Tag: New Exodus

Easter, Day 8: We Walk His Way

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

LOOK: The Resurrection by Severino Blanco

Blanco, Severino_Resurrection
Severino Blanco (Quechua, 1951–2020), The Resurrection, ca. 1984. Mural, Casa del Catequista (CADECA) Chapel, Cochabamba, Bolivia.

Severino Blanco (1951–2020) [previously] was a Quechua Christian artist from Ayopaya, Bolivia. His magnum opus is an extensive cycle of biblical paintings inside the chapel of the Casa del Catechista (CADECA) in Cochabamba, a center for training catechists (lay Catholic missionaries) and pastoral leaders to serve the sixty villages in the city’s archdiocese.

The centerpiece of the mural is an image of the risen Christ breaking through the chains of hell, trampling down its gates and leading an exodus of departed saints into new life. I can spot Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of the United States and Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador, martyrs of the faith, and I’m sure there are many other Latin American Christian preachers and activists pictured—those who walk the way of liberation.

Blanco, Severino_Resurrection
Source: Von Befreiung und Erlösung: Bilder in CADECA Cochabamba/Bolivien (Missionskreis Ayopaya, 2012), p. 156

Barefoot and glowing, Jesus bears the puncture wounds from his crucifixion, but they are now glorified, and he holds high a cacique’s (Indigenous chief’s) staff, signifying his leadership. Beneath his feet are symbols of some of the hellish obsessions or addictions from which he frees us: a rifle and a hydrogen bomb (war and violence), money (greed, materialism), a needle and a liquor bottle (substance abuse). He walks through a rainbow-rimmed portal that frames him and his followers like an aureole and that is surrounded by flowering tree branches.

Above this vignette is the blessing hand of God the Father, and below is the Holy Spirit as dove, from whom issues forth streams of living water (see John 7:37–39). The presence of these two other persons of the Trinity emphasizes the Resurrection as a Trinitarian event.

This image is used on the cover of the German-language book Von Befreiung und Erlösung: Bilder in CADECA Cochabamba/Bolivien (Of Liberation and Redemption: Pictures in CADECA Cochabamba, Bolivia) by Alois Albrecht. The book features reproductions of the mural scenes alongside relevant Bible passages and texts by Latin American theologians and other members of the church.

One of the texts reproduced in the book is a letter from a Paraguayan base community to European Christians. (The date is not provided, nor is the original Spanish.) Here’s Google’s translation from the German:

Good people, our brothers and sisters in Europe!

Here as there, we celebrate Easter these days. How do you celebrate the feast of the resurrection of our suffering Lord, his passing from death to new life?

Here, the few rich people pass by the suffering of the poor. It is said of Jesus that he did not cling to his divinity as if it were a prize. But here, the few rich people plunder everything from the poor majority: bread, land, work, wages, health, housing, security.

How is passing over to a new life, like Easter, like resurrection, possible then? Are we not all brothers and sisters, you there and we here? Easter is an international affair.

Our situation has international roots and is caused by those who make decisions in the world, carry out plans, and in doing so forget us, the little brothers and sisters of the suffering and slain Jesus.

Easter is the feast of hopeful departure, of joyful new beginnings, of enthusiastic new life. But who among us feels anything of departure, joy, new beginnings, new life? Yes, hope—we have it! Easter is a feast of expectation; for whoever is always on the way also reaches their destination.

So, brothers and sisters! Despite everything, let us go our own way, you there and we here, in the light of Christ, the Lord raised to new life, to seek together equality and freedom for all.

We Paraguayans need you there, and not just your money, but above all your sure and loud voice against the ideology that enslaves and kills us all, us poor and you rich alike.

We all live in the same danger of death. But our risen Lord has also made us all his equal brothers and sisters. Please don’t forget that!

Arnoldo and friends and family

Another text is an excerpt from a document of the Third General Assembly of the Latin American Episcopate in Puebla, Mexico, in 1979. Again, Google Translate:

In fulfillment of the commission he received from his Father, Jesus voluntarily offered himself up to death on the cross, which was the goal of his life’s journey. As the bringer of the freedom and joy of the kingdom of God, he wanted to become the decisive sacrifice for injustice and evil in this world. On the cross, he takes upon himself the pain of creation and offers his life as a sacrifice for all.

In this way, he is the high priest who is able to share our weaknesses with us. He is the Easter sacrifice that redeems us from our sins. He is the obedient Son who, in the face of his Father’s redeeming justice, incarnates the cry for liberation and salvation of all people. . . .

Therefore, the Father raises his Son from the dead. He exalts him in glory to his right hand, pours out upon him the life-giving power of his Spirit, appoints him as head of his body, that is, the church, and confirms him as Lord of the world and of history.

Jesus’s resurrection is a sign and guarantee of the resurrection to which we are all called, as well as of the final transformation of the whole world. Through him and in him, the Father wished to re-create what he had already created.

Amen, and amen.

Addendum: At my church this morning, an invited guest preached a sermon on Colossians 1:18–20 titled “Leading the Resurrection Parade” after Eugene Peterson’s translation of the christological descriptor “the firstborn from the dead” in verse 18. I instantly thought of this image I had posted just hours earlier, in which Jesus’s staff is reminiscent of a drum major mace! The preacher spoke of Jesus steering a resurrection train of people, the new humanity, and cross-referenced 2 Corinthians 2:14: “Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.”

LISTEN: “We Walk His Way (Ewe Thina),” a South African freedom song from the apartheid era | Translated by Anders Nyberg, Jonas Johnson, and Sven-Bernhard Fast, 1984 | Arranged by John L. Bell and performed by the Wild Goose Collective on We Walk His Way: Shorter Songs for Worship, 2008

Refrain (Xhosa):
Ewe thina, ewe thina
Ewe thina, ewe thina
Ewe thina, ewe thina
Ewe thina, ewe thina

Sizowa nyathela amadimoni
Ewe thina, ewa thina
Sizowa nyathela amadimoni
Ewe thina, ewa thina [Refrain]

Refrain (English):
We walk his way, we walk his way
We walk his way, we walk his way
We walk his way, we walk his way
We walk his way, we walk his way

Unarmed, he faces forces of demons and death
We walk his way, we walk his way
Unarmed, he faces forces of demons and death
We walk his way, we walk his way [Refrain]

He breaks the bonds of hell, dying on the cross
We walk his way, we walk his way
He breaks the bonds of hell, dying on the cross
We walk his way, we walk his way [Refrain]

The tree of freedom blooms by his empty grave
We walk his way, we walk his way
The tree of freedom blooms by his empty grave
We walk his way, we walk his way [Refrain]

Easter, Day 6: Mary Magdalene Sings Resurrection

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

It is the day of Resurrection and an auspicious beginning. Let us be made brilliant by the feast and embrace each other. . . .

Yesterday the lamb was slaughtered, and the doorposts were anointed, and the Egyptians lamented the firstborn, and the destroyer passed over us, and the seal was awesome and venerable, and we were walled in by the precious blood. Today we have totally escaped Egypt and Pharaoh the harsh despot and the burdensome overseers, and we have been freed from the clay and the brick-making. And nobody hinders us from celebrating a feast of exodus for the Lord our God. . . .

Yesterday I was crucified with Christ, today I am glorified with him; yesterday I died with him, today I am made alive with him; yesterday I was buried with him, today I rise with him.

—Gregory of Nazianzus, “On Pascha and on His Slowness,” an Easter sermon from ca. 362, trans. Nonna Verna Harrison in Festal Orations by Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008)

LOOK: Miniature from the Tomić Psalter

Miriam's Dance
The prophet Miriam leading the women with timbrels and dances, from the Tomić Psalter, Bulgaria, ca. 1360. Tempera on paper, 30 × 25 cm. State Historical Museum, Moscow.

This miniature comes from a fourteenth-century illuminated psalter from Bulgaria, a masterpiece of the Tarnovo art school. It’s linked to Psalm 105, which exults in the memory of God bringing Israel up out of Egypt, providing for them in the desert, and establishing them in the promised land. “So he brought his people out with joy, his chosen ones with singing,” the psalmist writes (Ps. 105:43).

More directly, the image is an illustration of Exodus 15:20–21, an episode of female-led worship that occurs just after the crossing of the Red Sea:

And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances.

And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.

The only percussion instrument mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the timbrel (Heb. toph), or hand drum, consists of a hoop of wood or metal over which the skin of an animal is stretched. Some have jingles around the rim, like the modern tambourine, and some do not. The instrument is associated with women and celebration.

In the visual imagination of the anonymous Tomić Psalter artist, Miriam beats a drum with a stick while two of her companions clash cymbals and other women interlock arms and dance. The artist probably took inspiration from the folk music and dancing of women in his own culture.

LISTEN: “Da Mariae tympanum” (Give Mary a Tambourine) | Words by Peter Abelard, 1130s | Music by Georg Forster, 16th century | Performed by the Augsburg Early Music Ensemble on Medieval Pilgrimage to Santiago, 2003

Da Mariae tympanum 
resurrexit Dominus,
Hebraes ad canticum
cantans provocet,
Holocausta carminum
Iacob immolet.

Subvertens Aegyptios,
resurrexit Dominus,
Rubri Maris alveos
replens hostibus,
quos involvit obrutos
undis pelagus.

Dicat tympanistria,
Resurrexit Dominus,
illa quidem altera
re, non nomine,
resurgentem merita
prima cernere.

Cantet carmen dulcius,
resurrexit Dominus,
reliquis fidelibus
mixta feminis,
cum ipsa narrantibus
hoc discipulis.

Deo patri gloria,
resurrexit Dominus,
salus et victoria
Christo Domini;
par honor per saecula
sit Spiritui.
Give Mary a tambourine,
    for the Lord has risen;
as she sings, let her incite
    Hebrew women to song;
let too Jacob sacrifice
    holocausts of songs.

Egyptians he did overwhelm,
    for the Lord has risen,
filled the Red Sea’s submerged caves
    with his enemies,
whom the sea caught and buried
    in the waves below.

Let the timbrel player sing,
    For the Lord has risen,
a second Mary, different in
    her person, not in name,
she deserved to be the first
    to see him risen up.

Let her sing a sweeter song,
    for the Lord has risen,
as she mingles with the rest
    of the faithful women,
who with her proclaim the news
    to the Lord’s disciples.

Glory be to God the Father,
    for the Lord has risen,
health restored and victory
    to the Lord’s anointed;
equal honor through the years
    to the Holy Spirit.

Trans. Peter G. Walsh with Christopher Husch in One Hundred Latin Hymns: Ambrose to Aquinas (Harvard University Press, 2012)

This hymn is from the second book of the Hymnarius Paraclitensis (Hymnary of the Paraclete), a collection of over 130 Latin hymns written by the French philosopher and theologian Peter Abelard (1079–1142) [previously] for the convent of the Paraclete near Troyes, headed by Héloïse. It imagines Mary Magdalene as the New Miriam (Mary is the anglicized form of the Hebrew Miriam), leading women in song and dance in celebration of God’s victory over the forces of sin and death through the resurrection of God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

(Related posts: “‘Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep’: Death, Resurrection, and the New Exodus”; “Tambourines” by Langston Hughes)

In Christianity, the exodus is interpreted not just as a literal saving act in Israel’s history but also as a prefigurement of the Resurrection. In many churches, Exodus 14, recounting the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea, is part of the Easter liturgy. The Orthodox word for Easter, Pascha—a Greek word from the Hebrew Pesach—itself means “Passover,” further reinforcing the connection between the Israelites’ liberation from Egyptian slavery and the liberation of God’s New Testament people from spiritual bondage, both made possible by the blood of a lamb and requiring passage through the waters—sea versus baptismal.

Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus’s closest disciples, and it’s she, according to the Gospel of John, to whom he first appeared following his resurrection. He then commissioned her to go tell the other disciples—to beat the drum, as it were, announcing the good news that he is alive. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke have her joined in this task by other faithful women: “the other Mary” and “Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women,” respectively.

I like the image Abelard gives us of Mary Magdalene rousing her female companions with a tambourine, leading them in the song and dance of resurrection. In the new exodus, Christ guides humanity into freedom, from death to life, as Mary praisefully proclaims, across the path he has paved by his own rising. “Resurrexit Dominus!” The men at first disbelieve her testimony . . . but once they see what she’s seen, they, too, rejoice.

The musical setting of Abelard’s text featured above is by the German Renaissance composer and physician Georg Forster (ca. 1510–1568).