LOOK: Isaiah’s Vision of Eternal Peace by Mordecai Ardon
Mordecai Ardon (Israeli, 1896–1992) (designer) and Charles Marq (French, 1923–2006) (fabricator), Isaiah’s Vision of Eternal Peace, 1982–84. Stained glass, 6.5 × 17 m. Old National Library of Israel building, Givat Ram campus, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Photo: Hanan Cohen.
Born in 1896 to a Jewish family in the village of Tuchów in what is today Poland, Mordecai Ardon studied art in Germany under Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he moved to Jerusalem, becoming a teacher in 1935 at Palestine’s chief art academy, the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, which he directed from 1940 to 1952. Known for their vibrant tones and stirring rhythms, Ardon’s paintings often explore the connections between the visible and the invisible and reflect his interest in mysticism and antiquity.
From 1982 to 1984 Ardon carried out a commission by the National Jewish University and Library (now the National Library of Israel) in Jerusalem to develop a monumental triptych of stained glass. His painted designs were translated into the medium of stained glass by the French master glazier Charles Marq, a frequent collaborator of Marc Chagall’s. The result is titled Isaiah’s Vision of Eternal Peace.
The left panel illustrates Isaiah 2:2–3:
In days to come the mountain of the LORD’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”
Winding like roads, the white bands contain the boldfaced line in various languages—I can detect English, Russian, Polish, Arabic, Latin, and French—representing the peoples of the world streaming to Jerusalem.
The center panel depicts a merging of the earthly and heavenly Jerusalems. At the bottom stand the city walls, made up of the seventeen sheets of parchment that comprise the Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran, dating to around 100 BCE. Floating above are Kabbalistic symbols, including the Tree of the Sefirot, signifying the Divine Presence. There are also several Hebrew texts from Jewish history that I can’t identify.
The right panel visualizes the fulfillment of Isaiah 2:4: “. . . they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.” All the machinery of war—tanks and fighter jets, guns and bullets—lies in a garbage heap at the base, and shovels emerge overhead as the weapons are transformed into farming tools.
This glasswork covers an entire wall of the old National Library of Israel building on the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University. The library moved into a new building in October 2023, situated between the Knesset and the Israel Museum in the heart of Jerusalem. But Ardon’s window remains in its original building at HUJI, which has become a multipurpose space.
LISTEN: “Lo Yisa Goy (Study War No More)”(ֹא יִשָּׂא גוֹי)|Traditional Jewish folk song, arr. Linda Hirschhorn and Fran Avni | Performed by Vocolot, on Behold! (1998)
(Transliteration: Lo yisa goy el goy cherev Lo yilmadu od milchama)
(Translation: Nation will not take up sword against nation Nor will they train for war anymore)
And into plowshares [they’ll] beat their swords Nations shall learn war no more
The lyrics of this traditional Jewish antiwar song come from the original Hebrew of Isaiah 2:4, a text held sacred by both Jews and Christians. The song looks with prayerful hope toward the day when global peace will be a reality.
If this is the glorious end state to which we all are headed, the future that God has envisioned and charted for us, then why do we participate in violence now? When governments try to control people through violence, and those people respond with violence, that response only provokes violent retaliation, and so the cycle continues on and on—militancy and death. The line between aggressor and defender becomes blurred. We’ll never get closer to the Isaiah 2 ideal by asserting ourselves with weapons.
May the people of God be a people who refuse violence even when the state commands it, even when we’ve been hit tremendously hard and the urge for payback is intense. May we not become what we fear, inflicting terror because we have been terrorized. And may God bring peace and healing to people and nations who have been victims of war; so too perpetrators of war. To those just trying to survive and be free in this fallen world as best they know how.
The first chapter of Isaiah, which precedes the famous “swords into plowshares” chapter, contains this word from the Lord to his people:
When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my face from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves clean, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
—Isaiah 1:15–17
So let us renounce our vindictiveness and “wash ourselves clean.” And then let us sing this song (1) as a prayer that the Messiah, whom Christians recognize to be Jesus of Nazareth, would come to actualize this beautiful vision of peace, but (2) also as a pledge, committing ourselves to the path of life—to, in the words of the apostle Paul, “overcom[ing] evil with good” (Rom. 12:21).
I like Vocolot’s “Lo Yisa Goy” arrangement best; it has a celebratory mood, as if the coming peace is in sight. But what follows is a handful of others that carry more of a lamentful tone, which is also appropriate as we consider the persistence of war and how short we fall of God’s plan for human flourishing that’s never at the expense of others.
For harp and voice by Estela Ceregatti of Brazil, 2020:
A cappella by the American Midwest female vocal trio Rock Paper Scissors, 2010:
For strings, by La Roche Quartett from Germany, 2018:
A virtual choir under the direction of Andrea Salvemini, 2020:
The last performance employs an increasing number of instruments as the song progresses: guitar, recorder, keyboard, cello, percussion, and accordion. It also includes steps to an Israeli circle dance performed by participants in isolation because this was during the days of COVID quarantines; elsewhere online you can find communal performances where the circle is closed.
Some versions add these two lines as a verse, adapted from Micah 4:4:
And every man ’neath his vine and fig tree Shall live in peace and unafraid
>> “Peace on Earth” by U2: “Heaven on earth—we need it now. I’m sick of all this hanging around. Sick of the sorrow, sick of the pain . . .” U2’s “Peace on Earth” was inspired by the Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland on August 15, 1998. It first appeared on their 2000 album All That You Can’t Leave Behind, but I prefer the stripped-down acoustic version they recorded last year on Songs of Surrender.
The song wrestles with the tension between the angels’ proclamation of peace in Luke 2 and the course of history ever since, riddled, as before, with violence. “Hope and history won’t rhyme,” the lyrics lament—they’re just not matching up. “Peace on earth” feels naive; the words sometimes stick in our throats. The refrain addresses Christ: “Jesus, can you take the time / To throw a drowning man a line?” In its emotional honesty and its asks, it resembles a biblical psalm. (Bono has in fact spoken about how the Psalms have influenced his songwriting.)
When U2 performed “Peace on Earth” live at Sphere Las Vegas this February, Bono substituted the names of five Irish casualties of the Troubles listed in one of the verses with the names of four Palestinian and Israeli children who have been killed in the current Israel-Hamas War: Gal, Ayat, Hind, and Mila.
>> “There Will Be a Day (Isaiah 2)” by Caroline Cobb, arr. Joel Littlepage: I cued up my favorite song from last year’s Dawning Light service at Grace Mosaic church in Washington, DC (it’s at 32:50–37:29 of the video): “There Will Be a Day” by Caroline Cobb, based on Isaiah 2. The song is from Cobb’s album A Seed, a Sunrise: Advent to Christmas Songs (2020)—it’s my favorite of all her songs, and because of its emotional and summative power, I’ve set it as the concluding track of my Advent Playlist. Joel Littlepage, Grace Mosaic’s pastor of worship and formation and the director of the Daily Prayer Project, arranged it with gospel inflections for his church’s annual Advent carols service. He’s at the keyboard; his wife, Melissa Littlepage, is the vocal soloist (she’s also the choir director); and the saxophonist is Skip Pruitt.
ARTWORK: Home (land) Birth (place) by Beth Krensky:Beth Krensky is an artist, activist, and educator of Jewish heritage who describes herself as “a gatherer of things—objects, words, spirit—and a connector of fragments to make us whole.” Her website documents many compelling artistic projects she has undertaken over the past decade. One of them, Home (land) Birth (place), is a performance from 2016 with her academic colleague Amal Kawar, a professor of political science and the author of Daughters of Palestine: Leading Women of the Palestinian National Movement.
Beth Krensky (American, 1965–), Home (land) Birth (place), a performance with Amal Kawar, 2016, Great Salt Lake, Utah. Photo: Josh Blumental.
For this piece, Krensky sewed together a truce flag from baby clothes and other white linens and attached it to two olivewood poles onto which she burned quotes from Israeli and Palestinian mothers who have lost a child to Israeli-Palestinian violence. She and Kawar held the flag aloft in the desert outside their hometown of Salt Lake City as a call for peace. Read the artist’s statement at the link above, and view additional photos of the flag here.
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DEVOTIONAL POST: “Swords Will Be Turned into Plowshares,” Center for Christianity, Culture, and the Arts at Biola University: Every year Biola University’s CCCA publishes free daily Advent and Christmas devotions online that feature an artwork, a song, a poem, and a written reflection—the work of many contributors. You can access their 2024 Advent Project here.
Last year I was particularly taken with the peace-themed compilation offered on January 2, which includes a poem by Denise Levertov, a socially conscious, participatory art project led by Pedro Reyes (more on that in next roundup item), a Sweet Honey in the Rock rendition of an African American spiritual, and a wonderful reflection by Dr. Natasha Aleksiuk Duquette, a literature professor. Check it out.
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ARTICLE: “Mexican Artist Pedro Reyes Molds 1,527 Guns into Shovels Used to Plant Trees,”Colossal: Pedro Reyes is a Mexican artist, architect, and cultural agent who seeks to turn social problems into opportunities for tangible change through works that integrate elements of theater, psychology, and activism. (I learned about him through Biola’s Advent Project, above.) In 2008, in cooperation with city authorities, he led a campaign in Culiacán, Mexico, to collect firearms, giving donors vouchers for electronic appliances in exchange. The hundreds of guns he received were publicly crushed by a steamroller, melted, and remolded into shovels, which were then distributed to public schools and other institutions who committed to planting trees with them. This project was an effort to curb local gun violence and to cultivate the collective imagination toward life.
Pedro Reyes (Mexican, 1972–), Palas por Pistolas (Guns for Shovels), 2008Artist Pedro Reyes steamrolled 1,527 surrendered guns for his Palas por Pistolas project, transforming them into shovels for planting trees.
I’m interested in exploring more of Reyes’s work, as I love what he’s doing. In 2016, as a visiting lecturer in MIT’s Art, Culture, and Technology Program, he cotaught the course “The Reverse Engineering of Warfare: Challenging Techno-optimism and Reimagining the Defense Sector (an Opera for the End of Times).” A full-color illustrated survey of his projects, Pedro Reyes: Ad Usum / To Be Used, was published by Harvard University Press in 2017.
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INSTAGRAM SERIES: “Alternative Advent 2024” by Kezia M’Clelland: Through December 24, follow the Instagram account @alternative_advent for a progressively revealed photo essay of Advent promises told through journalistic images from 2024, sourced from various news organizations. I call attention to this project every year. The woman behind it, Kezia M’Clelland, has a master’s degree in violence, conflict, and development from SOAS University of London and helps equip churches and communities to support children and families in crisis situations.
Below are two performances of this Advent song. The first is by a man and woman from the Parroquía Divino Niño Jesús in Morelia, Mexico, and the second is by the choir Tallo De Amor, from Mexico City:
Toda la tierra espera al Salvador y el surco abierto, la obra del Señor; es el mundo que lucha por la libertad, reclama justicia y busca la verdad.
Dice el profeta al pueblo de Israel: “De madre virgen ya viene Emmanuel,” será “Dios con nosotros,” semilla será, con él la esperanza al mundo volverá.
Montes y valles habrá que preparar; nuevos caminos temenos que trazar. él está ya muy cerca, venidlo a encontrar, y todas las puertas abrid de par en par.
En una cueva Jesús apareció, pero en el mundo está presente hoy. Vive en nuestros hermanos, con ellos está; y vuelve de nuevo a darnos libertad.
ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
All earth is waiting to see the Promised One, and the open furrows, the sowing of the Lord. All the world, bound and struggling, seeks true liberty; it cries out for justice and searches for the truth.
Thus says the prophet to those of Israel: “A virgin mother will bear Emmanuel,” for his name is “God with us,” our brother shall be, with him hope will blossom once more within our hearts.
Mountains and valleys will have to be made plain; open new highways, new highways for the Lord. He is now coming closer, so come all and see, and open the doorways as wide as wide can be.
In the lowly stable the Promised One appeared, yet, feel his presence throughout the earth today, for he lives in all Christians and is with us now; again, with his coming he brings us liberty.
Trans. Gertrude C. Suppe
Alberto Taulé (1932–2007) from Barcelona, Spain, was a Roman Catholic priest and a composer of liturgical music who “believed that every parish should have a dynamic, evolving repertoire”—that “quality music and the regular introduction of new songs are vital to a parish’s spiritual health,” as his Catholic Online obituary reads. Working in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which sanctioned the use of vernacular languages and musical styles in the Mass, Taulé wrote new worship songs that could be grafted into the preexisting liturgical structure, used during the entrance procession, the offertory, the Eucharist, or the closing.
In Spanish-speaking church communities around the world, “Toda la Tierra” is sometimes used as the entrance song for one of the four Advent Sundays. Since the United Methodist Church commissioned an English translation from Gertrude C. Suppe and added the song (with bilingual lyrics) to its hymnal in 1989, it has become more widely known in English-speaking communities as well.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America published a different English translation by Madeleine Forell Marshall in the 2006 edition of its hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship; hers preserves the aabb rhyme scheme of the original Spanish and begins with the line “All earth is hopeful, the Savior comes at last!”
The Spanish verb esperar means both “to wait” and “to hope” and is thus especially fitting to describe the action of the church during Advent.
Tim Joyner (American, 1987–), Incarnation, 2021. Foraged pigment on board-mounted paper, 4 × 4 in.
Tim Joyner is an artist who works primarily with natural pigments and inks derived from locally foraged materials, such as stone, lichen, and seaweed. He is also the worship director at Trinity Church Congregational in Bolton, Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife and four kids.
Incarnation is a painting he made during Advent 2021. He describes its makeup and meaning in a Rabbit Room blog post:
The painting . . . is pretty dark for an Advent piece. It’s primarily Lamp Black (a pigment that I associate with longing and prayer because I make it from the discarded stubs of vigil candles), with some even darker Jet Black. There’s some white from Jingle Shells and a bit of Verdigris, but those are there mostly to make the black pigment look even blacker. Even the orb of gold leaf in the very center of the painting is obscured enough that it mostly just draws attention to the rising movement of dark pigment.
This painting is a reminder to myself that, yes, at the end of all this waiting there is an arrival. But it’s not me arriving at the other end of darkness or doubt, brokenness or betrayal. It is the Christ Child who arrives. He meets us here. And rather than chasing away all that it means to be human—including the pain and the longing unfulfilled—and banishing it forever, He wraps Himself in it. We find Christ not on the other side of our longing, but within it.
asks for Christ to be born into the aches of our world and the longing of our hearts.
Although the Son of God came into our world to joyfully dwell with us, the Christmas season, for many, is often painful, lonely, and despairing as the realities of broken families, stinging disappointments, personal addictions, and profound grief confront us in a poignant way.
Our desire in writing this song is to connect the birth of Christ to these very real, dark areas of our everyday lives. It is a prayer for the hope of the Messiah to be “born” into the places where no light seems to exist.
LOOK: Woman Waiting for the Moon to Rise by Uemura Shōen
Uemura Shōen (Japanese, 1875–1949), Woman Waiting for the Moon to Rise, 1944. Nihonga watercolor on silk, 73 × 86 cm. Adachi Museum of Art, Yasugi, Japan.
Uemura Shōen, the pseudonym of Uemura Tsune (1875–1949), was a Japanese artist active in the first half of the twentieth century, known primarily for her bijin-ga paintings of beautiful women in the nihonga style. A mold-breaking artist of exceptional skill, “she won international awards and accolades, defied social norms as a single mother of two, and dived into the world of professional painting at a time when women weren’t welcome.” In 1948 she became the first woman to be awarded Japan’s prestigious Order of Culture.
Uemura painted Woman Waiting for the Moon to Rise during World War II, showing a young woman leaning against a bridge railing on a foggy evening, her chin resting on her folded hands and her face looking ahead wistfully. Though the title tells us she’s waiting for the moon to rise, perhaps she’s also waiting for the war to end, for peace to be restored.
LISTEN: “Wait for the Lord” by Jacques Berthier of the Taizé Community, on Alleluia (1988)
Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. Wait for the Lord: be strong, take heart!
The text of this simple chant comes mainly from Psalm 27:14: “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” The chant was written as a responsorial refrain to the reading of another psalm, Psalm 37. As the hymnal Lift Up Your Hearts (2013) instructs congregations: sing the Taizé refrain; read Psalm 37:1–5, sing; read Psalm 37:6–9, sing; read Psalm 37:10–11, 39–40, sing. Like this:
Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. Wait for the Lord: be strong, take heart!
Do not fret because of the wicked; do not be envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass, and wither like the green herb.
Trust in the LORD, and do good; so you will live in the land, and enjoy security. Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.
Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. Wait for the Lord: be strong, take heart!
He will make your vindication shine like the light, and the justice of your cause like the noonday.
Be still before the LORD, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosper in their way, over those who carry out evil devices.
Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath. Do not fret—it leads only to evil. For the wicked shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land.
Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. Wait for the Lord: be strong, take heart!
Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look diligently for their place, they will not be there. But the meek shall inherit the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.
The salvation of the righteous is from the LORD; he is their refuge in the time of trouble. The LORD helps them and rescues them; he rescues them from the wicked, and saves them, because they take refuge in him.
Wait for the Lord, whose day is near. Wait for the Lord: be strong, take heart!
Psalm 37 encourages trust and patience in God, who will one day vindicate the righteous and put wickedness to bed.
LOOK:Serenade: A Christmas Fantasy by Joseph Stella
Joseph Stella (Italian American, 1877–1946), Serenade: A Christmas Fantasy (La Fontaine), 1937. Oil on canvas, 43 1/8 × 37 1/8 in. (109.5 × 94.3 cm). Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC.
Joseph Stella (1877–1946) [previously] was an Italian American painter who became an important figure in modern art. His Serenade: A Christmas Fantasy is not overtly religious, but it does incorporate a few elements traditionally associated with Christmastime—a starry night sky, a holly branch, an ox and ass, a dove—and has a mystical quality. In the center, a flower emerges from what appears to be a conch shell, its pistil and stamen glowing. The flower’s stem shoots up past an abstract, mobile-like object that could be shards of colorful glass or pieces of cut paper. It’s a visionary composition that is open to multiple readings.
Art historian Judith Zilczer comments on the painting in the exhibition catalog Joseph Stella: The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Collection (Smithsonian Institution, 1983):
Serenade: A Christmas Fantasy typifies Stella’s mature symbolist style. Framed by an arch, a fantastic tree form bisects the composition and serves as the central image of the painting. The colors of the iridescent prism surrounding the central axis recall the abstract geometric style of Stella’s Futurist canvases.
The meaning of Stella’s complex imagery remains elusive. The ox and ass in the upper right spandrel traditionally appear together in paintings of the Nativity. The image of the dove in the center of the lower border is the symbol of the Holy Ghost. These Christian symbols are consistent with the painting’s subtitle, A Christmas Fantasy. The painting is also known as The Fountain (La Fontaine). The treelike form in the center may represent an abstraction of a jet of water. The image of the fountain often served as an attribute of the Virgin Mary, who was regarded as the “fountain of living waters.” It is possible that in this canvas Stella has fused the image of the tree of life with the fountain as the symbol of the Virgin. The nightingale perched on the tendril [of the purple iris] in the lower left is the source of the serenade. (54)
I see in Serenade the promise of Advent—light emerging out of darkness, wondrous new life growing out of dormancy. There’s a coming fullness here, a blossoming. The chromatic spectrum refracted by the center object evokes a rainbow, the sign of God’s covenant with all living creatures in Genesis 9.
Oooh, I wonder Oooh, I wonder Oooh, I wonder What is to come out of this darkness
I’ve been moving, moving, moving, moving through the darkness Moving, moving, moving, moving through the darkness Moving, moving, moving, moving through the darkness I wonder when the light is cracking open
Oooh, I wonder Oooh, I am filled with wonder Oooh, I wonder What is to come out of this darkness
I thought this candle had long gone out I thought this candle had long gone out I thought that it had long gone out But today, today, today, today I can see There’s still a flickering, flickering
Oooh, I wonder Oooh, I wonder Oooh, I wonder What is to come out of this darkness
Burn, burn, burn, burning on the inside Burn, burn, burn, burning like a bright light Burn, burn, burn, burning on the inside This light’s still burning, burning bright
I thought this candle had long gone out I thought that it was long gone out I thought that this candle had long gone out But today, today, today, today I can see There’s more than a flickering
Oooh, I wonder Oooh, I am filled with wonder Oooh, I wonder What is to come out of this darkness
This song was written by MaMuse [previously], an acoustic folk duo who I’d say are “spiritual but not religious,” several years ago on the winter solstice. Watch a live video recording from January 2019 at the Chico Women’s Club in Chico, California, the two’s hometown.
Advent is sometimes mischaracterized as glum, but actually, joyfulness is a key aspect of the season. There’s a somberness, for sure, but it’s married with excitement for what’s coming.
I hope to capture this dual tone of Advent in my selection of art and music over the next twenty-four days. This is the first post in a daily series that will run to the end of Advent on December 24, and then for the duration of Christmas, from December 25 to January 6. Many of the songs in the series can be listened to on the Art & TheologyAdvent Playlist, Christmastide Playlist, and Epiphany Playlist on Spotify.
In the liturgical calendar, Advent-Christmas-Epiphany is known as the cycle of light. Many churches and families light candles around an Advent wreath, progressively more until Christmas, symbolizing the Light of the World getting nearer, dispelling more of the darkness.
May you be blessed this Advent season as you wonder and explore what is to come out of December’s darkness. May you discern with delight those places where “the light is cracking open,” where God is shining through.
This is the third installment of my annual “25 Poems for Christmas” series. Included too, on the front end, are poems for Advent, the four-week season of preparation, hope, and expectation leading up to Christmas.
1. “Advent (III)” by W. H. Auden, from For the Time Being: Voiced by the Chorus, who cry out from “a dreadful wood / Of conscious evil,” this is the third section of part 1 of Auden’s book-length Christmas poem in nine parts, For the Time Being—“the only direct treatment of sacred subjects I shall ever attempt,” he said. He wrote the poem in 1941–42. He had originally conceived it as the libretto of an oratorio that Benjamin Britten would write the music for, but the text turned out to be too complex, and Britten abandoned the project. The final two lines of this section set us up for the seemingly impossible feat of divine incarnation: “Nothing can save us that is possible: / We who must die demand a miracle.”
3. “O Orient Light” by James Ryman: Loosely influenced by the O Antiphons (a set of short chants used in medieval Advent liturgies), this Middle English lyric is by the fifteenth-century Franciscan friar James Ryman of Canterbury; it’s one of 166 sacred poems he published in a 1492 collection. Each stanza consists of one rhyme repeated six times, and the Latin refrain translates to “O Christ, king of the nations, / O life of the living.” The fourth stanza is a standout, connecting the salvation wrought by Christ to the healing properties of plants: “O Jesse root, most sweet and sote, / In rind and root most full of bote, / To us be bote, bound hand and foot, / O vita viventium.”
Source: Cambridge University Library, MS Ee. 1.12; compiled in The Early English Carols, ed. Richard Leighton Greene, 2nd ed., revised and enlarged (The Clarendon Press, 1977). Public Domain.
Henk Helmantel (Dutch, 1945–), Nieuw Leven II (New Life II), 1999 (after the 1972 original that was stolen). Oil on canvas, 27 × 24 cm.
4.“Merger Poem”by Judy Chicago: “Merger Poem” is an aspiration that artist Judy Chicago wrote to accompany her 1979 monumental artwork The Dinner Party, a celebration of the richness of women’s heritage, expressed as place settings around a table, that is housed at the Brooklyn Museum. Her vision in the poem is not theistic, at least not explicitly so, but she uses the language of “Eden,” and her descriptions evoke passages from Isaiah about a future harmony, a merging of heaven and earth, in which justice and equity are achieved at last—not to mention the strong eschatological tones that feasting has in Christianity. Each line begins with “And then,” cumulatively generating a longing in the reader for “then” to arrive.
5.“truth”by Gwendolyn Brooks: “And if sun comes / How shall we greet him?” the speaker asks at the opening of this poem. The sun here represents truth, revelation, illumination, which we may seek with weeping and prayer but which can be dreadful when it actually comes. It’s often more comfortable to stay asleep in the dark than to confront the stark brightness of day. But oh, what we miss when we do! Gwendolyn Brooks uses the pronoun “him” for the sun, and it’s easy to read the poem Christologically: you can read it in the sense of any of Christ’s three comings—as a baby in Bethlehem, in personal, inner ways (he reveals himself, and seeks entrance, to human hearts), or as a king and judge at the end of time. Did you catch the reference to Revelation 3:20?
Source: Annie Allen (Harper & Row, 1949); compiled in Blacks (Third World Press, 1987)
P. Solomon Raj (Indian, 1921–2019), Waiting for My Lord, batik, published in Living Flame and Springing Fountain (ISPCK, 1993)
6. “Advent” by Mary Jo Salter: In this poem a mother and daughter are building a gingerbread house when a wintry gust tears a shutter on their actual house off its hinges, the shock of the thud causing, inside, a gingerbread wall to split. I think “house,” here, could be a metaphor for a faith structure; a house of belief. Shutters are doing a lot of work in the text: one falls off in a storm, and the daughter’s Advent calendar consists of twenty-five shutters, one opened each day until Christmas to reveal a Bible verse or narrative scene.
I’m not quite sure how to interpret the poem overall, but it seems to be addressing themes of (in)stability, brokenness and repair, the desire to believe versus the impulse to shut out belief, openness (“The house cannot be closed”), (dis)enchantment, the mother-child bond, and safety and danger (the Christmas story, like faith itself, characterized by both). I can’t decide if the “blank” in the final tercet sounds hopeful or bleak: does it connote possibility or lack? And is the mother suggesting in the final line (a repurposing of the final line from stanza 15) that what’s most real to her is not Mary and the baby Jesus but herself and her own child, right there in that moment?—or is she finding a point of kinship with Mother Mary in the love she feels for her offspring?
7. “Nativity”by Li-Young Lee: “What is the world?” asks a little boy in the darkness; and again as an adult. A poem of spiritual questing, Li-Young Lee’s “Nativity” deals with existential questions, ending with a tercet that evokes Isaac Watts’s famous carol line “Let every heart prepare him room.” Within us we must make a manger, a “safe place,” to receive the wild God.
8.“Nazareth” by Drew Jackson: Ancient Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, was an insignificant village that many believed no good could come out of (see John 1:46). This poem by public theologian Drew Jackson accentuates Jesus’s origins there, his identity as a “southsider” (Nazareth is in southern Galilee). Today some urban neighborhoods on the “South Side” are disparaged, their residents dismissed as poor and lacking education and potential. God chose to incarnate in a rural neighborhood with a similar reputation, not simply dropping in and then leaving but, as the second person of the Trinity, being formed and nurtured in that environment. “Nazareth” is from Jackson’s debut poetry collection, in which he works his way through the first eight chapters of Luke’s Gospel, drawing out the theme of liberation and making contemporary connections.
9. “The Visitation”by Calvin B. LeCompte Jr.: The poet imagines the fields that Mary passes on her way to her cousin Elizabeth’s house joining in the Magnificat, praising the Savior in her womb.
10.“My Darling” by Alexandra Barylski: Mary and Joseph are cuddling in bed as she reflects on the divine interventions that brought and kept them together. The poem references the legend, originating in the second-century Protoevangelium of James and repeated in the seventh-century Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, that Joseph was chosen to wed Mary when from his staff, submitted to the high priest along with those of other single men, there miraculously emerged a dove. Mary expresses appreciation for Joseph’s “visionary love,” patience, and courage in their relationship, his spiritual leadership and support.
Source: Reformed Journal, May 11, 2021
Nicholas Mynheer (British, 1958–), Annunciation, 2017. Oil on handmade paper, 20 × 20 cm.
11. “A Blessing for the New Baby” by Luci Shaw: The speakers of this poem give a lovely benediction over Christ—preincarnate and then embryonic in the first stanza, then out of the womb in the second and third.
12.“Love’s Delights” by Meister Eckhart, rendered by Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows: The medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart didn’t write poetry, but many of his sermons have a poetic quality to them, so contemporary poet Mark S. Burrows and writer Jon M. Sweeney, working from an English translation of the Middle High German by Frank Tobin, reworked select excerpts into verse. Adapted from a sermon Meister Eckhart preached on Isaiah 60:1, this poem meditates on the downward movement of love that raises up.
13. “Word Become Flesh” by Seth Wieck: Pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing take a toll on the body. Voiced by Mary, this poem highlights the bodily realities of Jesus’s first coming—Mary swollen, bruised, cracked, and bleeding. She was wounded for our transgressions, in the sense that she endured kicks to the ribs, postpartum hemorrhoids, etc., in order to bring forth our Savior, and by these wounds, because they gave life to Jesus, our healing was made possible. The last sentence is a zinger. Mary gives (physical) birth to Jesus, and he gives (spiritual) birth to her.
14.“Prince of Peace” by Brian Volck: The poet provides his own introduction to this poem on his website: “Octavian Augustus, first emperor of Rome, was known by many titles, including Divi Filius (Son of God) and Princeps Pacis (Prince of Peace). An inscription in Asia Minor states that Augustus’s birth ‘has been for the whole world the beginning of the gospel (εύαγγέλιον) concerning him.’ How strange, then, to use the same names for a contemporaneous but obscure Palestinian Jew, whose understanding of peace, politics, and power was so radically different. How strange to have so long diluted the scandal of the gospel (good news) with accommodations to an Augustan vision of a peace built on the use or threat of lethal violence. Here’s a Christmas poem calling attention to that contrast in a conscious act against forgetting.”
15.“The Burning Babe” by Robert Southwell: Consisting of sixteen lines in iambic heptameter, this poem by the Jesuit martyr-saint Robert Southwell [previously] relates a mystical vision of the Christ child, who appears to the narrator on a cold winter’s night, enflamed and hovering in midair. The poem develops the metaphor of the love of Christ as a fiery furnace that both warms and purifies.
Source: St Peter’s Complaint, and Other Poems (London, 1595). Public Domain.
William Hart McNichols (American, 1949–), Holy Poet-Martyr St. Robert Southwell and the Burning Babe, 2015. Acrylic on wood. [purchase reproduction]
16.“Advent 1966” by Denise Levertov: This poem is shocking in its horror. Written in 1966, it picks up Southwell’s image of the Burning Babe and transposes it to the napalmed villages of Vietnam, where children were being physically (not symbolically or ethereally, as in Southwell’s poem) set on fire by chemical weapons deployed by the US military. Denise Levertov [previously], who was an antiwar activist as well as a poet, uses repetition to strong effect, conveying a sense of the seemingly relentless carnage (the war produced an estimated two million civilian casualties, more than half the total number). Though addressing a specific historical event, this elegy for the innocent provokes us to consider where similar atrocities are happening today.
Source: To Stay Alive (New Directions, 1971); compiled in Making Peace, ed. Peggy Rosenthal (New Directions, 2006)
17.“Christmas Eve”by Christina Rossetti: The Victorian poet Christina Rossetti [previously] opens this lyric with two paradoxes that characterize Christmas—bright darkness and chilly warmth—referencing the general mood of cheer and comfort that coexists with the bleak English midwinter. Why this mirth? Because “Christmas bringeth Jesus, / Brought for us so low.” Jesus was brought down from heaven in the Incarnation, but he would be brought lower still: his spirits sunken in Gethsemane, his body buried in a grave. The second stanza evokes a wedding: dressed in a bridal gown of gauzy snow, earth receives her heavenly Bridegroom.
Source: Time Flies: A Reading Diary (London, 1885); compiled in The Complete Poems (Penguin, 2001). Public Domain.
18. “Hill Christmas” by R. S. Thomas: In a poor rural Welsh village, parishioners make their way across snowy fields, weather-beaten, on Christmas to feed their bodies and souls with a snow-white bread loaf and crimson wine. In the celebration of the Eucharist, they hear love cry “in their heart’s manger.” Then they return to the day’s chores. I think the last line refers to a wayside crucifix.
Source: Laboratories of the Spirit (Macmillan, 1975); compiled in Collected Poems, 1945–1990 (Dent, 1993)
19.“back in the day” by Carl Winderl: In a practice known as “settinglambs on,” when a baby lamb dies in birth, sheep farmers will often take a live lamb (an orphan, or a twin or triplet from another ewe) and cover it in the skin of the deceased one so that, when the grieving mother smells the familiar scent of her deceased offspring, she accepts the lamb as her own. In Carl Winderl’s poem, Mother Mary reflects on that practice and has a premonition of a dead lamb.
Source: Christian Century, December 27, 2023
20.“Hymn 4 on the Nativity of Christ” by Ephrem the Syrian: St. Ephrem, a church father from the fourth century, wrote his theology in verse and is one of the most significant Early Christian hymnists. His Nativity hymns are my favorite; I’m particularly struck in Hymn IV by his meditation on how the Christ who suckles at Mary’s breast also gives suck to the whole world. “He is the Living Breast of living breath,” as Kathleen E. McVey translates the Syriac.
Source: Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, trans. Kathleen E. McVey (Classics of Western Spirituality) (Paulist Press, 1989)
Maria lactans, late 18th century. Fresco, Church of Narga Selassie, Dek Island, Lake Tana, Ethiopia. Photo: Alan Davey.
21. “Nativity” by Scott Cairns: This is the first in a pair of ekphrastic poems called “Two Icons,” in which the poet, who is Greek Orthodox, describes an icon from his home prayer corner. The first three stanzas engage in constructive wordplay: Jesus is wrapped in swaddling bands by his mother, and she is rapt—enraptured, wholly absorbed—by him. She holds him in her gaze and in her hands, and is beholden to him. Icons are about just that: beholding Christ and the sacred mysteries and deepening our affection for the One who holds us in affection. In Nativity icons our gaze is directed to “the core / where all the journeys meet, appalling crux and hallowed cave and womb,” where we are beckoned, like the magi, to bow before the incarnate God.
22.“Star of the Nativity” by Joseph Brodsky: The Nobel Prize–winning Russian poet Joseph Brodsky was born into a Jewish family, but he was captivated by the story of Jesus’s birth and wrote many poems about it. The final stanza of this one gives us the unique perspective of the Star of Bethlehem, looking down—the Father’s beaming pride.
Source: Nativity Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001)
23. “Wise Women Also Came” by Jan Richardson: The Gospel of Matthew tells us that when Jesus was born, wise men came from the east to worship him. But wise women came too, Jan Richardson surmises. They came during Mary’s labor—midwives assisting with the birth. They came with lamps, fresh water, and blankets.
Jan Richardson (American, 1967–), Wise Women Also Came, 1995. Collage. [purchase reproduction]
24.“Green River Christmas” by John Shea: Theologian and storyteller John Shea reflects on how, after experiencing something scary or unpleasant (like getting a shot or a teeth cleaning), mothers often give their child a treat. Christmas is a kind of supreme treat after the penitential season of Advent, during which we confronted the state of our spiritual health and remedied any shortfalls. Think, too, of the liturgy of (somber) confession and (sweet) pardon every Sunday at church, a prelude to the feast of bread and wine. At the Lord’s Table, we are fed—the gifts of God for the people of God. The Eucharist is the subtext of the final stanza, where Shea describes the presentation of Jesus in the temple forty days after his birth. There he is received by “the long-starved arms / of Simeon and Anna.” They had hungered for salvation, endured a long period of waiting; now they are filled.
25.“Taking Down the Tree” by Jane Kenyon: “Tick, tick, the desiccated needles drop.” This poem is about the passing of time—the death of another year—and the glumness that often sets in after the holidays are over, but it’s also about the storage of memories. In many households, Christmas ornaments are a multigenerational collection of memories. As with hanging them on the tree, taking them off and packing them away is a ritual that may prompt us to revisit certain past experiences or periods in our life. After we unplug the stringed lights and wrap up the baubles for safekeeping, then what? How will we inhabit the twelve months until next Christmas?
VIDEO MEDITATION: “Yearning and Promise (Advent),” dir. Lauralee Farrer (2017): The first in the seven-part Liturgical Meditations series produced by Fuller Studio (a resource center affiliated with Fuller Theological Seminary), this four-minute video features Advent scripture readings by Fuller alum Paul Mpishi (MDiv, ’17) in his native Swahili, set to beautiful cinematography by Lindsey Sheets, Timothy Kay, and Jordan McMahon.
“Yearning and Promise” explores Advent and the expectant longing for the birth of Christ through cityscapes, wilderness, and water from Chicago and Malibu, with scriptures drawn from Isaiah 40 and Matthew 1. The audio for this video is in Swahili with subtitles in English, Spanish, Mandarin, and Korean—a poetic way to represent the primary tongues of our community. . . .
The liturgical calendar spans the life of Christ in a single year—from anticipation (Advent), to hope (Christmas), to transcendence (Epiphany), to lament (Lent), to redemption (Easter), to the birth of the church (Pentecost), and through long, numbered days (Ordinary Time) back to Advent. The liturgical meditation series to which this video belongs relies on nature to tell the story of God, accompanied by scriptures traditional to each season.
Piero della Francesca (Italian, ca. 1415–1492), Madonna del Parto, after 1457. Detached fresco, 100 × 80 in. (260 × 203 cm). Musei Civici Madonna del Parto, Monterchi, Italy.
>> “Lord, Remind Me” by Jon and Valerie Guerra: From their album It’s Almost Christmas! Jon Guerra writes in the YouTube video description about how most days, hope feels naive; about the narratives in which we misplace our trust; about how Jesus, in his coming, tells a different narrative and brings our hope to fruition.
At Christmastime, Guerra writes,
Christians . . . celebrat[e] the arrival of a “shoot from Jesse’s stump.” It’s a transgressive celebration of fragility and vulnerability. We wanted a fully matured tree—God gave us a shoot coming from a stump. We wanted a strong leader—God gave us a vulnerable baby. We wanted a strength that dominates—God gave us a weakness that submits. We wanted victory—God gave us defeat, destitution, death.
How is this defying of our expectations hopeful? Well, theology at its atomic level says this: God is love. God doesn’t love as a decisive action, as though tomorrow the decision could be reversed. God is, always, love.
That love is not only towards humanity—it becomes humanity. It is not only compassionate towards the broken—it becomes the broken. It is unconditional love that becomes death—and in so doing, defeats it. It defies our expectations only to exceed to them.
So here’s to remembering hope in God’s unconditional love towards the desolate stumpiness of ourselves and the world this season—and to believing that this is not the end of the story. Lord, remind me.
>> “His Name Is Jesus” by Keiko Ying: Released this month on YouTube, this children’s Advent song by Keiko Ying celebrates Jesus as Emmanuel, “God with us.” Here is the lead sheet. The drawings and animation in the music video are by the songwriter’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Clara. [HT: Global Christian Worship]
The law of growth is rest. We must be content in winter to wait patiently through the long bleak season in which we experience nothing whatever of the sweetness or realization of the Divine Presence, believing the truth, that these seasons which seem to be the most empty are the most pregnant with life. It is in them that the Christ-life is growing in us, laying hold of our soil with strong roots and thrust deeper and deeper, drawing down the blessed rain of mercy and the sun of Eternal Love through our darkness and heaviness and hardness, to irrigate and warm those roots. . . .
The seed must rest in the earth. We must allow the Christ-life to grow in us in rest. Our whole being must fold upon Christ’s rest in us, as the earth folds upon the seed.
Advent begins a week from Sunday, on December 1—a roughly four-week season leading up to Christmas, during which we prepare our hearts to receive the coming Christ. Here are a few resources.
Daily posts at Art & Theology: First I want to let you know that, as I’ve done for the past three years, I will be posting daily here on the Art & Theology blog for the duration of Advent and Christmastide, each day selecting a visual artwork and a piece of music that I feel dialogue fruitfully with each other about a seasonal theme. Many Christians like to read through a devotional book during Advent, and while I do appreciate good devotional writing, I sometimes grow bored of reading prose reflections on the Christmas story. For me, I’ve found that engaging the arts frequently opens up wonder and new angles of inquiry and deepens my longing and gratitude for Christ. Songs, art, and other creative expressions help me slow down and put me in a contemplative frame of mind, and that’s why I use them as companions throughout the liturgical year.
Though the United States (my country) is heavily represented in the selections, I’ve tried to be intentional about featuring works from a variety of geographic locales. So you’ll see contributions from Mexico, Peru, The Gambia, Kenya, Germany, Turkey, Croatia, Japan, India, the Philippines, and more—a reflection of the global nature of Christianity.
Sometimes I will provide some written context or explication for the song or artwork or relevant biographical details for its maker, but other times I will let the works stand entirely on their own.
I’m really excited to unroll this year’s series! Advent starts December 1, but tune in a day early on November 30 for a “prelude” post to kick things off. The final post in the series will be on Epiphany on January 6. You can view the archives from previous years here:
In addition to the daily posts in the music-art format, I have a few poems lined up and will continue doing periodic link roundups to direct you to other great Advent and Christmas content around the web.
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THE DAILY PRAYER PROJECT: Advent 2024: The Daily Prayer Project, a liturgical publishing nonprofit I work for as curator and copyeditor, is entering its seventh year, and our latest Advent edition is out! The cover art is Look forward to the coming of God by Stanley Fung, a pastor and photographer from Taipei; it’s one of three artworks that receive dedicated attention inside.
In addition to art, the magazine includes a poem, four song sheets, two mini-essays (one on the spiritual practice of encouragement, the other on nurturing the hidden life of Christ within us), and fourteen distinct liturgies, one for each morning and evening of the week (plus a different scripture reading for every day of the season). Here is one of the featured prayers in this edition, from the Christian Council of Nigeria:
Grant us, O God, a vision of our land that is as beautiful as it could be: a land of justice where none shall prey on others; a land of plenty where poverty shall cease to fester; a land of kinship where success shall be founded on service; a land of peace where order shall rest not on force but on the love of everyone for their community. Give us grace to put this vision into practice through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Our Christmas edition will also be ready for purchase soon. It covers December 25, 2024, through March 4, 2025.
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VIDEO INTERVIEW: “Advent: The Season of Hope” with Tish Harrison Warren, Trinity Forum, December 1, 2023: In Celebration of Discipline, Richard J. Foster writes, “In contemporary society our Adversary (the devil) majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in ‘muchness’ and ‘manyness,’ he will rest satisfied.” The pull toward those things is particularly strong in December. But Advent calls us, counterculturally, to quietness, slowness, and moments of solitude.
Here Tish Harrison Warren, an Anglican priest and the author of Advent: The Season of Hope from IVP’s Fullness of Time series, discusses the character and history of Advent, the three traditional practices associated with it, and how to wait well. She also encourages us to ask ourselves: Where do we need Christ to come in the next year? Where do we need healing? Where do we need to find hope in the next season of our life?
The Q&A starts at 38:00 and includes questions such as: How might the theme of judgment shape our observance of Advent? How do we practice Advent during a time of jollity and indulgence and parties without being perceived as a Scrooge?
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SONG: “Come to Us, Emmanuel” by Ordinary Time: Made up of Peter La Grand, Jill McFadden, and Ben Keyes, Ordinary Time is a trio whose music blends elements of folk, Americana, and traditional hymnody. This original song is from their 2007 album In the Town of David, and the music video is shot around Vancouver, where the three band members met when they were students at Regent College.
** This is one of seven songs by Ordinary Time featured on Art & Theology’s Advent Playlist. Join 2,859 others in following the playlist on Spotify, which offers over twenty-one hours of music for the season.
Check out, too, Ordinary Time’s newest album, released Friday, titled You Are My Hiding Place. Favorite track: “All Shall Be Amen Alleluia.”
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ARTICLE: “My Favorite Advent Wreath Supplies” by Ashley Tumlin Wallace:The Liturgical Home is one of my favorite blogs to follow. It’s run by Ashley Tumlin Wallace, a pastor’s wife and mom of four from Florida who collects recipes and traditions from around the world and compiles them into liturgical living guidebooks to help families celebrate the seasons of the church in their homes. In this blog post she shares how to make your own Advent wreath, collecting greenery from outside and purchasing a few basic items.
Here’s her Instagram video showing you how to put it all together:
CARD PACK: The Light Has Come: 25 Illustrated Prayers with Activities for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany by W. David O. Taylor and Phaedra Jean Taylor: Each of the twenty-five, 4 × 6 prayer cards in this pack includes a watercolor illustration by Phaedra Taylor, and on the other side a Bible verse, a collect prayer by David Taylor, and a suggested activity (e.g., stargazing, baking or buying a treat for a friend) or prayer prompt. Included are familiar themes, such as Hope, Joy, Shepherds, and Light, but also less familiar ones, like Feasting, Sorrow, Fear, and the Fantastical. There are also cards for Saint Nicholas Day, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and Epiphany. They are all held together in a cardstock sleeve.
The cards would work well in personal or family devotions, in a small group, or with church staff. “Our hope is that this box of cards will invite you to stop, look and listen afresh to the nativity narratives and to discover a story that truly heals and restores this very broken and beloved world of ours,” David writes in a blog post introducing the product.
You can order reproductions of the watercolors from this collection and others at Phaedra’s online shop.
Art & Theology 