It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. . . .
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” . . . Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
—Mark 15:25, 33–34, 37
LOOK: Crucifix 45 by William Congdon
William Congdon (American, 1912–1998), Crocefisso 45 (Crucifix 45), 1966. Oil on canvas, 152 × 139 cm. Collection of the William G. Congdon Foundation, Milan.
After his conversion to Catholicism in 1959, artist William Congdon [previously], an American expatriate living in Italy, spent the next twenty years of his life painting dozens of Crucifixions. One of them, Crocefisso 45, shows the crucified Christ immersed in near total darkness. His form is barely differentiated from the black background but can just be discerned by the faint band of light that outlines it. Congdon writes that he wanted to portray “a body soaked with pain to the point that one cannot distinguish the body from the pain, almost as though the pain had become a body and not the body a pain.”1
Christ’s head, like a gaping hole, hangs down to rest on his dimly luminescent chest. It’s as if the light of the world has been eclipsed. Art historian Giuseppe Mazzariol wrote of the recurring nero sole (black sun) in Congdon’s work, whose purpose is “to express the spiritual widowhood of a world marked by suffering.”2 Here it expresses the utter desolation of Good Friday.
Fred Licht writes that “in the Crucifixes [of Congdon] the black spot becomes the storm over Golgotha which is repeated every year with the advent of Good Friday, erasing the images from the altars, extinguishing the candles, and plunging the Christian world into deepest night.”3
Notes:
1. William Congdon, Esistenza/Viaggio di pittore americano: Diario (Milan: Jaca Book, 1975), 154.
2. Giuseppe Mazzariol, Introduzione a William Congdon, exh. cat. (Ferrara, 1981).
3. Fred Licht, “The Art of William Congdon,” in Fred Licht, Peter Selz, and Rodolfo Balzarotti, William Congdon (Jaca Book: Milan, 1995): 11–58.
The sun’s gone dim And the sky’s turned black ’Cause I loved her And she didn’t love back
“The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black” by the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969–2018) blends, as does most of his work, traditional orchestration with contemporary electronic elements. The elegiac lyrics, which repeat multiple times over the nearly six-minute runtime, are adapted from “Two-Volume Novel” by Dorothy Parker, a four-line poem about unrequited love.
This piece was inspired by a recording of an IBM mainframe computer that Jóhannsson’s father, Jóhann Gunnarsson, made on a reel-to-reel tape machine in the 1970s. (Gunnarsson was an IBM engineer and one of Iceland’s first computer programmers, who used early hardware to compose melodies during his downtime at work.) It was recorded by a sixty-piece string orchestra, with Jóhannsson on vocals.
Credit goes to the Rabbit Room not only for this find but also for connecting it to Good Friday. (I found the song on their Lent playlist.) Imagine the speaker as Jesus on the cross, speaking to the world that he so loved (John 3:16) but who rejected him. Even the sky mourns with him as the sun veils her face. All is dark and seemingly lost.
. . . carrying the cross by himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him . . .
—John 19:17–18
LOOK: White Mountain by Ihor Paneyko
Ihor Paneyko (Игоря Панейка) (Ukrainian, 1957–), White Mountain, 2011. Egg tempera on gessoed board.
LISTEN: “Solus ad victimam” (Alone to Sacrifice Thou Goest, Lord) | Original Latin words by Peter Abelard, second quarter of 12th century; English translation by Helen Waddell, 1929 | Music by Kenneth Leighton, 1973 | Performed by St. Olaf Cantorei, dir. John Ferguson, on Hidden in Humbleness: Meditations for Holy Week and Easter, 2010
Alone to sacrifice thou goest, Lord, Giving thyself to Death, whom thou hast slain. For us, thy wretched folk, is [there] any word, Who know that for our sins this is thy pain?
For they are ours, O Lord, our deeds, our deeds. Why must thou suffer torture for our sin? Let our hearts suffer for thy passion, Lord, That very suffering may thy mercy win.
This is that night of tears, the three days’ space, Sorrow abiding of the eventide, Until the day break with the risen Christ, And hearts that sorrowed shall be satisfied.
So may our hearts share in thine anguish, Lord, That they may sharers of thy glory be. Heavy with weeping may the three days pass, To win the laughter of thine Easter Day.
“In Parasceve Domini: III. Nocturno,” whose first line is “Solus ad victimam procedis, Domine,” is a Latin hymn by the French scholastic philosopher, theologian, and poet Peter Abelard (1079–1142). It appears in his collection Hymnarius Paraclitensis—a major contribution to medieval Latin hymnody—and was sung in the night office (Nocturns) of prayers on Good Friday.
Today it is best known through its modern choral setting of the English by British composer and pianist Kenneth Leighton (1929–1988). Dr. David Ouzts, the minister of music and liturgy at Church of the Holy Communion in Memphis, says this is “one of the most effective musical settings of any anthem of the 1,000-plus octavos in our parish music library.” He continues:
This anthem is one of those with harmonies and sonorities that may not sound correct when they are. Worshipers will hear the sparseness of the choir singing in simple same-note octaves, and in the next moment, dissonances between the choral voices will appear.
Though this 12th century text is most certainly a Passiontide text, my favorite aspect is that it foreshadows Easter and the Resurrection.
The wordplay of the music that accompanies “laughter” in the text is notable. The choral voices are high in their tessituras, and the full choir ends literally on a high note, after which the organ accompaniment steals the show with great dissonant chords, only to land on a huge, bright E Major chord.
The hymn invites us to follow Christ to Golgotha, beholding his suffering so that we might be moved to contrition and, clinging to God’s mercy, rise to newness of life—or, as the wonderful last line puts it, “win the laughter of [Christ’s] Easter Day.” The fourth stanza alludes to Romans 8:17, where the apostle Paul writes that we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we in fact suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” Paul speaks elsewhere of believers being “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20)—see my visual commentaries on this passage—and “baptized into his death” (Rom. 6:3) as well as being raised with him.
Jesus may have gone “alone to sacrifice”—but the fruits of that sacrifice abound to all who would eat. Praise be to God.
As we enter the Paschal Triduum, let us weep for our sins and for the innocent Lamb who was slain to atone for them. Let us also look with hope toward daybreak.
El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos) (Spanish, 1541–1614), El Espolio (The Disrobing of Christ), 1577–79. Oil on panel, 55.7 × 34.7 cm. National Trust, Upton House, Warwickshire, England. Photo: National Trust Photo Library / John Hammond. [object record]
The carpenter is intent on the pressure of his hand on the awl, and the trick of pinpointing his strength through the awl to the wood, which is tough. He has no effort to spare for despoilings nor to worry if he’ll be cut in on the dice. His skill is vital to the scene, and the safety of the state. Anyone can perform the indignities; it is his hard arms and craft that hold the eyes of the convict’s women. There is the problem of getting the holes straight (in the middle of this shoving crowd) and deep enough to hold the spikes after they’ve sunk through those soft feet and wrists waiting behind him.
The carpenter isn’t aware that one of the hands is held in a curious beseechment over him— but what is besought, forgiveness or blessing?— nor if he saw would he take the time to be puzzled. Criminals come in all sorts, as anyone knows who makes crosses, are as mad or sane as those who decide on their killings. Our one at least has been quiet so far, though they say he has talked himself into this trouble— a carpenter’s son who got notions of preaching. Well here’s a carpenter’s son who’ll have carpenter’s sons, God willing, and build what’s wanted, temples or tables, mangers or crosses, and shape them decently, working alone in that firm and profound abstraction which blots out the bawling of rag-snatchers. To construct with hands, knee-weight, braced thigh, keeps the back turned from death. But it’s too late now for the other carpenter’s boy to return to this peace before the nails are hammered.
Earle Birney (1904–1995) is regarded as one of Canada’s finest poets. He is the author of twenty-five poetry collections, including David and Other Poems (1942), Now Is Time (1945), and Near False Creek Mouth (1964). He taught English at the University of British Columbia, where he founded and directed the first Canadian creative writing program. He was also a novelist, essayist, literary critic, and radio playwright.
Heads up: For each day of Holy Week (March 24–30) and the Easter Octave (March 31–April 7), I will be publishing a short post that pairs a visual artwork with a piece of music as a way of inviting you into the narrative. Here are examples from previous years:
VIDEO: “How Jesus Became the King of the World (That He Always Was)”by BibleProject: Written and directed by Jon Collins and Tim Mackie with art direction by Robert Perez, this six-minute animated video explores how Jesus brought God’s kingdom to earth and how we can live under God’s reign today.
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SONGS:
>> “Lead On, O King Eternal” (second verse), retuned by John Hatfield: This Palm Sunday hymn was originally written by Ernest W. Shurtleff in 1887 and paired with an older tune by Henry T. Smart. It has largely fallen out of favor due to its cringey first verse, with its militant language of battle and conquest. However, John Hatfield, a singer-songwriter from Houston, calls our attention to the second verse, which reframes what comes before, turning the martial imagery on its head. Our battle, Shurtleff writes in verse 2, is waged not with weapons but with holiness, peace, and deeds of love and mercy. “Let’s be about that, my friends,” Hatfield urges. In this Instagram video he sings “the better verse” of “Lead On, O King Eternal” to a new tune he wrote for it, self-accompanied on ukulele:
>> “Anointed One of God” by Tom Fisher: Written around 2004, Tom Fisher revisited this hymn of his in 2022, updating some of the lyrics. Where he hums, he originally had the word “Hallelujah,” but he wanted to experiment with something more subdued and to honor the tradition, observed in Roman Catholicism, Episcopalianism, and other denominations, of removing the “Alleluias” from worship services during Lent in recognition of the solemnity of the season. The song exalts Jesus as the Christ, literally “Anointed One” (messiah in Hebrew), who, contrary to expectations, fulfilled this identity by being crucified. According to Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospel accounts, an unnamed woman recognized Jesus’s messiahship at a house in Bethany two days before his death, pouring oil on his head—a prophetic act that named him king. The scent probably lingered in his hair and on his body as he went to the cross. [HT: Liturgy Fellowship]
>> “傷跡 (Scars)” by Takafumi Nagasawa, performed by Ruah Worship: A sibling group from Japan covers this contemporary worship song about Jesus taking up his cross and with it the weight of humanity’s sin. “The scars on your hands are the sign of your love for me,” goes the refrain. Turn on Closed Captioning for English subtitles.
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VIDEO: “The mystical brilliance of Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece” by Smarthistory: This is one of my all-time favorite artworks—I’ve given talks on it, with a focus on its matchless Crucifixion panel—though I admit I’ve only seen it in books and on screens; it’s on my list of things to see before I die (it’s at the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, France). Drs. Beth Harris and Steven Zucker have created this excellent video introduction to it, featuring wonderful photography and commentary and an animation that shows the altarpiece’s multiple configurations.
Matthias Grünewald (German, ca. 1470–1528), Crucifixion (detail) from the Isenheim Altarpiece, 1515
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INSTRUMENTAL INTERLUDE: “Varsha” by Reena Esmail, for cello or viola, from The Seven Last Words Project: Commissioned by Juilliard Historical Performance to compose an interlude between the “I Thirst” and “It Is Finished” movements of Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ, Reena Esmail wrote “Varsha” for cello, drawing on Hindustani raags that evoke rain. (She is one of seven composers who worked on the project, each contributing their own interlude.) In this video it’s performed by Madeleine Bouissou, who premiered it April 16, 2019, at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City as part of The Seven Last Words Project.
Describing her artistic vision, Esmail writes, “Christ thirsts. Rain comes from the distance (Megh Malhaar). There is a downpour around him (Miyan ki Malhaar), but he grows slowly weaker. His next words make clear that even the rain is not enough: his thirst is of another sort, which cannot be quenched by water. And so, it is finished.”
Esmail is an Indian American composer living in Los Angeles, known for combining the worlds of Indian and Western classical music in her work.
The English Crucifixion lyric “My Fearful Dream” (also known by the beginning of its first line, “To Calvary he bore his cross”) was written anonymously in the fifteenth century. It is preserved, with music by Gilbert Banastir (sometimes spelled Banaster or Banester) (ca. 1445–1487), on folios 77v–82r of the famous Tudor songbook BL Add. MS. 5465, intended for use at the court of King Henry VII. Compiled around the year 1500, this manuscript is commonly referred to as the Fayrfax Manuscript after Robert Fayrfax, the Tudor composer who was organist of St. Albans and a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal—that is, an adult male singer in the monarch’s household choir. It contains twelve sacred songs and thirty-seven secular songs, all in English—with, “beyond question, the finest music written to vernacular words which survives from pre-Reformation England,” writes John Stevens in Early Tudor Songs and Carols (xvi). It is unknown whether the text or the music was written first.
In 1982 “My Fearful Dream” was performed by Pro Cantione Antiqua under the direction of Mark Brown at the Church of St. John-at-Hackney in London. The recording of this performance was originally released in 1985 in vinyl format on A Gentill Jhesu: Music from the Fayrfax Ms. and Henry VIII’s Book (Hyperion A66152) and was later reissued by Regis Records in 2006 on the CD Tears & Lamentations: English Renaissance Polyphony (RRC 1259). Unfortunately, the CD is out of print, the choral group is inactive, and I can find no performances online. I thus provide the recording of “My Fearful Dream” (or “My Fearfull Dreme,” as the track list spells it) directly below for educational purposes. It is a song for three voices: alto, tenor, bass.
Below is the original text as transcribed by Richard Leighton Greene from the Fayrfax Manuscript in The Early English Carols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1935), page 124, followed by a version with modernized spellings and updates of a few antiquated words. The text also appears in John Stevens, Music and Poetry in the Early Tudor Court (London: Methuen, 1961), no. 56, and the music in John Stevens, ed., Early Tudor Songs and Carols (Musica Britannica 36) (London: Stainer and Bell, 1975), page 476.
Pro Cantione Antiqua does not sing the third stanza.
Rogier van der Weyden (Netherlandish, 1399/1400–1464), The Crucifixion, with the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist Mourning, ca. 1460. Oil on panel, overall 71 × 73 in. (180.3 × 185 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Most people today use the word “carol” as synonymous with a cheerful Christmas song. But up until about 1550, the term was used for lyrics of a certain form rather than a certain subject or spirit. Greene defines the medieval or Renaissance carol as “a song on any subject, composed of uniform stanzas and provided with a burden . . . [that is,] an invariable line or group of lines which is to be sung before the first stanza and after all stanzas” (Early English Carols, xxxii–xxxiii). He distinguishes a burden from a refrain: “The refrain, as defined in this essay, is a repeated element which forms part of a stanza, in the carols usually the last line. The burden, on the other hand, is a repeated element which does not form any part of a stanza, but stands wholly outside the individual stanza-pattern” (clx).
That’s why “My Fearful Dream” can properly be called a carol. The two lines beginning “My fearful dream” open the song and repeat after each stanza.
My Feerfull Dreme
My feerfull dreme nevyr forgete can I: Methought a maydynys childe causless shulde dye.
To Calvery he bare his cross with doulfull payne, And theruppon straynyd he was in every vayne; A crowne of thorne as nedill sharpe shyfft in his brayne; His modir dere tendirly wept and cowde not refrayne. Myn hart can yerne and mylt When I sawe hym so spilt, Alas, for all my gilt, Tho I wept and sore did complayne To se the sharpe swerde of sorow smert, Hough it thirlyd her thoroughoute the hart, So ripe and endles was her payne.
My feerfull dreme . . .
His grevous deth and her morenyng grevid me sore; With pale visage tremlyng she strode her child before, Beholdyng ther his lymmys all to-rent and tore, That with dispaire for feer and dred I was nere forlore. For myne offence, she said, Her Son was so betraide, With wondis sore araid, Me unto grace for to restore: ‘Yet thou are unkynd, which sleith myn hert,’ Wherewith she fell downe with paynys so smert; Unneth on worde cowde she speke more.
My feerfull dreme . . .
Saynt Jhon than said, ‘Feere not, Mary; his paynys all He willfully doth suffir for love speciall He hath to man, to make hym fre that now is thrall.’ ‘O frend,’ she said, ‘I am sure he is inmortall.’ ‘Why than so depe morne ye?’ ‘Of moderly pete I must nedis wofull be, As a woman terrestriall Is by nature constraynyd to smert, And yet verely I know in myn hart From deth to lyff he aryse shall.’
My feerfull dreme . . .
Unto the cross, handes and feete, nailid he was; Full boistusly in the mortess he was downe cast; His vaynys all and synowis to-raff and brast; The erth quakyd, the son was dark, whos lyght was past, When he lamentable Cried, ‘Hely, hely, hely!’ His moder rufully Wepyng and wrang her handes fast. Uppon her he cast his dedly loke, Wherwith soddenly anon I awoke, And of my dreme was sore agast.
My feerfull dreme . . .
My Fearful Dream (modernized)
My fearful dream never forget can I: Methought a maiden’s child causeless should die.
To Calvary he bore his cross with doleful pain, And thereupon strained he was in every vein; A crown of thorns, sharp as needles, shoved in his brain. His mother dear tenderly wept and could not refrain. My heart did yearn and melt When I saw him so spilt, Alas, for all my guilt, And I wept and did sore complain To see the sharp sword of sorrow smart, How it pierced her straight through the heart, So ripe and endless was her pain.
My fearful dream never forget can I: Methought a maiden’s child causeless should die.
His grievous death and her mourning grieved me sore; With pale visage, trembling, she strode before her child, Beholding his limbs all rent and torn, That with despair for fear and dread I was near forlorn. For my offense, she said, Her Son was so betrayed, With wounds sore arrayed, Me unto grace for to restore: “Yet thou art unkind, which slayeth my heart,” Wherewith she fell down with pains so smart; Hardly one word could she speak more.
My fearful dream never forget can I: Methought a maiden’s child causeless should die.
Saint John then said, “Fear not, Mary; all his pains He willfully suffers for the special love He has to man, to make him free that’s now in thrall.” “O friend,” she said, “I am sure he is immortal.” “Why, then, do you mourn so deeply?” “Of motherly pity I needs must woeful be, As a terrestrial woman Is by nature constrained to smart, And yet verily I know in my heart From death to life he shall arise.”
My fearful dream never forget can I: Methought a maiden’s child causeless should die.
Unto the cross, hands and feet, he was nailed; Violently into the mortise he was cast down; His veins and sinews were all riven apart and burst; The earth quaked, the sun was dark, whose light was past, When he, lamenting, Cried, “Eli, Eli, Eli!” His mother was ruefully Weeping and wrung her hands fast. Upon her he cast his deathly look, Wherewith suddenly anon I awoke, And of my dream was sore aghast.
My fearful dream never forget can I: Methought a maiden’s child causeless should die.
The speaker of this carol has a dream—a nightmare—of Calvary, where he beholds the ignominious death of Jesus and the agonizing grief of Jesus’s mother and realizes that such suffering was undertaken for his sake, to save him from sin and its fatal consequences. The accusation that Mary hurls at the speaker in her hour of torment is biting: “You slay my heart!” My son is dead because of you. It’s such a humanizing passage, this expression of a mother’s anger at a death that didn’t have to be.
This is the Mater Dolorosa (Latin for “Sorrowful Mother”) of Christian tradition, who is sometimes depicted with a sword (or seven!) in her chest, literalizing Simeon’s prophecy to her as a teen and evoking the piercing sensation of losing a child. In Rogier van der Weyden’s Crucifixion diptych that I’ve reproduced here, created in roughly the same period as “My Fearful Dream” but in the Low Countries, there’s no sword, but Mary’s sorrow is evident in her tear-stained face, the wringing of her hands, and her literally collapsing under the unbearable weight of what she’s been asked to endure.
In the carol, the apostle John, present with Mary at the foot of the cross, catches her in her swoon and offers consolation, reassuring her that Jesus suffers willingly out of love. She responds that she knows it in her heart, and that she knows too that he will ultimately rise from death, but that that doesn’t diminish the sharpness of the pain she feels, deep in her body, watching her son shamed and wounded so.
The final image in the dream is of Jesus looking on his mother with a deathly pallor. With that, the speaker is jolted awake and sits with the horror.
On this side of the resurrection, it can be easy to breeze past Good Friday (“He didn’t stay dead!”) or to meditate on the Crucifixion only in a spiritual or theological sense. But this poem, this carol, sticks us in medias res, before the resurrection, into a physical human drama full of emotional intensity, so that we can feel what it might have been like to be present at the execution of the Son of God. Maybe you feel that the graphic details are gratuitous (the thorns shoved in his brain[!], his sinews riven apart, etc.), that sensory engagement with the scene is an exercise that fails to honor the bigger picture, and that it’s fruitless to generate pity for Christ or his mother, as the event is passed and what’s done is done. But centuries of faithful Christians have found otherwise: that meditating on Christ’s pain and that of his mother can help us better appreciate the real-life as opposed to merely mythic dimensions of the story and can cultivate in us a proper horror of sin and a deeper gratitude for Christ’s sacrifice.
The word “causeless” in the burden of the carol—the speaker sees a woman’s child dying without cause—does not imply that Jesus’s death served no purpose, but rather that he was put to death on wrongful charges. The Jewish tribunal charged him with blasphemy for calling himself the Son of God, and the Roman courts charged him with sedition, with inciting insurrection against the empire. But he was telling the truth about his identity and did so in ultimate reverence for God, not lack of it, and while the path he called his followers to would in some ways challenge the values of Rome and reorient ultimate loyalties, he never took up arms or encouraged his followers to do so (quite the contrary), and he never sought political power or overthrow.
Listen once more to Pro Cantione Antiqua’s performance of this carol as it would have been performed for the first Tudor monarch, Henry VII, presumably in private religious services for him and his family. May the depths to which God went to save God’s beloved world be something you never can forget.
Vision of Saint Bernard (Blood Crucifix), by a nun from the Lower Rhine, 14th century. Ink and colored washes on paper, 25.5 × 18 cm. Museum Schnütgen, Cologne.
Jesu, no more! It is full tide; From thy hands and from thy feet, From thy head, and from thy side, All the purple rivers meet.
What need thy fair head bear a part In showers, as if thine eyes had none? What need they help to drown thy heart, That strives in torrents of its own?
Water’d by the showers they bring, The thorns that thy blest brow encloses (A cruel and a costly spring) Conceive proud hopes of proving roses.
Thy restless feet now cannot go For us and our eternal good, As they were ever wont. What though? They swim, alas! in their own flood.
Thy hand to give thou canst not lift, Yet will thy hand still giving be. It gives, but O, itself’s the gift, It gives though bound, though bound ’tis free.
But, O thy side, thy deep-digg’d side, That hath a double Nilus going: Nor ever was the Pharian tide Half so fruitful, half so flowing.
No hair so small, but pays his river To this Red Sea of thy blood; Their little channels can deliver Something to the general flood.
But while I speak, whither are run All the rivers named before? I counted wrong: there is but one; But O that one is one all o’er.
Rain-swol’n rivers may rise proud, Bent all to drown and overflow; But when indeed all’s overflow’d, They themselves are drowned too.
This thy blood’s deluge (a dire chance, Dear Lord, to thee) to us is found A deluge of deliverance, A deluge lest we should be drown’d.
Ne’er wast thou in a sense so sadly true, The well of living waters, Lord, till now.
This poem was published in the second edition of Steps to the Temple: Sacred Poems, with Other Delights of the Muses (London, 1648) under the title “On the Bleeding Body of Our Crucified Lord”; an earlier version appeared in the book’s first edition in 1646 under the title “On the Bleeding Wounds of Our Crucified Lord.” I use the title by which it is most commonly known, “Upon the Bleeding Crucifix,” first assigned to it in Crashaw’s posthumously published collection Carmen Deo Nostro (Paris, 1652). I’ve modernized the spellings.
Richard Crashaw (1612–1649) was one of the major Metaphysical poets of seventeenth-century England, a movement marked by the use of elaborate figurative language, original conceits, paradoxes, and philosophical exploration. He was also a priest. Ordained in the Church of England in 1638, he was installed as curate of the Church of St Mary the Less in Cambridge, embracing the high-church reforms of Archbishop William Laud, for which he was persecuted. In 1643, during the English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritan posse forced Crashaw into exile in France, where he converted to Roman Catholicism. Waiting for a papal retainer, he struggled with poverty and ill health. Pope Innocent X finally granted Crashaw a post at a seminary in Rome in 1647, and two years later he was given a cathedral benefice in Loreto, where he died of a fever at age thirty-six. He published two collections of poetry during his lifetime.
All photos in this post, except for the last one (of the processional icon), are my own.
(Note: WordPress seems to have disabled the feature that allows you to expand an image upon clicking, but if you’re reading on a computer, you can right-click an image and open it in a new tab to view it in full resolution; if you’re reading on a phone, you can pinch to zoom.)
Located in the Horn of Africa and with access to the Red Sea, Nile River, Mediterranean Sea, and Indian Ocean, Ethiopia stands at the nexus of historical travel, trade, and pilgrimage routes that brought it into contact with surrounding cultures and influenced its artistic development. Coptic Egypt, Nubia, South Arabia, Byzantium, Armenia, Italy, India, and the greater African continent were among those influencers. But Ethiopia not only absorbed influences; it transmitted them too.
A major art exhibition is centering Ethiopia’s artistic traditions in a global context. For Ethiopia at the Crossroads at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (running through March 3), curator Christine Sciacca has brought together more than 220 objects from the Walters’ own extraordinary Ethiopian art collection and private and institutional lenders both domestic and international. Icons, wall paintings, processional crosses and hand crosses, illuminated Gospel books and psalters, sensuls (chain manuscripts), healing scrolls, and more are on display throughout the galleries, whose walls have been painted bright green, yellow, and red—the colors of the Ethiopian flag. To round off the exhibition, guest curator Tsedaye Makonnen, an Ethiopian American multidisciplinary artist, was tasked with curating a few works from contemporary artists of the Ethiopian diaspora.
The majority of objects are Christian, made for liturgical or private devotional use. Ethiopia is one of the world’s oldest Christian nations: in the early fourth century, persuaded by a missionary from Syria, King Ezana of Aksum embraced Christianity, and it has been the dominant religion of Ethiopia ever since. But the exhibition does also include some Islamic and Jewish objects.
One of the first works you’ll encounter is a mural that would have originally been mounted on the outer wall of an Ethiopian Orthodox church sanctuary (mäqdäs), portraying the Nativity, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and the Adoration of the Magi.
Nativity, Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and Adoration of the Magi, Ethiopia, 18th century. Glue tempera on overlapping canvas pieces mounted to a new stretched canvas, 49 3/16 × 66 15/16 in. (124.9 × 170 cm). Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. [object record]
Remarkably, at the Nativity, there is a feast taking place, and Jesus is feeding his mother with what looks like a Communion wafer! As the theologian Lester Ruth has said, “The sound from most baby beds is a cry to be fed. But the cry from the manger is an offer to feed on his body born into this world.”
One of history’s most famous Ethiopian painters is Fre Seyon, who worked at the court of Emperor Zara Yaqob (r. 1434–1468) and was of the first generation of Ethiopian artists who painted icons on wood panels. He was also a monk. He likely introduced one of the characteristic features of Ethiopian icons of the Virgin and Child: the archangels Michael and Gabriel flanking them with drawn swords, acting as a kind of honor guard.
Fre Seyon (Ethiopian, active 1445–1480), Triptych Icon with the Virgin Mary and Christ Child Flanked by Archangels and Saints (center), Twelve Apostles and Saints (left), and Prophets and Saints (right), mid- to late 15th century. Tempera on gesso-primed wood. Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University, acc. no. IESMus4186.
My two favorite details of this triptych by Fre Seyon are (on the right wing) the image of the Ancient of Days surrounded by the tetramorph, his wild gray locks being blown about, and in the center, the bird that Christ holds, its feet grasping at a three-branched twig. On a literal level, the bird is a plaything for the boy that charmingly emphasizes his humanity (in the late Middle Ages, at least in Europe—I’m not sure about in Ethiopia—it was common for young children to keep tame birds as pets). On another level, the bird may be symbolic. In traditional Western art, Jesus sometimes holds a goldfinch, a bird with distinctive red markings that’s fond of eating thistle seeds and gathering thistle down and thus came to be read as a prefiguration of Christ’s thorny, blood-spilt passion. I’m not sure whether Fre Seyon intended a symbolic significance for this bird.
Here’s another triptych from the exhibition, this one from a century and a half later:
Triptych Icon with the Virgin Mary and Christ Child Flanked by Archangels, Scenes from the Life of Christ, Saint George, and Saints Honorius, Täklä Haymanot, and Ewostatewos, Ethiopia (Tigray), early 17th century. Glue tempera on panel, 16 3/4 × 22 5/16 in. (42.5 × 56.7 cm). Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. [object record]
The composition of the Virgin and Child is based on prints of a painted icon from Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome brought to Ethiopia by Portuguese Jesuit missionaries—but it innovates. As the wall text notes, “Mary’s cloak stretch[es] out in either direction to embrace the scene of Christ Teaching the Apostles below. Umbrella-like, Mary appears as both the protector and personification of the church.”
On the right wing, angels hold up chalices to collect the blood that flows from Jesus’s wounds on the cross, while below that, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus carry Jesus’s wrapped corpse to the tomb. On the left wing is one of my favorite traditional religious scenes: the Harrowing of Hell, or Christ’s Descent into Limbo, in which, on Holy Saturday, Jesus enters the realm of his dead to take back those whom Death has held captive, first of which are our foreparents Adam and Eve. Below that scene is an image of the dragon-slaying Saint George, a late third-century figure from the Levant or Cappadocia who is the patron saint of Ethiopia.
At the bottom center is a scene of Christ teaching the twelve apostles, plus two Ethiopian saints. They all hold hand crosses, like those carried by Ethiopian priests and monks.
Hand Cross with Figure, Ethiopia, probably 18th–19th century. Wood, 13 3/8 × 4 3/16 × 9/16 in. (34 x 10.7 × 1.4 cm). Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. [object record]Coptic-Arabic Book of Prayer, Egypt, 18th century. Tempera and ink on parchment, 11 3/4 × 9 in. (29.8 × 22.8 cm). Melikian Collection. [object record]
One of the hallmarks of the exhibition is its multisensory nature: attendees are immersed not only in the sights of Ethiopia but also in the sounds and smells. Scratch-and-sniff cards invite people to take a whiff of frankincense, which would have filled the censer on display. Or to smell berbere, a hot spice blend that would have been stored in the woven baskets nearby.
This olfactory element was produced by the Institute for Digital Archaeology, which, as part of its efforts to record and preserve ephemeral culture, has launched an ambitious program to preserve the heritage of smells. “The aim is to provide the technical means for documenting the aromas of today for the benefit of future generations – and to find new methods and opportunities for experiencing the odors of the past.”
Also in the exhibition there are screens where you can watch videos of Ethiopian Orthodox worship, including music and liturgies, where you will see some of the objects in use. You can also listen to interviews with members of the local Ethiopian diaspora community. (The Washington metropolitan area has the largest Ethiopian population outside Ethiopia.)
Further contextualizing the objects and enhancing the sense of place, pasted onto the wall is a blow-up photograph of a Christian holy-day celebration wending through the streets. This serves as a backdrop to two physical artifacts present in the room: a qämis (dress) and a debab (umbrella).
The inscriptions on many of the Ethiopian icons and manuscript illuminations, which identify the figures and scenes, are in Ge‘ez (aka classical Ethiopic), an ancient South Semitic language that originated over two thousand years ago in what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea. It’s no longer spoken in daily life, but it is still used as the language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and taught to boys in Sunday school. I really wish I could read it, as it would be a great help in interpreting the Ethiopian images I come across in my studies!
Contrary to what some may assume, Ethiopians in the medieval era were not an isolated people. They traveled—to Rome, to Jerusalem, and so forth. Evidence of Holy Land pilgrimage is suggested by an early fourteenth-century Gospel book that includes the domed Church of the Holy Sepulcher as the backdrop for Christ’s resurrection:
Gospel Book with the Crucifixion and Christ’s Resurrection, Ethiopia (Tigray), early 14th century. Ink and paint on parchment, 10 1/2 × 6 11/16 in. (26.7 × 17 cm). Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, W.8.36, fols. 6v–7r. [object record]
This is an extraordinary book, one of the oldest surviving Ethiopian manuscripts and the oldest in North America. Ethiopian artists weren’t yet depicting Jesus on the cross, so to represent the Crucifixion, this artist has painted a living lamb surmounting a bejeweled cross, with the two thieves crucified on either side.
Also from the fourteenth century, a manuscript opened to a page spread of Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem:
Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem, folios added from an earlier Gospel book to a Ta’ammera Maryam manuscript, Ethiopia, 14th century. Tempera and ink on parchment. Private collection.
I like how the scene extends across both pages, creating a sense of forward progression, and the two onlookers above the city gate.
One of my favorite objects from the exhibition is a sensul from Gondar depicting ten scenes from the life of Mary. A sensul is an Ethiopian chain manuscript, in this case pocket-size, created out of a single folded strip of parchment attached to heavy hide boards at each end, which creates a small book when folded shut. Here’s a detail showing the Annunciation:
Annunciation, from a Gondarine sensul (chained manuscript), Ethiopia (Gondar), late 17th century. Ink and paint on parchment, each panel 3 5/8 × 3 1/8 in. (9.2 × 9 cm). Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. [object record] [GIF]
It’s a common misconception that Ethiopians have always depicted biblical figures as dark-skinned to reflect the local population. Such treatment didn’t become normative until the eighteenth century, although some earlier artists did choose black complexions for holy persons:
Virgin and Child, from a Psalter with the Wəddase Maryam (Praise of Mary) and Mähalǝyä Näbiyyat (Canticles of the Prophets), Ethiopia, 15th century. Ink and pigments on parchment with wooden boards, open: 8 7/8 × 6 11/16 × 3 15/16 in. (22.5 × 17 × 10 cm). Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio. [object record]The Opening of the Gospel of John, from a Gospel book, Ethiopia, ca. 1504–5. Tempera on parchment, 13 9/16 × 10 7/16 in. (34.5 × 26.5 cm). J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. 102, fols. 215v–216r. [object record]Triptych Icon with the Virgin Mary and Christ Child Flanked by Archangels (center), the Kwer‘atä re’esu (Man of Sorrows) and Saint George (left), and Saint Gäbrä Mänfäs Qeddus and Abba Arsanyos (right), Ethiopia (Gondar), late 17th–early 18th century. Tempera on gesso-primed wood. Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University, acc. no. IESMus3492.
In the triptych shown above, not only is the infant Jesus depicted as Black, but he also wears a necklace made of cowrie shells, which are traditionally given to Ethiopian children for protection!
My favorite artwork from the exhibition is probably this triptych:
Triptych Icon with the Crucifixion (center), Entombment and Guards at the Tomb (left), and Temptation in the Wilderness and the Resurrection of Christ (right), Ethiopia, late 16th century. Tempera on gesso-primed wood. Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University, acc. no. IESMus4126.
Its central panel depicts the Crucifixion, Christ’s head bowed in death and his fingers gesturing blessing, even as his palms are nailed. At the top, the sun and the moon mourn his passing. As we saw before, angels catch the blood that drips from his body (notice the cute little hand sticking out from behind his torso!). At the base, the two larger-scale figures are the Virgin Mary and St. John, while next to Mary on a smaller scale is Longinus, the centurion who pierces Christ’s side with a spear.
The left wing shows the Entombment of Christ, with two guards, wearing pointed turbans, sleeping at their post. The right wing shows a scene that the label identifies as “Temptation in the Wilderness” (presumably a translation of the inscription on the tree) but that looks to me more like an Agony in the Garden. Below that is the Resurrection, with Christ holding a victory banner, standing atop Hades. An angel blows a shofar and the dead rise up out of their graves, following Christ, the firstfruits of the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20–22). Christ wears a short-sleeved, knee-length jacket with frog closures, and bunched sleeves and trousers, both of which reflect clothing from regions east of Africa.
The wall text notes the fine, wavy lines used to render the figures’ draperies, perhaps influenced by Armenian artists from the Lake Van region.
Yovsian of Vaspurakan (Armenian), Leaf from a Gospel book with the Resurrection of Christ and Visit of the Women to the Tomb of Christ, ca. 1350. Tempera on cotton paper. Private collection.
Here’s another Crucifixion, this one painted in what’s called the Second Gondarine style, characterized by smoothly modeled figures, often with darker skin tones, and wide horizontal bands of red, yellow, and green filling the background:
Diptych Icon with the Crucifixion (left) and the Mocking of Christ (right), Ethiopia, late 17th–early 18th century. Wood, polychrome, 13 1/2 × 9 7/8 in. (34.3 × 25.1 cm). Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. [object record]
The squiggles behind Christ at the top left may simply be a decorative motif, but to me they look like falling stars, an apocalyptic sign, and as if the sky is weeping.
The right panel of the diptych shows Christ being cruelly fitted with a crown of thorns.
Two other passion images I want to share are a Last Supper wall painting and an Entombment from a disbound album.
Last Supper, Ethiopia, 18th century. Tempera on linen, mounted on panel, 16 3/4 × 24 in. (42.6 × 61 cm). Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. [object record]Album Leaf with the Entombment of Christ, Ethiopia (Sawa?), late 17th century. Pigments on vellum. Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2009.39.3y. [object record]
In the Last Supper, Jesus and Judas both dip their bread (injera!) into the same bowl and exchange a knowing glance.
In the Entombment, Jesus, wrapped in white linen, is lowered into the ground, mourned by several of his women followers. The portrayal of his mother Mary’s weeping, her hands covering her eyes and her face stained with tears, is particularly poignant. This leaf is from a set of forty-four, now matted separately but originally arranged in series and likely painted on several long sheets of parchment that were sewn together and folded accordion-style to form a sensul.
One of the most extraordinary objects on display is a rare folding processional icon that adopts the form of a fan, from the late fifteenth century:
Folding Processional Icon in the Shape of a Fan, Ethiopia, late 15th century (Stephanite). Ink and paint on parchment, thread, extended: 24 1/4 × 154 1/8 × 4 3/4 in. (61.6 × 391.4 × 12 cm). Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. Photo courtesy of the museum. [object record]
Thirty-eight identically sized figures span the surface of this elongated parchment: the early Christian martyrs Julitta (Juliet) and Cyricus, St. George, St. John the Baptist, the archangel Michael, the Virgin Mary, the archangel Raphael, St. Paul, the Ethiopian artist-priest Afnin, and unidentified Old Testament patriarchs and prophets. There would have been a wooden handle attached to either end that, when pulled together, created a double handle for a giant wheel to be displayed during liturgical processions and church services (see here). As the museum website notes, “The Virgin Mary, whose hands are raised in a gesture of prayer, is then at the top of the wheel. By depicting Mary in the company of saints and angels, the icon powerfully evokes the celestial community of the church.”
This is just a sampling of all the wonderful art objects that are a part of the Ethiopia at the Crossroadsexhibition. I’ll share more photos on Instagram (@art_and_theology) in the coming weeks.
I strongly encourage you to go see this! I think it would be enjoyable for children as well, especially Christian children, who will be able to identify many of the painted stories. For Christians, it’s an opportunity to connect with our artistic heritage and with African church history. If you can’t catch the exhibition at the Walters in Baltimore before it closes March 3, it will be traveling to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts (April 13–July 7, 2024), and the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio (August 17–November 10, 2024).
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.
So it is to be. Amen.
—Revelation 1:5b–7
LOOK: The Last Judgment by Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck (Netherlandish, ca. 1390–1441), The Last Judgment, ca. 1436–38. Oil on canvas, transferred from wood, 22 1/4 × 7 2/3 in. (56.5 × 19.7 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
What is your reaction to this image? Terror? Awe? Gratitude? Disgust? Intrigue? Indifference?
I’m often repulsed by how the Last Judgment was interpreted by medieval and Renaissance artists, with graphic displays of torture intending to compel people to righteous living through fear. To be sure, the subject has made for some truly remarkable paintings, full of fantastical grotesqueries and masterfully executed—like this one—but I worry that the scare tactics such paintings use are not helpful and are even harmful.
Nonetheless, the Last Judgment is an unavoidable topic in scripture. The Bible refers several times to God as judge and describes a final accounting of sin upon Christ’s return, resulting in reward for the righteous and punishment for the unrighteous. It’s also in our creeds: “He [Jesus Christ] will come again to judge the living and the dead” (see 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:5). Those who seek to be faithful to scripture must reckon with the idea of the Last Judgment. Advent, which is penitential in character, has historically been a period for the church to do that. As the Episcopal priest and author Fleming Rutledge points out in her published collection of Advent sermons, judgment is one of the four traditional themes of the season—the other three being death, heaven, and hell.
The early Northern Renaissance master Jan van Eyck’s Last Judgment from ca. 1436–38 is one of history’s most famous and most gruesome. “The diabolical inventions of Bosch and Brueghel,” writes art historian Bryson Burroughs, “are children’s boggy lands compared to the horrors of the hell [van Eyck] has imagined.”
The midground portrays the resurrection of the dead, who rise up out of their graves on land or at sea to be judged by Christ. One of the inscriptions on the frame is Revelation 20:13: “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”
In the center Saint Michael the Archangel, dressed in his jewel-studded armor and with sword unsheathed, stands atop the giant batlike wings of Death personified, which are inscribed with the words CHAOS MAGNVM (“great chaos”) and UMBRA MORTIS (“shadow of death”). Death is a skeletal figure who excretes the damned through his bowels into hell’s dark slime, where bestial demons tear at, choke, devour, crush, and impale them. One man’s legs are being ripped apart at the anus.
Even kings and clergymen are part of the tragic death-heap—see the bishop’s miter, the cardinal’s galero, the royal crown. Not all who say, “Lord, Lord,” will enter heaven (Matt. 7:21); even the most outwardly pious will have their sins exposed on the last day, and those who prove to be hypocrites, who have harmed others and shamed God without repentance, will be thrown into the pit.
Shooting down like arrows into this pit is the double inscription ITE VOS MALEDICTI IN IGNEM ETERNAM (“Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire”), taken from Matthew 25:41. And Deuteronomy 32:23–24, a warning from God via Moses to the people of God in their disobedience, is one of the inscriptions on the frame:
I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
Perhaps your chest is tightening right now, your stomach churning. How does this picture cohere with the God of love and mercy?
Look up.
See Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, coming in glory. See his glowing stigmata, beacons of love and mercy. He is dressed in a long, red, open mantle and is barefoot, revealing all five wounds. All around him, angels bear the instruments of his passion: the cross, the three nails, the crown of thorns, the lance, the sponge-tipped reed. See him flanked by all the ranks of the redeemed, including, on a larger scale, the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, the first two witnesses of Jesus’s divinity.
VENITE BENEDICTI PATRIS MEI, read the inscriptions fanning out from Christ’s elbows: “Come, ye blessed of my Father” (Matt. 25:34). This good word is taken from Jesus’s parable of the sheep and the goats, in which he teaches that those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the immigrant, care for the sick, and visit the imprisoned will be honored by God on the last day.
Another benediction is inscribed on the picture’s frame:
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:3–4 NRSV)
Van Eyck’s Last Judgment does not stand alone. For centuries it has been configured as a diptych (two-paneled artwork) with a Crucifixion on the left and is thus intended to be read in light of God’s supreme act of vulnerable love and self-giving:
Jan van Eyck (Netherlandish, ca. 1390–1441), The Crucifixion; The Last Judgment (with recently conserved frame), ca. 1436–38. Oil on canvas, transferred from wood, each panel 22 1/4 × 7 2/3 in. (56.5 × 19.7 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Originally these two paintings very likely served as the wings of a triptych with a painted or sculpted centerpiece, or as the doors to a tabernacle or reliquary shrine. In 2019 the Metropolitan Museum of Art had the frames restored from their modern brass color to their original red.
So, what are we to make of this image today? Is there value in meditating on it?
I’ve presented it here, so I think it’s definitely worth knowing about. It’s a stunning art object that gives us a glimpse into the religious imagination of late medieval Christians. But I would also advise caution, especially to those who have been traumatized by hell teachings in the past. While Christians are called to cultivate a holy fear of God, a soberness around the weight of our sin and the power of God’s justice, this fear is not supposed to be the kind of fear that induces anxiety or paralyzes. That kind of fear will never lead us to love God.
We are never meant to think on hell apart from the grace Christ extends to us with his pierced and outstretched hands, which plead our case before God. Van Eyck holds both together in this painting, but the more visually immersive bottom half seems to indulge some pretty sick fantasies that could well generate an unhealthy fear of God if one were to stay stuck there, not to mention create the false impression that God is monstrously vindictive.
There is debate within Christianity, and has been since the patristic era, whether Jesus’s justice is merely punitive or ultimately restorative—that is, whether hell is a place of eternal conscious torment or a place where one is purged of evil and that will in the end be emptied. (There is biblical support for both views, which I won’t get into here.) There is also disagreement as to whether the Bible’s language about hell, such as its being a place of “fire” and “brimstone” (sulfur) (e.g., Rev. 21:8), is meant to be taken literally or figuratively.
Whatever the duration, physical nature, and ultimate purpose of hell, I want to emphasize that biblical passages about the Last Judgment ought not drive us to despair; they should drive us into the arms of Christ, who receives into his presence all those who trust in his merits and turn from their wickedness. The wounds that Christ so prominently displays in van Eyck’s painting are tokens of divine forgiveness as well as a model of the kind of selfless love we are to follow, a love vulnerable enough to receive injury but never to inflict it. Those who tumble into the depths of the underworld to be ravaged by externalizations of their own destructive evils have rejected the call to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with [their] God” (Mic. 6:8). Many of them are ones who on earth bore much power but used it to abuse others or were neglectful.
For more on the characterization of Jesus as judge in the art and theology of the Middle Ages (whose influence was felt in the Renaissance and later eras), see chapter 2, “The Judge,” of Jesus through Medieval Eyes by Grace Hamman. “The promise of answering unanswered evil, acknowledging the recognized and unrecognized wrongs of the mortal world—everlasting justice and compassion—is ultimately what Christ the Judge signifies. It’s a promise, a prophecy, and a call for action now,” Hamman writes (28). She discusses how neighborliness and fear of God are twinned: “Am I seeing the immortal being, the image of God, Jesus himself, in every person I encounter?” medieval imagery prompted viewers to ask (37). “Jesus the Judge reminds us of our divine community and invites a fear that guides us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. . . . Fear of Jesus the Judge becomes a gift for our practice of justice, in the radiant light of his justice. Such a fear softens flinty hearts” (21, 36). In the chapter Hamman does also acknowledge the complications and misuses of fear in the medieval church and its legacy today.
I urge you to consider the van Eyck diptych in light of the retuned hymn below as you meditate on Christ’s return and his role as judge.
LISTEN: “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending” | Words by Charles Wesley, 1758 | Music by Thomas Vito Aiuto, 2012 | Performed by the Welcome Wagon on Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, 2012
Lo! he comes with clouds descending, once for favored sinners slain; thousand, thousand saints attending swell the triumph of his train.
Ev’ry eye shall now behold him, robed in dreadful majesty; those who set at naught and sold him, pierced, and nailed him to the tree, deeply wailing, deeply wailing, shall the true Messiah see.
Ev’ry island, sea, and mountain, heav’n and earth, shall flee away; all who hate him must, confounded, hear the trump proclaim the day: Come to judgment, come to judgment! Come to judgment, come away! Alleluia, alleluia! God appears on earth to reign.
The dear tokens of his passion Still his dazzling body bears, Cause of endless exultation To his ransomed worshippers. With what rapture, with what rapture Gaze we on those glorious scars! Alleluia, alleluia! God appears on earth to reign.
Yea, amen! Let all adore thee, high on thine eternal throne; Savior, take the pow’r and glory, claim the kingdom for thine own. O come quickly, O come quickly; everlasting God, come down. O come quickly, O come quickly; everlasting God, come down. O come quickly, O come quickly; everlasting God, come down.
I’m struck by the bright, celebratory, homey tone of the new tune Rev. Vito Aiuto gave this old Wesley hymn about Christ’s second coming. One might expect, with its verses about judgment, to have a dark or foreboding tone. But for those who are in Christ, his return, and even the day of judgment, will be an occasion of rejoicing!
Note that “dreadful” here is used in the archaic sense of inspiring awe or reverence.
This post is part of a daily Advent series from December 2 to 24, 2023 (with Christmas to follow through January 6, 2024). View all the posts here, and the accompanying Spotify playlist here.
Solomia Kazanivska (Соломія Казанівська) (Ukrainian, 1996–), Mother of God, 2019. Acrylic and soil on wood, 60 × 40 cm.
I.
Here mothers move more than others
into Mary’s mourning, each chorus
a soul full of crosses, weighted
with her child dying
continuously in the contemplation
of our contrition.
II.
That once-upon-a-time angel’s voice
stretching anew her middle-aged womb,
she who once sang Magnify, O Magnify,
when all she screams for now
is mercy in her urgent rebirth
of sorrow.
III.
When he stumbles,
she cannot fix his fall,
cannot cradle the boyhood
scrapes and bruises bleeding
into crowd-sanctioned murder.
No cock crows; she hears his groans
as if the world’s bones
are splintering within her.
IV.
Besides the tree, he carries
the tears of the one who carried him
beneath her Eve ribs, lifted him
into a world he breathed as good,
gone now into this God-crucified-
as-her-son catastrophe
for salvation’s sake.
V.
Simon of Cyrene stands close.
Understanding too well the two sorrows—
mother and son helpless to comfort the other—
he heaves up and shoulders
the burdens of both,
his back the black tablet
of Moses’ commandments fulfilled
to the jot and tittle.
VI.
Veronica—eyes swollen
for the Madonna and Child
wrenched from their rightful honor—
lifts her veil to cool the Savior’s pain,
alleviate, however slightly, a mother’s anguish.
VII.
Thorns gouge the brow she stroked.
The sweat-caked man that came out of her
stumbles again. Already,
the sharp nails gnaw her own palms.
VIII.
Oh, daughters of Jerusalem,
your tears sweep the streets,
wet the weary soles of Mary.
Weep for your own children
forever dashing away from Yahweh.
IX.
Wretched stones that tip her sinless child,
dirt that drives down the innocent son.
His own earth hurts him more each tumble.
Three times he trips,
crashes to the dust we are,
mortal muscles turning their backs
on Man and his Mother.
X.
Threads twisted by her own fingers,
tugged carefully through cloth:
this is the tunic they rip from him,
fabric tattooed with red;
she remembers his baby body
blood-splattered and matted.
XI.
Her soul stabbed by the tree
that slays her son. Her heart nailed.
She swears his life spurts
from her barely breathing body.
XII.
Death is indigo and indelible,
the Roman sky collapsed and re-scribbled
on the shreds of her memories.
She cannot bear to look upon his face
when breath forgets its maker.
XIII.
Ten thousand stillborns better
than this: his torso in her arms,
icon of the inconsolable,
the flesh Pietà with its nails of pain,
pounding, pounding.
XIV.
The hewn tomb seals her grief.
She remembers his first words,
his final prayer. All else rots
within her. They swaddle him,
implant him quickly behind stone.
This poem is from Weeknights at the Cathedral (Cincinnati: WordTech Communications, 2006) and is anthologized in slightly revised form, as here, in Poems of Devotion: An Anthology of Recent Poets, ed. Luke Hankins (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012).Used by permission of the author.
Note: The Stations of the Cross are a form of Catholic devotion organized around the events of Christ’s passion, from his condemnation by Pilate to his crucifixion and burial.
Marjorie Maddox (born 1959) is the author of fourteen poetry collections, including Begin with a Question (Paraclete, 2022); Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation from the Poiema Poetry Series (Wipf & Stock, 2018); and True, False, None of the Above (Wipf & Stock, 2016). She has also published a short story collection, four children’s and YA books, and 650-plus stories, essays, and poems in journals and anthologies. Living in Central Pennsylvania, she is a professor of English and creative writing at Lock Haven University and is the assistant editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry.
Olivewood crucifix, South Africa, 1978. Source: Christliche Kunst in Afrika, p. 263
LISTEN: “Indodana” (Son), traditional isiXhosa song from South Africa | Arr. Michael Barrett and Ralf Schmitt, adapt. André van der Merwe, 2014 | Performed by the Stellenbosch University Choir, 2014
You took your own son
Who lived among us [wailing]
(Repeat)
The Son of God
Was crucified [wailing]
(Repeat)
Oh Father! Father, Father Jehovah!
Father! [wailing]
(Repeat)
[source]
This song so well captures the mood of mourning that characterizes Good Friday, when the Son of God was slain. “Hololo” and “helele” are wordless expressions of grief. So is the “Zjem zjem zja” sung by the basses, like heaving sobs, on the title word in verse 2. One soprano who performed this piece said that singing the “Oh’s” above the melody felt like singing tears.
Art & Theology 