Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
—Revelation 22:1–2
LOOK: Tree of Life by Kateryna Shadrina
Kateryna Shadrina (Ukrainian, 1995–), Tree of Life, 2022. Acrylic on gessoed wood, 60 × 60 cm.
For the healing of the nations, God, we pray with one accord; for a just and equal sharing of the things that earth affords; to a life of love in action help us rise and pledge our word.
Lead us forward into freedom; from despair your world release, that, redeemed from war and hatred, all may come and go in peace. Show us how through care and goodness fear will die and hope increase.
All that kills abundant living, let it from the earth be banned; pride of status, race, or schooling, dogmas that obscure your plan. In our common quest for justice may we hallow life’s brief span.
You, Creator God, have written your great name on humankind; for our growing in your likeness bring the life of Christ to mind, that by our response and service earth its destiny may find.
ONLINE DISCUSSION: “Poems of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany” led by Brian Volck,December 13, 2025, 12–1:30 p.m. ET: Poet Brian Volck (whose work I’ve shared here and here) is leading a free online discussion on Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany poetry next Saturday. Sponsored by the Ekklesia Project, it will bring together diverse poetic styles and voices. “Each poem is read by a volunteer and then the group discusses what stood out, what struck them, and what questions the poem raises,” Volck says. “My goal is to encourage a diversity of responses rather than impose mine. No preparation is required.” Register here to receive the Zoom link and the poems in advance.
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INSTALLATION: Hear Us, Canterbury Cathedral, October 17, 2025–January 18, 2026: Graffiti-style stickers are affixed to the medieval walls, floors, and pillars of England’s Canterbury Cathedral in the temporary installation Hear Us, voicing questions to God collected from local marginalized individuals, such as:
Why is there so much pain and destruction?
Is this all there is?
Are you there?
Does everything have a soul?
Do you ever regret your creations?
How do I break the cycle?
Does our struggle mean anything?
How is my dog Bear doing?
God, do you know me?
Photo: Krisztian Elek
Photo courtesy of Canterbury Cathedral
Photo: Krisztian Elek
Curator Jacquiline Creswell [previously], collaborating with poet Alex Vellis, organized a series of workshops led by artists Sven Stears, Henry Madd, Jasbir Dhillon, Adam Littlefield, Alice Gretton, and Callum Farley, which invited people who felt the cathedral was not for them to gather together and delve into discussions about their lives, experiences, and aspirations. Among the participants were members of the Black and Brown diasporas, LGBTQIA+ people, neurodivergent people, people in addiction recovery, and people with mental health disorders. They were asked to respond to the prompt “If you could ask God a question, what would it be?”
Many of the responses were then translated into big, colorful word graphics that cannot be overlooked. “All of the questions are prayers. All of the questions are already sacred,” Vellis says. “So by putting the questions into an already existent sacred space, we are saying you are valid, your words are valid, your prayers are in a place in which they can be heard and they can be seen and they can be supported.”
I learned about this installation from the Exhibiting Faith podcast’s interview with Creswell and Vellis—an episode I heartily commend. They explain how the exhibition was developed, how they persuaded the cathedral to agree to it, and how they have dealt with the storm of criticism it has generated. Many have called it an act of vandalism (even though the stickers were authorized by the dean and will leave no trace when they’re removed next month) and irreverence, desecration. US Vice President JD Vance said the exhibition “mak[es] a beautiful historical building really ugly,” and Elon Musk called it a “suiciding” of Western culture.
I have not seen the exhibition in person, and I am neither British nor Anglican, so I don’t possess the same sense of my identity or heritage being threatened that many Church of Englanders have expressed. But I personally like the confrontational clash of aesthetics: traditional juxtaposed with modern; majestic Gothic architecture, staid limestone, garishly “spray-painted” in a street style, bringing contemporary spiritual and theological questions into a nearly millennium-old church building. I also like the concept of amplifying rather than diminishing the voices of those who feel marginalized by the church but who still want to engage, who are curious—bringing their questions into the space where we gather as a community of Christ followers and using them as a portal into further faith conversations, as Creswell put it in a media interview.
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BLOCKPRINT SERIES: Dios con Nosotros (God with Us) by Kreg Yingst:Kreg Yingst [previously] is my favorite contemporary printmaker working on religious themes. Last December he shared a series of hand-colored linocut prints that he started in 2019 and that is ongoing, collectively titled Dios con Nosotros (God with Us)—“a modern-day American Christmas story which takes place somewhere south of the U.S. border,” he writes.
>> “Un Cuento de Navidad” (A Song of Christmas): This original song by Adrian Roberto and Melissa Romero is about a town that had lost its wonder—until a child discovered a Bible, and his reading aloud its story of a Savior sparked revival.
>> “What Child Is This / Child of the Poor”: The Hound + The Fox are Reilly and McKenzie Zamber, a husband-wife musical duo from Oregon. This song of theirs interleaves the classic Christmas carol “What Child Is This” by William Chatterton Dix with a 2008 song by Scott Soper that emphasizes Christ’s solidarity with the poor.
Here are the lyrics to Soper’s “Child of the Poor”:
Helpless and hungry, lowly, afraid, Wrapped in the chill of midwinter; Comes now, among us, born into poverty’s embrace, New life for the world.
Who is this who lives with the lowly, Sharing their sorrows, Knowing their hunger? This is Christ revealed to the world In the eyes of a child, a child of the poor.
Who is the stranger here in our midst, Looking for shelter among us? Who is the outcast? Who do we see amidst the poor, The children of God?
So bring all the thirsty, all who seek peace; Bring those with nothing to offer. Strengthen the feeble; Say to the frightened heart, “Fear not: here is your God!”
>> “Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right”: Arranged and expanded by Dan Damon [previously], this traditional blues song is performed here by the Dan Damon Quartet, featuring guest vocalist Sheilani Alix, at a concert at Community Church of Mill Valley in California on December 10, 2023. “Blind Willie Johnson recorded this song in 1930 with two Christmas verses mixed in. I separated them out, added two verses to tell a fuller Christmas story, and recorded the Christmas version with my band on the album No Obvious Angels,” Damon explains. “According to the writer of Hebrews, some have entertained angels unawares.”
Sliman Mansour (Palestinian, 1947–), The Way to Bethlehem, 1990s. Acrylic on canvas.
LISTEN: “Bethlehem” by Jack Henderson | Performed by Over the Rhine, feat. Jack Henderson, on Blood Oranges in the Snow (2014)
Oh little town of Bethlehem Have you been forsaken? In your dark and dreamless sleep Your heart is breaking And in your wounded sky The silent stars go by
Oh little town of Bethlehem Be still tonight, be still
Mary, she was just a kid Jesus was a refugee A virgin and a vagabond Yearning to be free Now in the dark streets shining Is their last chance of a dream
Oh little town of Bethlehem Be still tonight, be still
Cradled by a crescent moon Born under a star Sometimes there’s no difference Between a birthmark and a scar
Oh little town of Bethlehem With your sky so black May God impart to human hearts The wisdom that we lack Should you chance to find A hope for all mankind
Oh little town of Bethlehem Be still tonight, be still
Over the Rhine is Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler, a married, music-making couple from Ohio. In preparation for their album Blood Oranges in the Snow, they put out a call to a few select colleagues for assistance with the songwriting. Glasgow-based singer-songwriter Jack Henderson responded with a demo of “Bethlehem,” which “reinvents the nativity story as a very modern tale set amid the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” he writes. Over the Rhine arranged it, with Henderson singing lead and Bergquist providing backing vocals.
“How ironic that the very birthplace of Jesus should prove to be one of the most conflicted, unpeaceful regions of the world,” Bergquist says. Bethlehem is located in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory that has been under the military occupation of Israel since 1967. Numerous checkpoints have been set up in and around the Bethlehem district to restrict Palestinian movement.
The lyrics to Henderson’s “Bethlehem” pick up lines from the traditional Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” transposing them to the present day and giving them a dark twist. Phrases like “dreamless sleep” and “silent stars,” which in the original carol connote inexpectant slumber and a hushed nighttime idyll, in their new context allude to the nightmare of occupation (unjust arrests and imprisonments, shootings, house demolitions, impoverishment, impeded access to essential services like water and hospitals) and the seeming silence of God. The second verse highlights the Holy Family’s vulnerable status after Herod deployed troops to exterminate Jesus in an attempt to protect his own power.
The refrain, “Be still tonight, be still,” is a prayer for the cessation of violence in the land of Jesus’s birth.
Withdrawing from Kyiv on April 2, 2022, after a lost battle, Russian troops left destruction in their wake. A bullet-riddled car with a flat tire sits abandoned, along with a doll, on the bridge crossing into Irpin, Ukraine. Photo: Franco Fafasuli.
The Russo-Ukrainian war is now in its twelfth year, and it’s been almost four years since Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. The devastation is staggering. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to live in a war zone, with bombs, missiles, and gunfire an ever-present threat, part of the everyday background noise. While many photographs have documented the wider destruction and human losses in Ukraine, I was struck by this one by the young Argentine journalist Franco Fafasuli, which focuses not on leveled buildings or intimate griefs but on possessions left behind in the chaos of war: a car, now dotted with dozens of bullet holes, and a plastic-headed baby doll, now covered in grime.
As I reflect on Christ’s coming this Advent season, I think of how he came as a vulnerable child, into a world where people deliberately hurt and kill other people. Then, it was with swords, daggers, spears, arrows, and stones; now we’ve added all manner of firearms and large explosives to our arsenal. That innocent, bald little babe sitting by a deflated tire, suggesting a family with child having suddenly fled their hometown—it looks at me with the eyes of Christ, wondering why we continue to harm each other, but smiling, too, a smile of divine grace. He’s here to show us another way.
LISTEN: “О, Зійди” (Oh, Come Down) by Room for More, 2022
Вся земля cхилилася Втомлена від боротьби Зітхаємо у марноті Бо втратили ми Твій дотик
Заспів: О, зійди! Спасе відроди. Зійди!
Небеса далекі нам Власний шлях обрали ми Вся земля чекає на Спасителя, на мир і спокій
Заспів: О, прийди! Царю милості, прийди! Освіти! Всім хто в темноті, світи
Небеса схиляються Являють нам святе Дитя Земле вся, заспівай Правдивий Цар, Бог наш з нами
Заспів: О, радій! Спас Месія нам родивсь! О, вклонись! Царю всіх царів, вклонись!
Бридж: Підіймай опущені руки Потішай тих хто відчаєм скуті Відкриває Син нову Надію, силу й повноту
Заспів: О, радій! Спас Месія нам родивсь! О, прийми! Це рятунок твій, прийми!
The whole earth bows down Weary of the struggle We sigh in vain For we have lost your touch
Refrain: Oh, come down! Savior, revive Come down!
The heavens are far from us We have chosen our own path The whole earth awaits The Savior, peace and tranquility
Refrain: Oh, come! King of mercy, come! Enlighten! Onto all who are in darkness, shine
The heavens bow down Show us the holy Child All the earth, sing The true King, our God is with us
Refrain: Oh, rejoice! The Messiah is born to us! Oh, bow down! He’s the King of all kings, bow down!
Bridge: Lift up your hands that hang down Comfort those who are bound by despair The Son reveals a new Hope, strength, and fullness
Refrain: Oh, rejoice! The Messiah is born to us! Oh, accept! This is your salvation, accept!
The lead singer on “О, Зійди” (Oh, Come Down) is Yaryna Vyslotska. The song was written by Jonathan (Jon) Markey, an American-born minister and musician who grew up as a missionary kid in Ukraine and since 2008 has been a pastor at Calvary Chapel in Ternopil. In 2017 he and his wife Stephanie (Steffie) founded the Ukrainian Christian music collective Room for More.
At Christmas, we celebrate how light entered into darkness. But first, Advent bids us to pause and look, with complete honesty, at the darkness. Advent asks us to name what is dark in the world and in our own lives and to invite the light of Christ into each shadowy corner. To practice Advent is to lean into a cosmic ache: our deep, wordless desire for things to be made right. We dwell in a world shrouded in sin, conflict, violence, and oppression. . . .
Before the delight of Christmas, Advent invites us to a vulnerable place—a place of individual and communal confession where we honestly name unjust systems, cultural decay, sorrow, the sin of the world, and the sin in our own lives. Only by dwelling in that vulnerable place can we learn to profess true hope. Not cheap hope, spun from falsehoods, half-truths, or denial, but a hope offered by the very light that darkness cannot overcome.
Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
—Matthew 24:42 (KJV)
LOOK: Quote-Unquote, Hyphen, and The Point of Intersection by Kay Sage
There’s a wistful quality to the paintings of the midcentury American surrealist artist Kay Sage [previously], which often feature tenuous, draped structures and a distant light in the vast dark. The first work of hers I saw in person was Quote-Unquote, which shows a ragged, exposed architectonic form—is it fallen into disrepair, or incomplete?—whose vertical wood beams pierce the dreary gray sky.
The museum label at the Wadsworth Atheneum reads in part: “Sage’s later paintings featured vertical architectural structures, such as walls and scaffolding, set in otherwise deserted landscapes. These inanimate forms were often draped with plain fabric, as if to suggest a human presence or absence.” The title Quote-Unquote provides little interpretive help. What is being quoted here? Is irony intended?
Painted the same decade, Sage’s Hyphen shows a towering structure of open doors and windows.
And ThePoint of Intersection shows a series of wooden boards and frames standing, slightly diagonal to the viewer, on a ground that recedes into infinity. In the bottom left corner a rumpled sheet or garment lies on a squat platform.
Is the “intersection” of the title between time and eternity, or . . . ?
LISTEN: “Not Knowing When the Dawn Will Come” | Words by Emily Dickinson, ca. 1884 | Music by Jan Van Outryve, 2018 | Performed by Naomi Beeldens (voice) and Jeroen Malaise (piano) on Elysium, Emily Dickinson Project, 2018
Not knowing when the Dawn will come, I open every Door, Or has it Feathers, like a Bird, Or Billows, like a Shore –
This is one of twelve musical settings of Dickinson poems for piano and voice by the Belgian composer Jan Van Outryve. It’s sung by soprano Naomi Beeldens, with Jeroen Malaise on keys.
I’ve always read “Not knowing” as an Advent poem, as promoting a posture of readiness for the coming of Christ—he who is, as we call out in the O Antiphons of late Advent, our Oriens, Rising Sun, Dayspring. Will he come softly, rustling, avian-like, or will he come crashing onto earth’s shore like a wave?
Expecting Dawn’s imminent arrival, the speaker of the poem opens every door, welcoming its light.
From Augustine (Confessions) to Teresa of Ávila (The Interior Castle), the picture-making nunsof St. Walburga’s Abbey in Eichstätt to C. S. Lewis (Mere Christianity), the human heart has long been compared to a house. To open the windows or doors of the heart to Christ is to invite him to come in and dwell there and to transform the place.
Advent commemorates threecomings of Christ: his coming in “history, mystery, and majesty,” as one priest put it. That is, Christ’s coming (1) as a babe in Bethlehem, (2) in the Spirit, to convert, illuminate, equip, and console, and in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, and (3) at the end of time.
Have you opened every door to him? Do you eagerly expect him to arrive—this Christmas (are you telling, singing, enacting the story of his nativity?); into your struggles and brokenness, to companion you and to heal and strengthen; and again on earth, to unite it with heaven and establish, fully and finally, his universal reign?
This is the first post in a daily Advent and Christmastide series that will extend to January 6.I hope you follow along!
As important as she is in the Christian tradition, the Bible doesn’t give us a whole lot of details about the life of Mary, especially prior to her conception of Jesus. To give her a backstory and fill in some gaps, the Protoevangelium of James (aka the Gospel of James) was written in the second century, probably in Syria. The author purports to be the apostle James, the brother of Jesus (by an earlier marriage of Joseph’s, according to the text), but the actual author is unknown. While parts of it are based on the canonical Gospels of Matthew and Luke, most of the material is legendary, developed to satisfy people’s curiosity about Jesus’s parentage and some of the events of his infancy.
The Protoevangelium of James was, and remains, immensely popular in Eastern Christianity, having been translated early on from its original Greek into Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Armenian, and Arabic. On how the Orthodox Church views the text today, I found this Reddit thread interesting.
A later version of it, with additions and modifications, emerged in Latin by the seventh century under the name the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew (aka the Infancy Gospel of Matthew), popularizing its stories in the West.
None of the three branches of Christianity regards these gospels as scripture—the Gelasian Decree of circa 495 officially classified the Protoevangelium as apocryphal, meaning not inspired or authoritative—but nonetheless, they have heavily influenced (in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) Christian art and Mariology.
Trying to interpret Christian artworks depicting unfamiliar scenes or details is how I first brushed up against the Protoevangelium of James and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew.
One such scene, which is rare but sometimes appears between images of the Visitation (or the Annunciation to Mary, or the First Dream of Joseph) and the Journey to Bethlehem, is of Mary standing before a priest, holding a cup. This, I learned, depicts the so-called trial by bitter water, or sotah ritual, an ancient Hebrew method for dealing judicially with women who were suspected of adultery. Outlined in Numbers 5:11–31, in this ritual, a suspicious husband was to bring his wife to the tabernacle to subject her to a trial by ordeal. After receiving a grain offering from the husband, the priest would mix a concoction of holy water, dust from the tabernacle floor, and curses scraped off from the parchment they were written on. The wife would be compelled to swear her innocence and then drink the cup. If she was guilty of marital unfaithfulness, she would suffer painful reproductive affliction;1 but if not, she would be unharmed and thus exonerated.
Trial by ordeal was a common legal recourse in patriarchal cultures across the ancient Near East, reflecting distrust of women’s sexuality and reinforcing husbands’ domination over their wives. That it was a sanctioned practice in the Old Testament is troubling, to say the least—but let’s sidestep that discussion for now. Let me simply commend to you the Numbers 5 visual commentary by Maryanne Saunders (Master of Studies, History of Art, Oxford), which examines three artworks based on this passage, including a feminist Jewish one.
Fresco, 11th century, Church of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, Ateni, Georgia. (See a wider shot below.)
According to the Protoevangelium of James, sometime after the angel had appeared to Joseph convincing him of Mary’s fidelity, a Jewish scribe named Annas saw Mary’s pregnant belly and reported both her and Joseph to the priest for sexual sin, for they were not yet married. They maintained their innocence and were made to drink a potion that would have no effect if they were telling the truth but that would make them ill if they were indeed guilty. Of course, they came out scot-free. Their chastity was divinely confirmed.
This account of the Jewish ritual of sotah is unique in that (1) it is initiated by a third party, and (2) the male partner is also accused and made to drink the potential curse. Traditionally, the ritual could be initiated only by a husband. Scholars cite the Protoevangelium author’s apparent unfamiliarity with Jewish practices—this and others—as evidence that he was not Jewish (as the historical James was).
The Protoevangelium was written at a time when opponents of Christianity were decrying the virgin birth. The pagan philosopher Celsus, for example, insisted that while pledged to Joseph, Mary had an affair with the Roman soldier Panthera, and that Jesus was the illegitimate fruit of that union. The story of the trial by bitter water was an attempt to defend Mary against the charge of adultery and Jesus against the charge of ignoble origins. It also—if one believes God was indeed the moral adjudicator in the trial—corroborates the message Mary and Joseph claimed to have received separately from an angel, that Jesus was the Son of God.
I’m sharing this episode from the Protoevangelium not because I think it actually happened but so that you have more context for an image that occasionally crops up in cycles on the life of Mary. Also, perhaps its elaboration on the scandal and consequences of alleged adultery in ancient Jewish culture helps better situate us in Mary’s time and place.
Before I quote the relevant excerpt, a little further background is in order, to explain some of what’s mentioned in the dialogues. Earlier in the Protoevangelium, we read that as an expression of gratitude, Mary’s parents dedicated her to the service of God, and that she lived in the temple in Jerusalem from age three until puberty, where she was fed by angels. When her first menstruation loomed, the priests consulted on what to do with her, lest she defile the temple with her blood. They decided to give her over to the care of Joseph, an elderly widower with grown children.
OK, so now, here are chapters 15 and 16 of the Protoevangelium of James, as translated by Alexander Walker, courtesy of New Advent (I’ve added paragraph breaks):
15. And Annas the scribe came to him [Joseph], and said: “Why have you not appeared in our assembly?”
And Joseph said to him: “Because I was weary from my journey, and rested the first day.”
And he [Annas] turned, and saw that Mary was with child. And he ran away to the priest, and said to him: “Joseph, whom you vouched for, has committed a grievous crime.”
And the priest said: “How so?”
And he said: “He has defiled the virgin whom he received out of the temple of the Lord, and has married her by stealth, and has not revealed it to the sons of Israel.”
And the priest answering, said: “Has Joseph done this?”
Then said Annas the scribe: “Send officers, and you will find the virgin with child.” And the officers went away, and found it as he had said; and they brought her along with Joseph to the tribunal.
And the priest said: “Mary, why have you done this? And why have you brought your soul low, and forgotten the Lord your God? You that wast reared in the holy of holies, and that received food from the hand of an angel, and heard the hymns, and danced before Him, why have you done this?”
And she wept bitterly, saying: “As the Lord my God lives, I am pure before Him, and know not a man.”
And the priest said to Joseph: “Why have you done this?”
And Joseph said: “As the Lord lives, I am pure concerning her.”
Then said the priest: “Bear not false witness, but speak the truth. You have married her by stealth, and hast not revealed it to the sons of Israel, and hast not bowed your head under the strong hand, that your seed might be blessed.” And Joseph was silent.
16. And the priest said: “Give up the virgin whom you received out of the temple of the Lord.” And Joseph burst into tears. And the priest said: “I will give you to drink of the water of the ordeal of the Lord, and He shall make manifest your sins in your eyes.”
And the priest took the water, and gave Joseph to drink and sent him away to the hill-country; and he returned unhurt. And he gave to Mary also to drink, and sent her away to the hill-country; and she returned unhurt. And all the people wondered that sin did not appear in them.
And the priest said: “If the Lord God has not made manifest your sins, neither do I judge you.” And he sent them away.
And Joseph took Mary, and went away to his own house, rejoicing and glorifying the God of Israel.
Here’s how that episode is adapted in chapter 12 of the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew—again, translated by Walker, and in the public domain:
After these things [the angelic announcements to Mary and Joseph] there arose a great report that Mary was with child. And Joseph was seized by the officers of the temple, and brought along with Mary to the high priest. And he with the priests began to reproach him, and to say: “Why have you beguiled so great and so glorious a virgin, who was fed like a dove in the temple by the angels of God, who never wished either to see or to have a man, who had the most excellent knowledge of the law of God? If you had not done violence to her, she would still have remained in her virginity.”
And Joseph vowed, and swore that he had never touched her at all.
And Abiathar the high priest answered him: “As the Lord lives, I will give you to drink of the water of drinking of the Lord, and immediately your sin will appear.”
Then was assembled a multitude of people which could not be numbered, and Mary was brought to the temple. And the priests, and her relatives, and her parents wept, and said to Mary: “Confess to the priests your sin, you that wast like a dove in the temple of God, and received food from the hands of an angel.”
And again Joseph was summoned to the altar, and the water of drinking of the Lord was given him to drink. And when anyone that had lied drank this water, and walked seven times round the altar, God used to show some sign in his face. When, therefore, Joseph had drunk in safety, and had walked round the altar seven times, no sign of sin appeared in him. Then all the priests, and the officers, and the people justified him, saying: “Blessed are you, seeing that no charge has been found good against you.”
And they summoned Mary, and said: “And what excuse can you have? Or what greater sign can appear in you than the conception of your womb, which betrays you? This only we require of you, that since Joseph is pure regarding you, you confess who it is that has beguiled you. For it is better that your confession should betray you, than that the wrath of God should set a mark on your face, and expose you in the midst of the people.”
Then Mary said, steadfastly and without trembling: “O Lord God, King over all, who know all secrets, if there be any pollution in me, or any sin, or any evil desires, or unchastity, expose me in the sight of all the people, and make me an example of punishment to all.” Thus saying, she went up to the altar of the Lord boldly, and drank the water of drinking, and walked round the altar seven times, and no spot was found in her.
And when all the people were in the utmost astonishment, seeing that she was with child, and that no sign had appeared in her face, they began to be disturbed among themselves by conflicting statements: some said that she was holy and unspotted, others that she was wicked and defiled.
Then Mary, seeing that she was still suspected by the people, and that on that account she did not seem to them to be wholly cleared, said in the hearing of all, with a loud voice, “As the Lord Adonai lives, the Lord of Hosts before whom I stand, I have not known man; but I am known by Him to whom from my earliest years I have devoted myself. And this vow I made to my God from my infancy, that I should remain unspotted in Him who created me, and I trust that I shall so live to Him alone, and serve Him alone; and in Him, as long as I shall live, will I remain unpolluted.”
Then they all began to kiss her feet and to embrace her knees, asking her to pardon them for their wicked suspicions. And she was led down to her house with exultation and joy by the people, and the priests, and all the virgins. And they cried out, and said: “Blessed be the name of the Lord forever, because He has manifested your holiness to all His people Israel.”
Some of the differences from the Protoevangelium of James are:
Mary and Joseph’s accusers are a group of unnamed religious officials rather than the scribe Annas.
It’s specified that Mary and Joseph are brought before the high priest, and he’s named Abiathar. (In the Protoevangelium, the high priest, from the time of Mary’s presentation in the temple as a child to just after the birth of Christ, is Zechariah, Elizabeth’s husband.)
The sotah ritual involves the accused circling the altar seven times rather than going away to the hill country and returning.
Most notably, Mary vows to remain celibate for life. This passage lent power to (or derived power from?) the developing doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity—considered dogma by the Roman Catholic Church, as formally declared at the Lateran Council of 649, and taught, too, by the Eastern Orthodox Church, who accept the title “ever-virgin” for Mary, as recognized at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553.
One of the earliest known appearances of the trial by bitter water in visual art is on one of the twenty-seven surviving ivory plaques set into the cathedra (episcopal throne) of Archbishop Maximian of Ravenna.
Throne of Maximian (detail), Constantinople or Alexandria, ca. 545–53. Ivory. Archiepiscopal Museum, Ravenna, Italy. [view full throne]
Standing at the right, Mary holds a vessel in one hand and a skein of wool in the other. (The Protoevangelium says she was among the young women who wove a new veil for the holy of holies.) Joseph stands across from her with a staff in hand, and behind her stands an angel, indicating divine intervention to determine guilt or innocence.
Around the same time, the trial by bitter water appeared in another ivory made in the Eastern Mediterranean—possibly Syria.
Detail of an ivory band depicting the Trial by Bitter Water, Eastern Mediterranean (Syria?), 550–600. Musée du Louvre, OA 11149. [view full artwork]
And in a sequence of Marian scenes on a carved ivory Gospel-book cover from France.
Ivory panel from the back cover of the Lupicin Gospels, France, 6th century. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. [view full cover]
The scene is found painted inside several of the cave churches of Cappadocia from the ninth through eleventh centuries, including St. Eustathios, Tokalı (see below), Kılıçlar, Bahattin Samanlığı, Aynalı, Eğritaş, and Pürenli Seki, as the art historian Yıldız Ötüken has pointed out.
In Old and “New” Tokalı Kilise (Buckle Church), the latter built as an extension forty years after the original, Joseph drinks the bitter water as well as Mary, as the apocryphal gospels state but which is rarely shown.
Fresco, ca. 920, south wall, Old Tokalı Kilise (Buckle Church), Göreme Open Air Museum, Cappadocia, Turkey [view wider shot]Fresco, ca. 960, New Tokalı Kilise (Buckle Church), Göreme Open Air Museum, Cappadocia, Turkey
So, too, at Çavuşin Church:
Fresco, mid-10th century, Çavuşin Church, Göreme National Park, Cappadocia, Turkey [view wider shot]
But not at Pancarlik Church:
Fresco, 11th century, Pancarlik Church, Cappadocia, Turkey [view wider shot]
The trial by bitter water also appears elsewhere in the Balkans, such as in Georgia and North Macedonia.
Fresco, 11th century, Church of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, Ateni, GeorgiaI’m not able to confirm, but blogger Marina Golubina says this is a 13th-century fresco from Sušica (near Skopje) in North Macedonia.Michael Astrapa and Eutychius, Joseph’s Reproach, the Trial by Bitter Water, and Joseph’s Dream, 1295. Fresco, north wall, Church of the Virgin Mary Peribleptos, Ohrid, North Macedonia.Fresco, 1330, Church of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, Kucevište, North Macedonia
In that second image in the above grouping, Mary is accompanied to the temple by her five (four?) virgin companions, named in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew as Rebecca, Sephora, Susanna, Abigea, and Cael.
Due to overlapping content, the Protoevangelium of James is illustrated in detail in the twelfth-century manuscript Six Homilies on the Life of the Virgin by James of Kokkinobaphos, which was made by a prominent atelier in Constantinople and is held at the Vatican Library. The trial by bitter water is divided into two separate scenes: one of Joseph drinking the cup and being escorted up the mountain, and one of Mary doing the same.
Joseph drinks the cup from Zechariah, Constantinople, first half of 12th century. From a manuscript of the Six Homilies on the Life of the Virgin by James of Kokkinobaphos. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 1162, fol. 184r. [object record]Mary drinks the cup from Zechariah, Constantinople, first half of 12th century. From a manuscript of the Six Homilies on the Life of the Virgin by James of Kokkinobaphos. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 1162, fol. 188r. [object record]
Other scenes in the sequence portray Joseph’s dream, Joseph consulting with his sons, Joseph apologizing to Mary, Annas the scribe confronting Joseph and the pregnant Mary, Annas reporting the couple to the high priest Zechariah, Mary and Joseph being brought to the temple, Zechariah talking with Joseph, Zechariah talking with Mary, and after the drink, Mary returning unharmed and Zechariah proclaiming her innocence, and then Mary, Joseph, and Joseph’s sons leaving Jerusalem.
On occasion, the trial by bitter water appears in Russian icons, such as on the walls of St. Sophia Cathedral in Vologda.
Fresco, 1685–87, St. Sophia Cathedral, Vologda, Russia
I first encountered it, though, in my studies of Ethiopian art, where it appears in a handful of illuminated manuscripts.
The Trial by Bitter Water, from an Ethiopian Gospel-book, late 14th–early 15th century. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.Painting from a Miracles of Mary manuscript, Ethiopia, probably 18th century. Dimā Giyorgis Monastery, Goğğām Province, Ethiopia. Shelfmark: G2-IV-2.
The trial by bitter water is almost nonexistent in Western art. One exception is a fresco inside the Church of Santa Maria foris portas (Church of St. Mary Outside the Gates) in Castelseprio, Italy. All the frescoes there, which are some of the most sophisticated and expressive to have survived from the early medieval period, exhibit a strong Byzantine influence.
Fresco, first half of 9th century, Church of Santa Maria foris portas (Church of St. Mary Outside the Gates), Castelseprio, Italy. Photo: Francesco Bini.
A mosaic at the Basilica of San Marco (Saint Mark’s) in Venice could easily be mistaken for the trial by bitter water, as Mary appears to be taking in hand the same pitcher with which she draws water from the well in the adjacent Annunciation scene.
The Annunciation at the Spring and the Handing Over of Purple to Mary, detail of transept mosaic in the Basilica of San Marco, Venice, 12th century
But the Latin inscription, Quo tingat vela paravit, indicates that the priest is handing Mary a vase of dye. This is another reference to the Protoevangelium: Chapter 10 says that after her betrothal to Joseph but before their marriage, Mary was one of seven virgins from the house of David selected by a council of priests to remake the temple veil (presumably to replace the old worn one). By lot, she was chosen to spin and weave the scarlet and purple.
Other comparable images, such as the mosaic at the former Chora Church (now Kariye Mosque) in Istanbul, show the priest handing Mary a skein of wool instead.
According to the Protoevangelium, Mary was spinning wool for this project when she was interrupted by the angel Gabriel with news of an even greater task she had been chosen for.
Those who disbelieved her about how her pregnancy came to be insisted she be brought to the temple for a trial by bitter water. Sometimes in image cycles on the life of Mary, such as the one on the Carolingian-era Werden Casket, she is shown on her way to the trial rather than at it, being led to the temple by an angel, priest, or moral police to verify her account before God.
When Christians claim that the Bible opposes abortion, some people point to Numbers 5:11–31 as a counterexample, since, for the woman who has conceived a child out of wedlock, the “bitter water” is essentially an abortifacient; “if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has had intercourse with you, . . . now may this water that brings the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop!” the priest pronounces (Num. 5:20, 22 NRSV). There’s ambiguity in the Hebrew text as to whether this curse involves loss of a fetus or only infertility. ↩︎
BLOG SERIES: Three excellent, brief musings on the season of Advent by W. David O. Taylor, published last year on his blog:
“Advent is for singing not-Christmas songs”: “This is, of course, easier said than done. Hymnals fail to supply a decent list of options and congregants often clamor for the ‘traditional’ carols, the songs of triumphant appearance and glorious coming. Yet this insistence fights against the dominant concern of the Gospels. Luke especially spends the bulk of his story anticipating Christ’s birth rather than narrating his arrival. The dramatic tension lies in what’s to come—not in what’s happened already . . .”
“Advent is about the goodness of divine interruptions”: “The entire story of Advent is a story of interruptions. . . . May we, like the actors in God’s divine nativity drama, have eyes to see and hearts to welcome his interrupting work in our lives. May we trust that he wills our deepest good in these interruptions. May we be blessed in our trust in him.”
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ESSAY: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel: Dark Good News” by Linda Gregerson, Image: Poet Linda Gregerson reflects, in prose, on the quintessential Advent hymn, which dates back to the Middle Ages. She grew up singing it in her Methodist church every December. “It’s ironic, really—it quite betrays me—to realize that I must have loved this hymn for its whiff of the monastery: chalice and incense smuggled in by way of the minor chord. There’s a moment, a breathtaking moment, when the meter defies expectation. Everything has been steady-as-you-go, four-four time, all quarter notes and dotted halves. But during that remarkable refrain, just when you expect to dwell on the last syllable of the holy name for a count of three, as every verse before this has prepared you to do, the hymn leaps forward and anticipates itself by half a measure. No breath, no stately pause: Emmanuel / Shall come to thee, as though rushing to arrival. Those missed beats never fail to stop my heart.”
I didn’t know what Gregerson was talking about until I looked up the notation in TheUnited Methodist Hymnal no. 211, and sure enough, in measure 15 there are two extra beats. In all the other hymnals I have (and all the recordings of the song I’ve heard), that measure is divided into two and the regular meter sustained, with “el” held out for three beats. Interesting! It does feel unnatural to me to sing it the way she suggests, but she offers a compelling theological reason for why the arranger made that decision.
This is the standard way (as far as I’m concerned) of singing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Sheet music excerpt from Majesty Hymns, the hymnal of my youth.Sheet music excerpt from The United Methodist Hymnal, showing the unusual (but significant, Gregerson claims) shift from 4/4 meter to 6/4 in one of the measures of the refrain
Here’s an example of a congregation (First United Methodist Houston) singing the refrain the way Gregerson so fondly remembers:
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NEW BOOKS:
>> The Art of Living in Advent: 28 Days of Joyful Waiting by Sylvie Vanhoozer: A retired French teacher and a botanical artist, Sylvie Vanhoozer was born and grew up in Provence and now lives in Illinois with her husband, the theologian Kevin Vanhoozer. In this little illustrated book, she introduces readers to the tradition of Provençal crèches, localized nativity scenes populated by santons (“little saints”). Made from the land’s clay, the santons resemble nineteenth-century villagers, who offer up gifts from their vocations—olives, bread, wine, wood, sheep, hurdy-gurdy music, herbal remedies. (Reminds me of the presepe from southern Italy that I encountered some years ago!) The crèches are also traditionally decorated with native vegetation, such as thyme, juniper, lavender, and rosemary, freshly harvested on the first weekend of Advent. This is one of the ways in which Provençals embrace Christ’s presence in their own time and place.
“I am not inviting readers to leave their place and go to some distant land in a distant past,” Vanhoozer writes. “The invitation is rather to transpose this Provençal scene into one’s own place, to live the same story in a different context. . . . The question is not ‘Did Jesus really come to Provence?’ but rather ‘Could Jesus really come here, to me?’ Could my home, my neighborhood, my church, become a crèche scene, with Christ right here beside me, in me?”
I think this book would have worked better as a literary essay, as it feels padded out to make its ninety-page count, with redundancies and somewhat arbitrary divisions. But I love how Vanhoozer draws us into this cherished and still-living tradition from her childhood and calls us to see and participate in the story of God’s coming where we live, in all its particularities.
>> Advent: 24 Kunstwerke zur Bibel aus aller Welt by Christian Weber: Rev. Dr. Christian Weber [previously] is the director of studies for Mission 21, an international mission agency of the Protestant Reformed Churches in Switzerland. His work brings him into contact with religious art from diverse parts of the globe. I’m delighted by this new (German-language) book of his, whose title translates to Advent: 24 Bible-Inspired Artworks from Around the World. Organized into four parts (“Words of Prophecy,” “Parables of Jesus,” “John the Baptist,” and “Mary”) and printed in full color, the book features twenty-four primary artworks (plus some supplementary) from twenty-two countries, providing background on and interpretations of each, as well as information about the artists and a bibliography.
Sample page spread from Advent: 24 Kunstwerke zur Bibel aus aller Welt, showing a woodcut by the Ghanaian artist Kwabena (Emmanuel) Addo-Osafo
A church mural from Zimbabwe, a kalamkari from South India, a gourd carving from Peru, a manuscript illumination from Armenia—these are among the artworks Weber highlights. Some of the works are of higher quality than others, but the emphasis is on how the scripture texts of the Advent season have prompted artistic responses in a variety of places outside Europe, which is the continent that has most shaped the popular imagination when it comes to the biblical story. Weber’s Advent encourages us to widen those imaginations. Despite my fifteen or so years spent researching global Christian art, Weber is always bringing new artists to my attention! You can view sample pages from the book on the publisher’s website.
The cover image is a detail of For Those in Darkness by the American artist Lauren Wright Pittman.
Weber is looking for a North American publisher to release an English-language edition of the book.
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ARTICLE/VIDEO: “Five Films to Help You Observe Advent” by Abby Olcese, Think Christian: Abby Olcese, author of Films for All Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies, provides five movie suggestions for Advent, corresponding to the themes of Hope, Faith, Joy, Peace, and Christ. (Other churches and families, like mine, substitute “Faith” with “Love” on their Advent wreaths; Olcese’s fifth pick, for Christmas Eve, would fit the “Love” theme perfectly, but see also my suggestion below.) You can read the content as an article or watch it in video format, which includes a few film clips:
ALSO: Allow me to add one of my own suggestions: American Symphony, a 2023 documentary about musical artist Jon Batiste, whose meteoric rise to fame coincided with the return of his partner Suleika Jaouad’s leukemia. Directed by Matthew Heineman, the film follows a year in the life of the married couple, as Batiste prepared for the premiere of his boundary-breaking American Symphony composition at Carnegie Hall in September 2022 while Jaouad endured chemotherapy. It has a very Advent-y feel, by which I mean its calling on God in the darkness (Batiste is a devout Christian) and its orientation around faith, hope, and love. It’s a beautiful, intimate portrait of a marriage, of creativity, courage, and care.
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ART: Advent Wreath by Beach4Art: Beach4Art is a family of four who create beach art inspired by beautiful nature in Devon, UK. (Follow them on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, and see their Etsy shop.) Below are some photos of the Advent wreath they made out of twigs, stones, and shellson Sandymere beach for the first Sunday of Advent in 2023.
Standing at the threshold of another Advent, we hear the invitation of Christ: ‘Come away to a deserted place and rest a while.’ And so we begin our season of growth and expectation—a time to secret ourselves with Mary, to join our hearts with hers, and to grow pregnant with God together. God invites us to a quiet place of reflection and bounty. This Advent, choose some time for silence. Make space within yourself to grow large with the abundance of God’s favor. Make this a time to fill your lungs deeply with God so that you can breathe Christ into the world.
Waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
Want to receive a daily pairing of art and music in your inbox during this Advent and Christmas season? Sign up here. (If you already subscribe to the blog, you’re all set.) Posts will run from November 29, the day before the first Sunday of Advent, to Epiphany on January 6. I have also planned a few poems and roundups to go out during that time.
Advent is my favorite season of the church year because it taps into the deep yearning I feel for this world to be set right, for God’s beauty to burst into it with an irrefutable finality—no more sin, no more sorrow. The season is a chance to practice hope, something I sometimes struggle with, as I tend to lean more cynical.
The readings, art, and music of Advent sweep me up into the grand narrative of scripture, attuning me to the ways God has always been coming to us, but fixing me especially on how in Bethlehem of Judea, he came in a very special way—as a human being—and nurturing my excitement for his imminent return to earth to wed it to heaven.
Advent themes include:
Lament and longing
Hope, peace, joy, love
Promise
John the Baptist, especially his call to repentance in preparation for the coming kingdom
The second coming of Christ (individual judgment, cosmic renewal)
The parable of the ten bridesmaids
The new heavens and the new earth
Isaiah’s messianic prophecies: a virgin conceiving, swords into plowshares, a peaceable kingdom, a great light shining on a people in darkness, a flowering branch from the root of Jesse, etc.
Pregnancy
Mary’s song
God with us
Based on these, I’ve curated dozens of visual and musical selections that I hope will make God’s story come alive to you in fresh ways. A thread installation, a soil-based performance, quilted detritus, a photograph from a war zone, confetti skies, stained glass oracles, a sixth-century apsidal mosaic from a Roman basilica, a medieval German New Year’s greeting by and for nuns, a Jemez Pueblo nativity in clay, a site-specific dance before a mural in Atlanta . . . these are some of the artworks that will be featured.
As for music, you’ll hear a classical setting of an Emily Dickinson poem, an adaptation of Psalm 27 by a Ugandan worship collective, a contemporary “Mass for Peace,” a Latin American song of the Annunciation, a dialogue between Mary and the infant Christ from Renaissance England, a responsory by the medieval polymath Hildegard of Bingen, offerings from many different singer-songwriters, and more.
Many of the songs will be drawn from my Advent playlist on Spotify, which I first published in 2020 but have been adding to each year:
If you know of anyone else who might be interested in an arts-based approach to Advent and Christmas devotions, please share with them the link to this post. You can peruse previous years’ entries to get a flavor:
I’m looking forward to sharing what I’ve curated for the start of this new liturgical year, as time unfolds across four hallowed weeks of expectant waiting and then Twelve Days of festivity and wonder.
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Art & Theology 