joyous and triumphant, and listeners might expect that final, emphatic “Ring!” to be the closer.

But it’s not.

The final section, a sort of coda, is quiet, slow, unaccompanied—no brass fanfare, no frolicsome woodwinds, no driving percussion, just human voices singing at a largo tempo a snippet from John the Revelator’s eschatological vision of a world without death, crying, and pain, having been healed by God for all eternity.

Advent, Day 20: New Jerusalem

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

—Revelation 21:2

LOOK: Epiphany of the Other by Richard Kenton Webb

Webb, Richard Kenton_Epiphany of the Other
Richard Kenton Webb (British, 1959–), Epiphany of the Other, 2023. Oil pigment on plywood, 183 × 214 cm.

(Related posts: https://artandtheology.org/2017/10/10/grief-and-loss-will-be-undone-artful-devotion/; https://artandtheology.org/2021/12/13/advent-day-16/)

LISTEN: “How Long, Dear Savior” (NORTHFIELD) | Words by Isaac Watts, 1707 | Music by Jeremiah Ingalls, 1805 | Performed by the Boston Camerata, dir. Anne Azéma, 2020

How long, dear Savior, O how long
Shall this bright hour delay?
Fly swifter round, ye wheels of time,
And bring the promised day.

From the third heav’n where God resides,
That holy, happy place,
The new Jerusalem comes down
Adorned with shining grace.

An American Christmas is one of the Boston Camerata’s most popular programs. “It features a generous selection of carols, New England anthems, Southern folk hymns, and religious ballads for the season from the early years of the American republic, and from a wide range of early tune books and manuscripts”—including the shape-note hymn “How Long, Dear Savior” from The Christian Harmony (Exeter, New Hampshire, 1805), an arrangement of a stanza from Isaac Watts’s  “Lo! what a glorious sight appears” to the fuguing tune NORTHFIELD. The Boston Camerata adds a stanza from the same Watts hymn.

The Grace Doherty Library at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, which owns a first edition of The Christian Harmony, provides biographical information about its compiler, Jeremiah Ingalls, to whom several of the tunes inside are attributed:

A native of Massachusetts who moved to Vermont around 1800, Jeremiah Ingalls (1764-1828) at various times worked as a farmer, cooper, and tavern keeper, in addition to serving as a choirmaster in the Congregational church, teaching singing school and composing music. Ingalls’ Christian Harmony contains many lively melodies, patterned after the secular songs and dances of the day. Such tunes were quite popular among the camp-meeting revival folk. In his hymn “Innocent Sounds,” Ingalls argues for the appropriateness of adopting these melodies for religious use.

The above performance of “How Long, Dear Savior” by the Boston Camerata was filmed at Boston’s historic Old North Church during the 2020 pandemic. To hear the song in a non-concert context, see this video taken at a Sacred Harp singing convention in Texas in 2011:

The “third heaven” refers to the dwelling place of God outside the universe. Beginning in the intertestamental period (ca. 420 BCE–ca. 30 CE), it was a common Jewish belief that God stacked the heavens in layers—as many as seven, but most typically three, sometimes delineated as: Earth’s atmosphere (the first heaven; i.e., the realm of the birds and clouds), interplanetary or interstellar space (the second heaven; i.e., the realm of the sun and stars), and God’s own abode, over and above what we can conceive (the third heaven). The term “third heaven” appears in Jewish apocalyptic and rabbinic texts such as the Testament of Levi 2, the Apocalypse of Moses 37:5, 2 Enoch 8:1, and 3 Baruch 4:7. The apostle Paul also uses it in 2 Corinthians 12:2–4 to describe one of his visionary experiences.

Advent, Day 19: New Day

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A new day will dawn on us from above
because our God is loving and merciful.
He will give light to those who live in the dark
and in death’s shadow.
He will guide us into the way of peace.

—the Jewish priest Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, in Luke 1:78–79 (GOD’S WORD Translation)

LOOK: New Morning by David Blow

Blow, David_New Morning
David Blow (American, 1944–), New Morning, 2014. Digitally altered photograph, 28 × 40 in.

David Blow is a nature photographer from Hickory Creek, Texas. “I have developed a language using graphic shapes, colors, and patterns to express a feeling and vibration that I see in my photographs,” he writes on his website. “I am expressing the superstring theory that nothing is static, and that all things vibrate. I am contemplating how we experience nature with more than our sight, rather with all our senses simultaneously. Such as the meditative sounds we hear and see from viewing birds and animals, and the spiritual feeling we have when we are in nature.”

“New Morning,” Blow says, “presents a transcendent vision of a new day, serene and harmonious, where we are entirely at one with each other and the source of our being, God. There is a hushed air of reverence in the cathedral-like canopy of tree branches with pairs of doves perched in their branches as a faint yellow light penetrates the blanket of clouds above. These deeply moving experiences of oneness with something larger than ourselves provide us with a glimpse of that wholeness and rest we can only find in God.”

I’m attracted to the rhythmic quality of the image, and the mirror effect that evokes kaleidoscopic viewing. I’m held in a sense that this scene is unfolding dynamically into another.

LISTEN: “There’s a New Day Coming” by Menahan Street Band, feat. Saundra Williams, 2019

There’s a new day coming
Oh, yes, it is
There’s a new day coming
A new day

Ooh, ooh (nah, huh)
Ooh, ooh (mmm)
Ooh, ooh (yeah)
Ooh, ooh
Ooh, ooh (oh, yeah)
Ooh, ooh
Ooh, ooh (oh, woo)
Oh, it’s coming

It’s coming
It’s coming

Menahan Street Band is a Brooklyn-based funk and soul band formed in 2007 by Tommy Brenneck, Dave Guy, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and Mike Deller. (The latter stepped down as a permanent member in 2017.) They are part of the widely acclaimed Daptone Records roster.

The group originally recorded the tune of “There’s a New Day Coming” as a single backing track for the singer Charles Bradley (1948–2017), but it was put aside, unused, after Bradley’s death. Band member Tommy Brenneck later revivified it by adding some simple new lyrics, and the group released the new song on a 45 rpm record, with “Tommy Don’t” on the flip side, in 2019. It features Saundra Williams (of Saun & Starr) on lead vocals.

Advent, Day 18: Day Star

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We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.

—2 Peter 1:19 (KJV)

(Related post: https://artandtheology.org/2023/12/19/advent-day-17-yonder-come-day/)

LOOK: Shather Alfairooz (Gold Specks of Turquoise) by Nabeela Al Khayer

Al Khayer, Nabeela_Gold Specks of Turquoise
Nabeela Al Khayer, Shather Alfairooz (Gold Specks of Turquoise), 2017. Mixed media on wood, 80 × 80 cm.

The Bahraini artist Nabeela Al Khayer likes to play with color, fabric, and photographs in her work, often writing poetic notes in Arabic in the borders. She uses resin, oil, acrylic, and watercolors to create texture and movement.

I learned about Al Khayer through CARAVAN [previously], an international nonprofit dedicated to building bridges through the arts, fostering peace, harmony, and wholeness in the world. It was founded in 2009 by Paul G. Chandler, an Anglican clergyman and US citizen. Al Khayer was one of thirty-one contemporary women artists from the Middle East featured in CARAVAN’s exhibition I AM, which opened at the National Gallery of Fine Arts in Amman, Jordan, in 2017. In her statement, she writes that Shather Alfairooz (Gold Specks of Turquoise) “depicts the intangible human emotions that carry in their midst layers of pain, suffering, and love.”

The mixed-media work shows a silhouetted woman in profile, gazing straight ahead at a column of light. She, too, appears to be softly lit from within. Her cupped hand, raised toward her chest, may be a spiritual gesture—perhaps she’s inviting God in, or acknowledging a warm interior sensation.

LISTEN: “Day Star” by the Brothers of Abriem Harp, on Again I Glorify: Demos and Outtakes on the Road to Last Days (2018)

O Day Star, in my heart arise
Cloak my thoughts with thy love
O Day Star, in my heart arise
Greet me as the mourning dove

Sing to me a song of mercy
Sing to me a song of love
O Day Star, in my heart arise
Wake me with the morning light

O Son of mercy, Son of love
Warmth of grace felt from above
Awake my spirit with a song
Let my heart sing at the dawn

Sing, I sing to call you holy
Sing, I sing to praise your name
O Jesus, let this be my song
Let my heart to you belong

The Brothers of Abriem Harp are Joe Kurtz, Josh Compton, Matt Kurtz, and John Finley. This song is an outtake from their excellent album Last Days, which I reviewed here.

Roundup: Theological spinoff of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” Advent art with Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt, and four new Christmas song recordings

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POEM SERIES: “Twelve Days of Advent” by Kate Bluett: This year on her blog, writer Kate Bluett [previously] is publishing a series of original metrical verses based loosely on the cumulative song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” She calls it the Twelve Days of Advent and through it explores the theology of Christ’s coming. I love this creative, sacred spin on the popular seasonal ditty! Here’s where the series currently stands (my favorite poems are in boldface):

  1. “A Partridge in a Pear Tree”: Bluett imagines, in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a bird singing (representing, as I take it, God’s word), but Adam and Eve heed not his song, and, taking the tree’s forbidden fruit, find themselves exiled. The bird weeps for the alienation of his two friends, and wings his way east of Eden, into the home of a young maiden, a daughter of Eve, who receives him, shelters him, an act that leads to restoration. Bluett uses some of the language of late medieval English folksong, such as “with a low, low, my love, my love” and “welaway.”
  2. “Two Turtledoves”
  3. “Three French Hens”
  4. “Four Calling Birds”: This poem is brilliant. In it the four matriarchs in Jesus’s genealogy speak to Mary, tenderly calling her “Child” and rejoicing in her “bringing forth our life’s tomorrow.” Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba—they’ve long awaited redemption, and now they’re at its threshold. Mary’s yes to God’s call “set[s] [their] dry bones stirring, thrumming / with a hope [they’d] hardly dared.” They inform her that her vocation will involve great suffering (as we know, she’ll experience the brutal death of her son)—but her willingness to give up her son to the cross, to endure that rupture, will mean new life for the world.
  5. “Five Gold Rings”
  6. “Six Geese a-Laying”: Picking up the Isaianic language of the wilderness being made glad, the poetic speaker sings an eschatological vision of flocks coming home to “the orchard of the rood” (rood = cross) to lay and hatch eggs in nests once empty, now brimming with life.
  7. “Seven Swans a-Swimming”

I eagerly await the remaining five poems!

Update, 12/23/25:

    +++

    SUBSTACK SERIES: “Art + Advent 2025” by Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt: The art historian Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt [previously], author of Redeeming Vision and the Loving Look Substack, is one of my favorite writers. This Advent she is writing a weekly series of art reflections centered on the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love.

    >> “Week 1 // Hope: Abraham’s Oak and Sarah’s Laughter”: Looking at Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting Abraham’s Oak, Weichbrodt writes about shadowy promise. She also considers, with reference to an early Byzantine mosaic of the Hospitality of Abraham, how to hope again after being wounded, as Sarah did, is a vulnerable thing. “As Advent begins, I find myself peering into a Tanner-like mist, seeing the dim outline of longed-for goodness taking shape in the distance. Sometimes I’m full of hope, but I’m also, like Sarah, sometimes full of armored laughter.”

    Tanner, Henry Ossawa_Abraham's Oak
    Henry Ossawa Tanner (American, 1859–1937), Abraham’s Oak, 1905. Oil on canvas, 21 3/8 × 28 5/8 in. (54.4 × 72.8 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.

    >> “Week 2 // Peace: A Stitch Pulling Tight”: “How do we do repair work in a fraying world with our own, fraying selves? What thread can stitch together all these gaping wounds?” Weichbrodt asks. She looks at Mary Weatherford’s monumental painting Gloria (new to me!), finding in the hot coral neon light blazing across the canvas resonance with Renaissance paintings of the Annunciation, which portray the Light of the World as the stitch that mends the tear between God and humanity.

    Weatherford, Mary_Gloria
    Mary Weatherford (American, 1963–), Gloria, 2018. Flashe paint and neon on linen, 117 × 234 in. (297.2 × 594.4 cm). High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

    >> “Week 3 // Joy: Far as the Curse Is Found”: In this post, Weichbrodt explores nine Visitation paintings and one extraordinary embroidery. “Every time I see [a Visitation artwork],” Weichbrodt writes, “I encounter joy. It’s not that Mary and Elizabeth are always smiling. Often, their expressions are quite serious. But joy—deep, sustained, sustaining joy—circulates between them like an electrical current.” Justice, threshold, and fecundity are among the supplementary themes touched on.

    Visitation embroidery
    The Visitation, England, first half of 17th century. Embroidery, 44.1 × 57 cm (framed). Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

    Weichbrodt’s final Advent 2025 post, on love, will be published this Saturday. Weichbrodt’s final Advent 2025 post, on love, will be published this Saturday. (Update, 12/20/25: Week 4’s post, “Love In Between,” is now published. It centers on Vincent van Gogh’s painting Almond Blossoms, a gift for his newborn nephew, but also spends time with a Nativity mosaic by Pietro Cavallini and a Nativity painting by Gerard David.)

    +++

    SONGS:

    Here are four newly released Christmas songs of note: two originals, one lyrical adaptation of a classic, and a new arrangement.

    >> “War on Christmas” by Seryn: Seryn’s new album is titled War on Christmas. Here’s the title track:

    The refrain is:

    There is a war on Christmas
    But it’s not the one you think
    It’s in the news, it’s out of mind
    It happens overseas
    Cause as we sing the hymns and songs
    With families by our sides
    There is a war on Christmas
    Someone’s fighting to survive

    “War on Christmas” is a phrase some Christian conservatives in the US use to express their feeling of having their faith traditions attacked by the sinister forces of pluralism when people or signage greet them with a generic “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” I roll my eyes big-time when I hear people complain about this, because it’s ridiculous for any American to assert that they are impeded from or ostracized for celebrating Christmas in this country, or to take offense that a stranger does not automatically assume their particular religious affiliation.

    Seryn’s song affirms that yes, there is a war on Christmas—only it’s a war not against personal religious freedoms in America but against peace, love, and the other values Christ came to teach and embody. When humans wage literal wars with literal weapons, killing and maiming each other and inducing mass terror—that’s an assault against Christ’s mass, with its message of welcome and reconciliation. So, too, when we perpetuate hate, whether on personal, national, or global scales. As another Christmas song puts it, “Hate is strong and mocks the song of ‘Peace on earth, goodwill to men.’”

    >> “O New Commingling! O Strange Conjunction!” by the Anachronists: The lyrics to this new song by the Anachronists [previously]—Corey Janz, Andrés Pérez González, and Jonathan Lipps—are a paraphrase from the sermon “On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ” by Gregory of Nazianzus (ca. 329–390), one of the most influential and poetic theologians of the early church. Gregory delivered the sermon, labeled “Oration 38” in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, at Christmastime in 380 in Constantinople, where he served as bishop. In section 13, the Anachronists’ source for the song, he expresses awe at the beautiful mystery of the Incarnation. Below is an excerpt from the public-domain NPNF translation.

    The Word of God Himself—Who is before all worlds, the Invisible, the Incomprehensible, the Bodiless, Beginning of Beginning, the Light of Light, the Source of Life and Immortality, the Image of the Archetypal Beauty, the immovable Seal, the unchangeable Image, the Father’s Definition and Word—came to His own Image, and took on Him flesh for the sake of our flesh, and mingled Himself with an intelligent soul for my soul’s sake, purifying like by like; and in all points except sin was made man. . . . O new commingling; O strange conjunction; the Self-Existent comes into being, the Uncreate is created, That which cannot be contained is contained. . . . He Who gives riches becomes poor, for He assumes the poverty of my flesh, that I may assume the richness of His Godhead. He that is full empties Himself, for He empties Himself of His glory for a short while, that I may have a share in His fullness. What is the riches of His goodness? What is this mystery that is around me? I had a share in the image; I did not keep it; He partakes of my flesh that He may both save the image and make the flesh immortal. He communicates a second Communion far more marvelous than the first.

    (Related post: Andy Bast sets to music a Nativity hymn by St. Ephrem)

    >> “Away in a Manger (Then to Calvary)” by Sarah Sparks: Singer-songwriter Sarah Sparks [previously] released a new EP, Christmas Hymns, last month, comprising five classic carols, including one with revised lyrics that further draw out the significance of the Incarnation. I’m a big fan of Sparks’s voice and her no-frills acoustic style.

    Away in the manger
    No crib for a bed
    The great King of Heaven
    Does lay down his head
    The stars he created
    Look down where he lay
    The little Lord Jesus
    Asleep on the hay

    And there in the manger
    The Maker of earth
    In riches and glory?
    No, born in the dirt
    With oxen and cattle
    With shepherds and sheep
    No stranger to weakness
    He loves even me

    And there in the manger
    Is our Servant-King
    He sits with the lowly
    He washes their feet
    Away in the manger
    Then to Calvary
    His birth, life, and death
    And his raising for me

    And there in the manger
    Is my greatest friend
    His mercy, his patience
    His grace know no end
    Be near me, Lord Jesus
    For all of my days
    In life and in death
    Till we meet face to face

    >> “Angels We Have Heard on High” by the Petersens: Last Friday the Petersens [previously] released a music video—shot at Wonderland Tree Farm in Pea Ridge, Arkansas—debuting their new bluegrass arrangement of one of my favorite Christmas carols. Banjo, mandolin, fiddle, acoustic guitar, dobro, upright bass—I love the instrumentation of the bluegrass genre and what it adds here, and the Petersens are consummate performers.  

    Advent, Day 17: Come, My Beloved

    Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

    What is that coming up from the wilderness like columns of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of a merchant?

    —Song of Solomon 3:6 (KJV)

    Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.

    —Isaiah 60:1 (KJV)

    Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city. . . . Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.

    —Isaiah 52:1–3 (KJV)

    LOOK: Eve by Kiki Smith

    Smith, Kiki_Eve
    Kiki Smith (American, 1954–), Eve, 2001. Manzini (resin and marble dust) and graphite, 20 3/8 × 5 × 6 3/4 in. (51.8 × 12.7 × 17.1 cm). Source: Kiki Smith: A Gathering, 1980–2005, p. 247

    Eve, the mother of all living, a representative of humanity. The crown of God’s creation, and yet she distrusted God’s word, transgressed his command, breaking what was intended to be an eternal communion. In this small sculpture, she looks up, raising her hands in front of her face—in a gesture of prayer or praise? Shielding her eyes from brightness? Could it be she sees redemption on the horizon?

    LISTEN: “Lecha Dodi” (Come, My Beloved), traditional Jewish hymn | Words by Shlomo ha-Levi Alkabetz, based on verses from the Hebrew Bible, 16th century | Music by Maayan Tzafrir, 2021 | Sung by Maayan Tzafrir, 2021

    (Turn on CC on the video to read the Hebrew lyrics alongside the English.)

    ENGLISH TRANSLATION (supplied by 12 Tribes Music):

    Rouse yourselves! Rouse yourselves! [Isa. 51:17]
    Your light is coming; rise up and shine. [Isa. 60:1]
    Awake! Awake! Utter a song.
    The glory of God is revealed upon you.

    Who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness,
    Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
    With all the fragrant powders of a merchant? [Song of Sol. 3:6]

    Shake off the ashes! Rise up from the dust!
    Put on your garments of splendor, my people. [Isa. 52:1]
    Through the son of Yishai [Jesse] of Bethlehem,
    Redemption draws near to my soul.

    Awake! Awake! Utter a song,
    Let me see thy countenance.
    Awake! Awake! Utter a song,
    Let me hear thy voice.

    When I was a student at UNC–Chapel Hill, I was curious to learn more about the Jewish roots of my Christian faith. I reached out to the Jewish campus organization Hillel, and they invited me to attend their Shabbat dinner, hosted every Friday at sundown at a large house on Cameron Ave.

    Most markedly, I remember, before eating, the communal singing of the piyyut (Jewish liturgical poem) “Lecha Dodi” as everyone turned to face the door. I had no idea what the words meant—they were in Hebrew—or what the orientation of bodies was communicating. The song was part of the group’s regular liturgy, familiar to the Jewish students who were gathered, so no introduction or explanation was given, no lyric sheet that I recall. Afterward I asked the rabbi what just happened. “We welcomed in the Shabbat bride,” she said. “The Shekinah.” (The Shekinah is a dwelling or settling of the divine presence. The word is a feminine noun in Hebrew.)

    I was puzzled by this statement. It sounded so mystical, challenging my very literalistic sensibilities at the time. The words of the song, by the rabbi and Kabbalist Shlomo ha-Levi Alkabetz (1500–1576), are mostly a composite of scripture texts from the Song of Songs, Isaiah, and elsewhere. Rabbi Shlomo personifies Shabbat (the Sabbath) as a bride, and Israel as her mate. The song anticipates the everlasting Shabbat, ultimate redemption, as the people of Israel ask God to bring about messianic deliverance.

    (Related posts: https://artandtheology.org/2024/12/10/advent-day-10-bridegroom-of-the-soul/; https://artandtheology.org/2019/11/26/salvation-is-him-artful-devotion/)

    I was taken back to this experience from almost twenty years ago when recently, I came across a version of the “Lecha Dodi” distributed by 12 Tribes Music [previously]. There are hundreds of different tunes for Rabbi Shlomo’s text, from medieval Moorish to northern European folk; but 12 Tribes features a newer setting by the Israeli musician Maayan Tzafrir.

    The YouTube video description provides some biographical background:

    Maayan Tzafrir is a singer and musician who weaves Balkan and Middle Eastern musical traditions with her Jewish roots. In her music she combines ancient piyutim (chants) with folk melodies. Maayan’s original compositions are inspired by Greek, Bulgarian, Georgian, and Turkish traditions. Maayan is the founder and vocal leader of the Yearot Ensemble, a singer in the Greek band Tavernikos, founder of The Hebrew Balkan Choir, and conductor of various workshops, meetings, and tours focusing on Balkan traditional singing with a Hebrew and feminine spirit.

    The lyrics provided for Tzafrir’s version differ slightly from the traditional lyrics. It appears that she uses verses 5 and 4, with complementary material in between.

    As a Christian, I can’t help but hear these words in light of Jesus. Several of the Hebrew scripture texts for Jewish Shabbat overlap with the Hebrew scripture texts for the Christian season of Advent, which is itself a dedicated time of looking forward to the arrival of the Messiah, beseeching his coming to dwell.

    The phrase “son of Jesse” is a reference to the royal Davidic line from which the Messiah will come—and, in Christian belief, did come, in Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, who has since ascended into heaven but has promised to return to bring about the fullness of God’s kingdom.

    Awake! Sing! Redemption draweth nigh!

    Advent, Day 16: A Great Light

    Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

    The people who walked in darkness
        have seen a great light;
    those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
        on them light has shined.
    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
    For a child has been born for us,
        a son given to us;
    authority rests upon his shoulders,
        and he is named
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
        Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
    Great will be his authority,
        and there shall be endless peace
    for the throne of David and his kingdom.
        He will establish and uphold it
    with justice and with righteousness
        from this time onward and forevermore.
    The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

    —Isaiah 9:2, 6–7

    LOOK: Sunlight in Forest by Charles Burchfield

    Burchfield, Charles_Sunlight in Forest
    Charles Burchfield (American, 1893–1967), Sunlight in Forest, 1916. Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper, 20 × 13 15/16 in. (50.8 × 35.4 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Photo: Victoria Emily Jones. [object record]

    LISTEN: “Isaiah’s Prophecy” | Words by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange, after Isaiah 9:2, 6–7 | Music by Alexander L’Estrange | Performed by London Voices, dir. Ben Parry, with Richard Gowers on organ, on Winter Light (2024)

    The people who walked in darkness,
    who live in a land of dark,
    the people who walked in darkness,
    have seen a great light.

    Refrain:
    And all because a child is born!
    And all because a child is born!
    To us a son is given.

    He’ll be the Wonderful Counselor,
    the Everlasting Father.
    He’ll be the Wonderful Counselor,
    he’ll be the Prince of Peace. [Refrain]

    He’ll reign on the throne of David,
    establishing and upholding it.
    He’ll reign on the throne of David
    from then and evermore.

    Ending:
    And all because a child is born!
    And all because a son is giv’n!
    The people who walked in darkness
    will walk, will walk in the light—
    walk in the light!

    This work by the British choral composer Alexander L’Estrange has a steady, funky groove, with a time signature that alternates between 7/8, 4/4, and 3/4.

    “The contrast between ‘the people who walked in darkness’ and the ‘child is born’ is highlighted by the shift from the harmonic minor tonality of the verses to the major tonality of the refrain,” L’Estrange writes in his composer’s note. “Enjoy the moment at the end of each refrain where the organist stops playing and the choir sings ‘to us a son is given,’ taking us back to the minor for the next verse.”

    The score is available from GIA Publications.

    Advent, Day 15: Promise

    Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

    LOOK: the rain bows and the rainbows by Katy Mixon

    Mixon, Katy_The rain bows and the rainbows
    Katy Mixon (American, 1984–), The rain bows and the rainbows (one day we will switch sides), 2018. Oil paint and used hand rags on muslin, 100 × 138 in.

    I saw this quilt by Katy Mixon in December 2021 at the exhibition Break the Mold: New Takes on Traditional Art Making at the North Carolina Museum of Art. I was struck first by its prismatic color, and then by its title—which, the artist told me, comes from a dream she had after her close friend died. To bow, long o, is to bend into a curve; as a noun, a bow is a weapon used to propel an arrow, or a knotted ribbon typically worn by young girls. To bow, short o (as in “ow”), is to incline in respect or submission. The multiple meanings of this homograph open the title to different readings.

    But the overall meaning points to the multihued arc that appears in the sky after a rainfall, as sunlight refracts through water vapor.

    In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant with Noah and has come to symbolize divine promise more generally, or hope—after the bleakness, beauty.

    Mixon’s making process involves upcycling rags, which is itself a kind of redemptive act, saving used scraps and piecing them together into a new whole.

    “Katy Mixon’s ‘quilts’ began as an outgrowth of her painting process,” the NCMA exhibition text read. “She routinely wipes her hands, palette knives, and other tools with baby wipes, which she then tosses into her studio’s garbage can. ‘One day [I] looked at the trash and realized it was full of all this hastily discarded color,’ she notes. She began saving the vibrant detritus with no specific purpose in mind, but after remembering her grandmother’s homemade quilts and discovering the famed African American quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, Mixon had a plan for her colorful scraps. ‘For me, the quilted works are alternate endings in the painting’s life cycle,’ Mixon says. ‘Painting as a practice, with the used rags as kaleidoscopic evidence.’”

    Describing her technique, Mixon told me: “I compose the pieced tops and work with local longarm quilters to add the batting and backing. I finish each piece with hand stitching, often using crewel embroidery to define brush marks and tonal variations.”

    LISTEN: “Joyful” | Words by Kate Bluett | Music by Paul Zach | Performed by Paul Zach with Taylor Leonhardt and Nick Dahlquist, on Christmas Hymns (2022)

    The MP3 file of the song is embedded here with Paul Zach’s permission.

    Come, O Lord, and make us joyful
    as you came to Mary’s womb;
    buried deep beneath our sorrows,
    where our hopes take root and bloom.
    Be the promise that sustains us
    through the seasons of the years,
    ’til at last we see your radiance
    when you shine beyond our tears.

    Come, O Lord, and show your mercy
    as you came in Bethlehem;
    let us see the sunlight bursting
    through the shadows once again.
    Let us hear the song of glory
    where the silence held us fast.
    We will come to you rejoicing
    from the shackles of the past.

    Come, O Lord, as living water;
    make our deserts green again,
    where the wellspring of our laughter
    will refresh us like the rain.
    After all the years of waiting
    for the promise long foretold,
    come at last, and let the day break
    in the morning of your joy!

    Magnificat roundup: Visio divina with Mary Gardner, “For Ages Women Hoped and Prayed,” and more

    Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

    QUOTES:

    Mary’s response to this announcement [of Jesus’s forthcoming birth]—her Magnificat—is even more overtly revolutionary. Her song in Luke’s Gospel is not a lullaby; it is a manifesto. She declares that the mighty will be cast down from their thrones, the lowly lifted, the hungry filled with good things, and the rich sent away empty. This is the language of redistribution, the language of a world reordered by justice rather than domination. It is no surprise that tyrants have feared this text; throughout modern history, the Magnificat has been prohibited and/or discouraged in public worship in places like Guatemala, Argentina, and India because oppressed communities used it as a rallying cry for liberation. Mary’s theology is insurgent.

    —Kat Armas, “The Politics of Birthing God,” Some Things Abuelita (Substack), December 2, 2025

    What I love about Hannah and Mary is they step into God’s eternal streams of justice and of righteousness and of what it means to live as a faithful follower of Yahweh. They step into this expansive world of what God is going to do and has promised to do in the world, instead of the smaller space of their own need—which again, is OK and understandable. But they take us to places where, if we’re honest, most of our prayers don’t regularly go.

    —Rev. Dr. Tracey Bianchi, “Waiting with Women (Advent Series Part 2): Hannah’s Story and the Gift of Peace (Shalom),” The Alabaster Jar (podcast), December 8, 2025

    +++

    VIDEO DEVOTION: “Beholding the Magnificat with Mary Gardner”: In this “Space for God” video devotion from Coracle, Rev. Mary Amendolia Gardner, an Anglican priest with a bachelor’s degree in art history and a master’s in Christian spirituality, guides us in lectio divina (sacred reading) with Luke 1:46–55 and visio divina (sacred seeing) with James Tissot’s Magnificat.

    Tissot, James_The Magnificat
    James Tissot (French, 1836–1902), The Magnificat, 1886–94. Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper, 9 15/16 × 4 5/8 in. (25.2 × 11.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, New York.

    I typically don’t care for Tissot’s biblical watercolors, because of their illustrative quality—they remind me of pictures from the Sunday school curriculum I followed as a child. But I do like this one, which shows Mary in a position of wisdom and authority, absorbed in prayer, preparing to preach and prophesy. Elizabeth and Zechariah stand in attentive awe on the sidelines, their eyes directed toward the divine child she carries in her body while they await her words. The priest’s tongue had been tied, but Mary’s has been loosed. The Cuban American theologian Kat Armas, in the post quoted above, calls Mary “the first theologian of the Gospel,” as she boldly proclaims the messianic deliverance God has set in motion.

    +++

    SONGS:

    >> “For Ages Women Hoped and Prayed” by Jane Parker Huber: “We join the song that Mary sings, an earthly, heavenly theme.” Performed at Wheaton Bible Church in Illinois.

    >> “Mary, Did You Know” with alternative lyrics by Jennifer Henry: The original lyrics of this Gaither Vocal Band song were written by Mark Lowry in 1985, and they were set to music by Buddy Greene in 1991; the song became a popular hit. However, some Christians take issue with the rhetorical device that implies Mary did not know her son was God, that he would deliver Israel, and that he would reign forever, when that’s precisely what Gabriel told her from the beginning and what she alludes to in her Magnificat. (Defenders say these questions are most likely voiced by people in Mary’s life who didn’t know all that God had conveyed to her; or that it’s legitimate to wonder whether Mary knew the specifics that would unfold, and to suppose that even if she knew theoretically who Jesus was, she may have struggled to grasp the full scope and significance of his messiahship.)

    In 2017, the Canadian theologian and activist Jennifer Henry rewrote the lyrics to center on the Magnificat and its mobilizing influence on justice movements across the globe. That song is sung here by Eric Lige, who is accompanied by Vahagn Stepanyan on piano.

    >> “Magnificat” by Simon de Voil, feat. Alexa Sunshine Rose: This adaptation of the Magnificat is by Simon de Voil, a sacred musician, “interspiritual minister,” and retreat leader originally from Scotland now living in Vermont. The imagery in the video is not what I would have expected: It’s footage of bears in the woods. Perhaps it alludes to how all of creation will be redeemed in “the world that is to come”? The bears here, though, seem at peace, so maybe it’s a picture of blessedness, or of creation’s praise alongside Mary’s.

    +++

    SERMON: “Liberated to See by the God Who Sees” by Wes Vander Lugt, Trinity Forest Church, Concord, North Carolina, December 7, 2025: I’m always pleased when preachers, as part of their biblical exegesis, skillfully integrate art into their sermons—not as mere illustration or decoration but as itself interpreting scripture and/or doing theological work. In the sermon he gave for the Second Sunday of Advent this year, Rev. Dr. Wes Vander Lugt [previously], an ordained Presbyterian minister and director of the Leighton Ford Initiative in Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, preached on Luke 1:5–25, 39–45, about how God sees us and liberates us to see him and others. He discusses Rembrandt’s Visitation painting, especially the artist’s use of light and shadow—Mary and Elizabeth step out of the shadows, out of a place of feeling unseen, into the light of God’s grace, says Vander Lugt, where they are known and knowing.

    Rembrandt_Visitation
    Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669), The Visitation, 1640. Oil on cedar panel, 22 1/4 × 18 7/8 in. (56.5 × 47.9 cm). Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan. [object record]

    He also touches on, very briefly, James B. Janknegt’s 2008 Visitation, which shows how John the Baptist has been liberated to see Jesus, even as the two are still in utero. See 17:49–20:05.

    +++

    FROM THE ARCHIVE: The Magnificat is a topic I’ve covered on the blog several times over the past ten years. Here are some examples:

    Advent, Day 14: Visitation

    Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

    LOOK: The Visitation by Paulina Krajewska

    Krajewska, Paulina_Visitation2
    Paulina Krajewska (Polish, 1976–), The Visitation, 2016. Tempera on panel, 35 × 25 cm.
    Krajewska, Paulina_Visitation
    Paulina Krajewska (Polish, 1976–), The Visitation, 2016. Tempera on panel, 35 × 25 cm.

    LISTEN: “Curious Woman” by Tow’rs, on The Holly & the Ivy (2020)

    I feel the flames, oh Madonna
    I feel the heat of your child
    Birthing from all heaven’s glory
    Clothed in the brown skin of God
    I see a light in the desert
    I see it blazing on high
    Burning down all preconceived
    Notions of who you would be

    Refrain:
    Call it a sweet, oh, a sweet premonition
    We saw no defeat as we labored the weight of the fire
    Curious woman, the revolution is your joy

    I’ve kept my hopes locked away
    I’ve kept my scars in a jar
    I thought that love had a limit
    Careful not to reach too far
    Flipping that table of lies
    Breached but I’m breathing just fine
    Dear woman, please recognize
    Divinity held inside [Refrain]

    I feel the flames, oh Madonna
    I feel the heat of your child
    Birthing from all heaven’s glory
    Clothed in the brown skin of God