Alana Levandoski – Art & Theology

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

—Matthew 28:16–20

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

—John 20:21–22

LOOK: The Great Commission by He Qi

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

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

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

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

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

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

As the Father sent me
So I send you

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

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

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

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

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

LOOK: Contours of Mary’s Dream by Lauren Wright Pittman

Wright Pittman, Lauren_Contours of Mary's Dream — Lauren Wright Pittman (American, 1988–), *Contours of Mary’s Dream*, 2020. Digital painting with collage, 20 × 20 in. Used with permission.

Contours of Mary’s Dream by Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman of Knoxville, Tennessee, shows Mary, the mother of Jesus, bonding with her in utero son. She sits cross-legged and nimbed, tenderly caressing a hovering gold halo that represents the Holy One, the light of the world, taking shape inside her. Repeated in roundels, the design on her shirt is an upraised, open hand illuminated by sunrays, an allusion to the Magnificat, Mary’s praise song from Luke 1:46–55, which begins, “My soul magnifies the Lord!” A whole world of possibility opens up with God’s taking on flesh. Wright Pittman says,

I have this instinct to read the Magnificat alongside the first creation narrative in Genesis. I imagine Christ taking form in Mary’s womb much like I imagine all of creation emerging at the Creator’s voice. I collaged macrophotography of patterns, textures, and colors from creation—such as sunsets, bird’s feathers, fish scales, galaxies, leaves, planets, fur, water, etc.—and wove them into her hair. Jesus, the thread of creation, is being knit together in her womb. God’s dream for all creation is materializing as cells divide in her body; all the while she sings of a dream, still unrealized.

Creation–new creation, and Jesus the firstborn of both.

There’s wonder and excitement in the image, but there’s also a trace of loss, as the orb that Mary cradles could be seen as not only a potentiality that’s forming, a God-lit body coming to be, but also an absence, the vestigial essence of a boy wrenched from the protective arms of his mother. The artist said she was thinking of the painting Analogous Colors by Titus Kaphar that appeared on the cover of the June 15, 2020, issue of Time magazine, which reported on the nationwide protests in the US in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a police officer. In Kaphar’s image, a grieving Black mother holds an empty silhouette of her infant close to her chest, alluding to the many African American women whose children’s lives have been taken by police and racist vigilantes.

“When I read the Magnificat, Kaphar’s image came into sharp relief,” Wright Pittman says. “How could I image Mary holding the contours of her dreams for the world, while also holding the contour of her loss? Mary’s son would be publicly murdered at the hands of the state. Mary’s song reverberates for all mothers who have had dreams for their children shattered by senseless violence.”

I originally wrote this description for the Advent 2022 edition of the Daily Prayer Project.

LISTEN: “Behold, I Make All Things New” by Alana Levandoski, on Behold, I Make All Things New (2018)

Behold, I make all things new
Behold, I make all things new
Behold, I make all things new
Let there be light, let there be light

God unseen is taking form
God unseen is taking form
God unseen is taking form
Let there be light, let there be light

First and last is surging forth
First and last is surging forth
The first and last is surging forth
Becoming light, becoming light

Behold, I make all things new
Behold, I make all things new
Behold, I make all things new
Let there be light, let there be light