O set me as a seal upon thy heart O set me as a seal upon thine arm For love is strong, strong as death, my love And jealousy is cruel as the grave
Its flashes are the living flame of a blazing fire That cannot be drowned out in a flood All earthly gold in exchange for love Would be utterly contemptible and scorned
Come, my love Let me hear your voice My companions and I wait in the garden Make haste, my love, and shine out like the rising sun Like a stag appearing on the mountain
After the crucifixion of Jesus, a small group of his female followers purchased spices and prepared them to bring to the tomb to anoint his body on Sunday morning. (Sabbath restrictions prevented them from doing work on Saturday.) This was an act of love and reverence that served the practical function of counteracting the smell of decomposition.
The singer-songwriter Katy Wehr [previously] imagines the women consoling each other by singing excerpts from the Song of Songs as they crushed the myrrh, mixed it with oil, and bottled it up for transport—maybe also as they headed over to the gravesite. Wehr has set to music four of the verses from the book’s final chapter, a setting she says she hopes conveys a tone that is both mournful and hopeful.
The Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, is an ancient collection of Hebrew love poems that Christians have long read as allegorical of the love between Christ and his bride, the church.
Wehr’s selections comment on the nature of love: it is permanent, strong, passionate, inextinguishable, and priceless. The female speaker in the poem seeks to stamp herself on her lover’s heart like a seal, claiming him as hers. She professes love’s power, which is as severe and enduring as death. In the context of this passage, the word “jealousy” appears to be used in the positive sense to mean zeal or passion—a resolute devotion.
She goes on to describe love as fiery and intense.
It seems her lover has gone out for the day, or gone on a trip, and she calls him back home. She can’t wait to hear his voice again. She waits outside for him in the garden, wishing for him to come bounding back into her arms.
“Make haste, my love, and shine out like the rising sun.” One can imagine the myrrh-bearing women of the Gospels hoping beyond hope that their beloved Jesus would arise, would speak their names once more, would prove that love is indeed stronger than death.
WORLD PREMIERE: “Yr Oedd Gardd / There Was a Garden” by Alex Mills, March 29, 2024, Saint Deiniol’s Cathedral, Bangor, Wales: On Good Friday this year, a new setting of seven unpublished R. S. Thomas poems, curated from the archives of the R. S. Thomas Research Centre, will be performed for the first time by Saint Deiniol’s Cathedral Choir under the direction of Joe Cooper, accompanied by devotional readings. The choral composition is by Alex Mills [previously], and it was commissioned by Saint Deiniol’s for Holy Week. The title comes from John 19:41–42: “Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.”
Thomas was a priest in the Church of Wales and one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets, his works exploring the cross, the presence and absence of God, forgiveness, and redemption.
This is the second commission Mills has fulfilled for the cathedral; last year he wrote “Saith Air y Groes / Seven Last Words from the Cross,” a choral setting of the seven short phrases uttered by Jesus from the cross, according to the Gospel writers, but in Welsh.
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CONTEMPORARY HYMNS/GOSPEL SONGS BY WOMEN:
I try to be intentional about featuring the work of women throughout the year, but as March is Women’s History Month, I wanted to call attention to these three sacred songs by Christian women from the generation or two before me.
>> “Christ Jesus Knew a Wilderness” by Jane Parker Huber (1986): Born in China to American Presbyterian missionaries, Jane Parker Huber (1926–2008) is best known as a hymn writer and an advocate for women in the church. This hymn—which can be found in A Singing Faith(1987), among other songbooks—is particularly suitable for Lent. Huber wrote the words, pairing them with an older tune by George J. Elvey. Lucas Gillan, a drummer, educator, church music director, composer, and occasional singer-songwriter from Chicago and founding member of the jazz quartet Many Blessings, arranged the hymn and performs it here with his wife, Anna Gillan, a project commissioned by Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Walnut Creek, California. What a great violin part!
Christ Jesus knew a wilderness Of noonday heat and nighttime cold Of doubts and hungers new and old Temptation waiting to take hold
Christ Jesus knew uncertainty Would all forsake, deny, betray? Would crowds that followed turn away? Would pow’rs of evil hold their sway?
Christ Jesus knew an upper room An olive grove, a judgment hall A skull-like hill, a drink of gall An airless tomb bereft of all
Christ Jesus in our wilderness You are our bread, our drink, our light Your death and rising set things right Your presence puts our fears to flight
>> “For Those Tears I Died (Come to the Water)” by Marsha Stevens-Pino (1969): I grew up in an independent Baptist church in the southern US, and though the worship music consisted almost entirely of traditional hymns, I have a faint recollection of a woman singing this song as an offertory one Sunday. (Or maybe I heard it on a Gaithers’ television special at my grandma’s house?) It is a very early CCM (contemporary Christian music) song that was popular with the emerging Jesus Movement. Marsha Stevens-Pino (née Carter) (born 1952) of Southern California wrote it in 1969 when she was sixteen and a brand-new Christian, and it was recorded by Children of the Day in 1971.
In the video below, excerpted from the DVD Stories and Songs, vol. 1, it is sung by Callie DeSoto and Maggie Beth Phelps with their father, David Phelps.
>> “The First One Ever” by Linda Wilberger Egan (1980): An alumna of the Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music with a background in voice and organ, Linda Wilberger Egan (born 1946) has served Lutheran, United Methodist, and Presbyterian congregations as music director throughout her career. Based on Luke 1:26–38, John 4:7–30, and Luke 24:1–11, her hymn “The First One Ever” honors the gospel witness of biblical women: Mother Mary, who said yes to God’s plan for her life, bearing the Messiah into the world; the unnamed woman of Samaria, who, after Jesus personally revealed his messianic identity to her, evangelized her whole village; and Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, the first people to receive the news of Jesus’s resurrection and to preach it to the apostles.
The hymn is sung in the following video by Lauren Gagnon at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Chenango Bridge, New York, accompanied by her husband, Jacob Gagnon, on guitar.
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SUBSTACK POST: “St. Gabriel to Mary flies / this is the end of snow & ice” by Kristin Haakenson: Kristin Haakenson, creator of Hearthstone Fables, is an artist, farmer, and mom from the Pacific Northwest who shares art and reflections inspired by the sacred and the seasonal, place and past. In this most recent post of hers, she discusses the yearly intersection of Lent and the Feast of the Annunciation. “In a time when the Annunciation isn’t celebrated as universally within the Church as it once was, it may feel somewhat disjointed to stumble upon this joyful feast – celebrating the conception of Jesus – during the penitential season of Lent,” she writes. “This timing, though, is part of a revelatory harmony within the Christian calendar. When we step back to see it in the context of the rest of the liturgical year – and also in the context of the natural, astronomical seasons – the theology embedded in this system of sacred time begins to absolutely bloom.”
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LITURGICAL POEM: “Annunciation 2022” by Kate Bluett:Kate Bluett from Indiana writes metrical verse around the liturgical calendar and is also one of the lyricists of the Porter’s Gate music collective. In this poem (which she said was inspired in part by the timing of this blog post!) she brings the Annunciation into conversation with the Song of Solomon in such resonant ways.
Toros Taronatsi (Armenian, 1276–ca. 1346), The Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, 1323, from a Gospel-book made at Gladzor Monastery, Siunik, Armenia. MS 6289, fol. 143, Matenadaran Collection (Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts), Yerevan.
On Holy Saturday I’m planning to feature a song that connects the Song of Solomon to the women at Jesus’s tomb! If you haven’t read that Old Testament book or it’s been a while, I’d encourage you to do so, as then you’ll be able to more easily identify the references in Bluett’s poem and the upcoming song I’ve scheduled for the Paschal Triduum.
Aelbert Bouts (Netherlandish, ca. 1451/54–1549), Man of Sorrows, mid-1490s. Oil on oak wood, 14 15/16 × 10 7/16 in. (37.9 × 26.5 cm). Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
ORIGINAL MIDDLE ENGLISH:
Vndo þi dore, my spuse dere,
Allas! wy stond i loken out here?
fre am i þi make.
Loke mi lokkes & ek myn heued
& al my bodi with blod be-weued
For þi sake.
Allas! allas! heuel haue i sped,
For senne iesu is fro me fled,
Mi trewe fere.
With-outen my gate he stant alone,
Sorfuliche he maket his mone
On his manere.
Lord, for senne i sike sore,
Forʒef & i ne wil no more,
With al my mith senne i forsake,
& opne myn herte þe inne to take.
For þin herte is clouen oure loue to kecchen,
Þi loue is chosen vs alle to fecchen;
Mine herte it þerlede ʒef i wer kende,
Þi suete loue to hauen in mende.
Perce myn herte with þi louengge,
Þat in þe i haue my duellingge.
Amen.
MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
“Undo thy door, my spouse dear,
Alas! why stand I locked out here?
For I am thy mate.
Look, my locks and also my head
And all my body with blood bedewed,
For thy sake.”
“Alas! alas! evil have I sped,
For sin Jesus is from me fled,
My true companion.
Without my gate he standeth alone,
Sorrowfully he maketh his moan
In his manner.”
Lord, for sin I sigh sore,
Forgive, and I’ll do so no more,
With all my might I forsake my sin,
And open my heart to take thee in.
For thy heart is cleft our love to catch,
Thy love has chosen us all to fetch;
My heart it pierced if I were kind,
Thy sweet love to have in mind.
Pierce my heart with thy loving,
That in thee I may have my dwelling.
Amen.
This poem appears in the 1372 “commonplace book” of the Franciscan friar John of Grimestone, who lived in Norfolk, England. Commonplace books were notebooks used to gather quotations and literary excerpts, with entries typically organized under subject headings. Preachers often kept them for homiletic purposes, gathering potential material for sermons. Grimestone’s is remarkable because it includes, in addition to much Latin material, 239 poems in Middle English. (English friars at the time regularly used vernacular religious verse in their sermons.) It is unknown whether Grimestone composed these verses himself or merely compiled them; likely, it is some combination. The first two stanzas of this particular poem are found, transposed, in another manuscript from almost a century earlier. Grimestone revised them slightly and added the third stanza.
Belonging to the Christ-as-lover tradition, “Undo thy door” is based primarily on Song of Solomon 5:2, cited in Grimestone’s manuscript: “I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.” In a clever interpretation of the Old Testament source, the poet imagines the dewdrops on the Beloved’s brow as blood, thus identifying him with the thorn-crowned Christ. His bride is the human soul. Revelation 3:20 is provided as a further gloss by Grimestone: Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
So in the poem, the speaker is keeping company with sin and has locked out her true lover, Christ. Christ stands at the gate of her heart and implores her with great ardor to let him in and to send sin packing. Wet with the wounds of sacrifice, tokens of his love, he is persistent in his longing for her.
Christ’s entreaties provide the impetus for the speaker’s repentance, expressed in the final stanza, which changes awkwardly in form and meter. His love has pierced her to the core, undoing her resistance. She resolves to break the sin-lock—to turn away from wrongful deeds—and answer Christ’s call so that they can enjoy sweet union together, dwelling in one another’s love. It was his heart that opened first—it was cleft by the centurion’s spear as he hung on the cross—and she is compelled to respond with similar openness, receiving what he has given, requiting his desire.
SOURCES:
This poem is #6108 in the Digital Index of Middle English Verse. It is preserved in Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Adv.MS.18.7.21, fol. 121v. A shorter, earlier version, from the late thirteenth century, appears in London, Lambeth Palace Library 557, fol. 185v.
Modern English translation: David C. Fowler, The Bible in Middle English Literature (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1984), 85–86
For further reading, see chapters 4–5 of Siegfried Wenzel, Preachers, Poets, and the Early English Lyric (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), especially pages 140–41; and chapter 7, “The Theme of Christ the Lover-Knight in Medieval English Literature,” in Rosemary Woolf, Art and Doctrine: Essays on Medieval English Literature (London: The Hambledon Press, 1986), especially pages 109–10.
He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
—Song of Solomon 2:4
I will extol thee, O LORD; for thou hast lifted me up . . .
—Psalm 30:1a
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ . . .
—Ephesians 1:3
LOOK: Ethiopian Angels, Debre Birhan Selassie Church
Painted wood ceiling, 19th century, Debre Birhan Selassie Church, Gondar, Ethiopia. Photo: A. Savin.
Debre Birhan Selassie (Trinity and Mountain of Light) Church in Gondar, the imperial capital of Ethiopia from 1636 to 1855, is famous for the colorful paintings that cover every inch of the interior walls and ceiling. The south wall concentrates on the Life of Christ, while the north wall depicts various saints. The focal point—on the east wall, in front of the holy of holies—is a Crucifixion scene and an icon of the Trinity. But the most celebrated visuals inside the church are the hundred-plus winged heads painted in rows between the wooden beams of the ceiling, representing the cherubim and God’s omnipresence.
The original church, which was round, was consecrated in 1693 by Emperor Iyasu I, but lightning destroyed it in 1707. The rectangular stone church that stands on the site now likely dates to the late eighteenth century, and it is the only one of the forty-four Orthodox Tewahedo churches in Gondar to survive the 1888 sack of the city by Mahdist soldiers from Sudan. (Locals say the marauders were miraculously rerouted by a swarm of bees.)
According to Ethiopia (Bradt Travel Guide) writer Philip Briggs, “The paintings are traditionally held to be the work of the 17th-century artist Haile Meskel, but it is more likely that several artists were involved and that the majority were painted during the rule of Egwala Seyon (1801–17), who is depicted prostrating himself before the Cross on one of the murals.”
The church is part of a larger imperial compound, known as Fasil Ghebbi, that has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979 and that includes palaces, monasteries, and public and private buildings.
Photo: Alan Davey
LISTEN: “His Banner Over Me Is Love” by B. C. Laurelton (pseudonym of Alfred B. Smith), 1965 | Performed by Christy Nockels on Be Held: Lullabies for the Beloved, 2017 | CCLI #28579
I am my Beloved’s and He is mine— His banner over me is love. I am my Beloved’s and He is mine— His banner over me is love. I am my Beloved’s and He is mine— His banner over me is love, His banner over me is love.
He brought me to His banqueting table— His banner over me is love. He brought me to His banqueting table— His banner over me is love. He brought me to His banqueting table— His banner over me is love, His banner over me is love.
He lifted me up to the heavenly places— His banner over me is love. He lifted me up to the heavenly places— His banner over me is love. He lifted me up to the heavenly places— His banner over me is love, His banner over me is love.
I sang a version of this song in children’s church regularly when I was little (with hand motions!) and have carried it with me all these years, a gentle assurance that I am divinely loved and protected. I’ve quoted the scriptures it’s drawn from above. Its refrain comes from Song of Solomon 2:4: “his banner over me was love.”
The Song of Solomon, aka the Canticle of Canticles, has traditionally been read, at least on one level, as an allegory of the love between God and the human soul—or, more specifically in the Christian tradition, Christ and his church.
From the root “to cover,” the Hebrew word for “banner” in this verse refers to a military standard. It is being used figuratively here to indicate that we enlist ourselves under Love’s banner, which goes forth in triumph and protects those under its billows. We belong to love, commit ourselves to love, overcome through love. The verse is perhaps an allusion to the names of generals being inscribed on the banners of their armies. God’s name is Love (1 John 4:8).
The image is at once vigorous and gentle. The NRSV translates the phrase as “his intention toward me was love.”
The song “His Banner Over Me Is Love” was written by Alfred B. Smith (1916–2001), an itinerant song leader, songwriter, and Christian music publisher. Smith compiled and published his first songbook, Singspiration One: Gospel Songs and Choruses, while he was a student at Wheaton College in 1941, to support the evangelistic meetings he was running with his roommate, Billy Graham (yes, that Billy Graham!). Two years later he founded Singspiration Publishing Company, which published several popular series of songbooks. In 1963 he sold Singspiration to Zondervan, but he ran other publishing ventures (i.e., Better Music Publications and Encore Publications) for the remainder of his ministerial career.
According to Music in the Air: The Golden Age of Gospel Radio by Mark Ward Sr., Smith composed “His Banner Over Me Is Love” in 1965 as an impromptu offertory while serving as a visiting song leader at First Baptist Church–Laurelton in Brick, New Jersey. Afterward he received requests from the congregation for the music. His original notation read “B. C. Laurelton” (for “Baptist Church Laurelton”) to designate where he wrote the song, and it was copied as such as people shared the music with others—so when the song was later published in 1972, Smith decided to adopt “B. C. Laurelton” as a pen name.
Singer-songwriter Christy Nockels [previously] sings “His Banner over Me” on an album of lullabies to a twinkling piano accompaniment.
May this truth—that God’s banner over you is love—soothe you and give you confidence.
This year’s The Breath and the Clay creative arts gathering, on the theme of “Reenchantment,” is taking place March 17–21, with both in-person (in Winston-Salem, North Carolina) and virtual options. Registration for virtual attendees is pay-what-you-wish. Presenters include theologian Jeremy Begbie, poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, singer-songwriter Joy Ike, contemplative author Christine Valters Paintner, dancer Camille D.C. Sutton, and many more . . . including me! On the evening of March 18 I’ll be giving a twenty-minute talk titled “Saying Yes: The Annunciation in Contemporary Art,” which will be archived online afterward. (The global church celebrates the feast of the Annunciation the following week, on March 25.) (Update: Watch here.) Here’s the description:
The story of Jesus’s miraculous conception in the womb of Mary, a first-century Galilean peasant girl, told in Luke 1 has activated the imaginations of artists since the early Christian era. When an angelic messenger came and told Mary she had been chosen to bear God’s Son, she cycled through a range of emotions before ultimately accepting the call, stepping onto a path that, though scary, would be life-giving not only for her but also for her religious and ethnic community and for the whole world.
God invites us to participate in his work in the world and gives us the grace to do it. When his voice breaks through our safe, predictable routines, calling us to something big, do we respond with brave obedience? In this talk Victoria Emily Jones will share a handful of contemporary artworks that visualize that pivotal moment in salvation history when Mary said yes and set in motion the incarnation. These works show us the wild beauty of God’s plans and can help us tune our ears to the annunciations in our own lives.
(The title slide image is a detail of an Annunciation painting by Jyoti Sahi.)
I’m always impressed by the variety of artists, arts professionals, and art lovers that director Stephen Roach manages to bring together for The Breath and the Clay. Click here to learn more and to register.
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ONLINE LENT SERIES:
>> VCS Lent 2021: The Visual Commentary on Scripture is highlighting a different exhibition from its archives for each week of Lent, with new content including a video introduction to the week by Ben Quash and an audio reading of each of the three constituent commentaries.
The first week was on the theme of Covenant and covers Genesis 8:20–9:17. Stefania Gerevini curated three artworks from Italy that convey some aspect of the rainbow as divine promise: a thirteenth-century mosaic from the Basilica di San Marco in Venice, a colorful dome fresco (fifteenth century) from the Cappella Portinari in Milan, and a contemporary light installation by Dan Flavin at Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa, also in Milan.
Week 2, on Prophecy, explores the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. Jonathan Koestlé-Cate comments on three modern artworks: Crucified Tree Form by Theyre Lee-Elliott, a crucifix by Germaine Richier (which sparked outrage when it was unveiled at Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce, Assy, in 1950), and an installation by postminimalist artist Anish Kapoor at the church of Saint Peter, Cologne.
>> “The Many Faces of Jesus”: I’ve been enjoying this Lenten series (on blog andpodcast) by medievalist Dr. Grace Hamman, who makes medieval lit super accessible.“For Lent, Old Books With Grace will share and explore some medieval representations of Jesus in art and literature—the versions of Jesus that dominate the medieval church’s imagination. These medieval portrayals of Jesus may strike us as odd, threatening, charming, creative, stupid, or inspiring. In attending to these versions of Jesus, I hope for a few end goals: the first is that we may expand our Christian imagination. Perhaps a side of Jesus that has never occurred to you, or been sideswept by our contemporary culture, will suddenly illuminate an aspect of the Jesus of scripture. The second is that we may better identify the ways that we ourselves have culturally contained and portrayed Jesus, in positive and negative ways. Often the strangeness of the past helps us recognize the weird or damaging things we believe in order to make Jesus more palatable, understandable, or like us.”
Jean Bondol, “The bride (Ecclesia) and bridegroom (Christ),” from a Bible Historiale made in Paris, 1371–72. The Hague, MMW, 10 B 23, fol. 330v.
>> “Up from My Youth (Psalm 129)” by Advent Birmingham, feat. CashBack and Terence June Gray: This is such a strange and compelling fusion! “An 1806 hymn by Isaac Watts meets hip-hop meets Johnny Cash meets folk meets New Orleans jazz meets industrial steel factory.”
Led by Zac Hicks, Advent Birmingham [previously] is a group of worship musicians from the Cathedral Church of the Advent in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Hicks wrote this new tune for Isaac Watts’s metrical paraphrase of Psalm 129 and integrated a rap by guest artist Terence June Gray from Memphis. Singing lead (and playing drums) is Leif Bondarenko, the front man of the Johnny Cash tribute band CashBack. The video was filmed at Birmingham’s historic Sloss Furnaces. Available on iTunes, Amazon, and Spotify.
You can read the lyrics here, which include a slight revision of Watts’s verse 6.
POETRY READING:“Phase One” by Dilruba Ahmed, read, with commentary, by Pádraig Ó Tuama, Poetry Unbound: “What do you find hard to forgive in yourself? What might help? In this poem, the poet makes a list of all the things she holds against herself: opening fridge doors, fantasies, wilted seedlings, unkempt plants, lost bags, feeling awkward, treating someone poorly. Dilruba Ahmed repeats the line ‘I forgive you’ over and over, like a litany, in a hope to deepen what it means to be in the world, and be a person of love.”
“An Advent Visio Divina” by John Skillen, CIVA blog: John Skillen, author of Putting Art (Back) in Its Place, discusses four works of Advent-themed art from Italy, where he lives for part of each year leading retreats and seminars through the Studio for Art, Faith & History. He starts in Florence with The Adoration of the Shepherds altarpiece by Renaissance artist Domenico Ghirlandaio, which invites worshippers to follow the shepherds’ (and patrons’) example of adoring the Christ child. Then he moves to Orvieto, spotlighting Karin Coonrod’s directing a medieval mystery play in the city’s streets and churches. (For more on this, read Skillen’s excellent essay in Image no. 96, “Fierce Mercy: The Theater Art of Karin Coonrod.”) Advent is also about the second coming, so Luca Signorelli’s apocalyptic frescoes in the Chapel of San Brizio in Orvieto Cathedral are appropriate. Continuous, in some ways, with these late fifteenth-century paintings are the bronze reliefs on the central doors by Emilio Greco from 1962; they depict the seven works of mercy, the criteria, according to Matthew 25, by which humanity will be judged.
Actor Patrice Johnson portrays Mary, who carries the light of the world, in this contemporary adaptation of The Second Shepherds’ Play directed by Karin Coonrod. Photo: Massimo Achille.Luca Signorelli (Italian, ca. 1441/45–1523), Sermon and Deeds of the Antichrist (detail), 1499–1502. Fresco, Chapel of San Brizio, Orvieto Cathedral, Italy. The Antichrist is shown as a puppet of the Evil One.
“Passion for the Light” by Alexandra Jean Davison, ArtWay: For last Sunday, the first day of Advent, Culture Care RDU Director Alexandra Jean Davison wrote this wonderful meditation on a set of contemporary sculptures by Jaume Plensa at the North Carolina Museum of Art, connecting them to the season we’re in. She begins, “We see three identical nudes filled with light, the face and arms covered with names and Scripture. Each figure sits at rest horizontally on one of the three walls which form a triangle. The closed eyes and mouth are covered with embossed text of the names of the eight gates of the ancient city walls of Jerusalem: New, Herod, Damascus, Golden (two doors: Gate of Repentance and Gate of Mercy), Lions, Jaffa, Zion, and Dung. Tattoo-like passages from the Song of Songs emerge from the heart upon the arms.” Read more at ArtWay.eu.
Jaume Plensa (Spanish, 1955–), Doors of Jerusalem I, 2006. Resin, stainless steel, and light, 47 1/4 × 62 3/16 × 80 11/16 in. (120 × 158 × 205 cm). North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.
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VIDEO: “Matthew 1:18-23” by SALT Project: The Emmy Award–winning production company SALT Project released a short video this week setting a reading from Matthew’s Gospel (“This is how the birth of Jesus came about . . .”) against evocative time lapses of blooming flowers. They’re generously offering it for free download and use in worship services, online or in-person. It could be used as an opener, as one of the morning’s scripture readings, or in a number of other ways.
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SONGS (the latter two released this week!):
“Christ Child’s Coming”: This simple Advent song is based on the African American spiritual “The Train Is a-Coming” (where “train” is a multivalent metaphor having to do with salvation). While a musician at Christ Church East Bay in Berkeley, California, Keith Watts adapted the lyrics to relate more explicitly to Advent: “Christ child’s coming, oh yeah!,” “Light is coming, oh yeah!,” and “Our king’s coming, oh yeah!” The song is sung here by Trinity Majorins, accompanied by her mom, Sarah [previously], on the piano and her dad, Philip [previously], on guitar.
“Weight/Wait” by Mike McMonagle: “Hope . . . flicker[s] underneath the weight of the wait.” Introducing this new demo, Mike McMonagle, a roots rock musician from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, wrote on Facebook about how the pandemic has created an extended season of waiting in the darkness this year, which has helped him to feel both pain and longing more keenly: “For the past couple of months, I’ve found myself processing all the ups & downs of the current life experience in step with what I’d label the deepest dive into the Advent season that I’ve ever done. All my life, Advent was just a church-y word for rat race otherwise known as The Holidays. There were happy hours, shopping trips, family outings – things that made it hard to focus on the Advent season for more than an hour each Sunday. This year has been different.”
“In Distress” by the Pharaoh Sisters: Written by Austin Pfeiffer and Jared Meyer and based on Psalms 120 and 121, this song blends Latin and Appalachian folk music influences and has lyrics in both English and Spanish. “The song’s creation began in the spiritual angst after the 2016 [US presidential] election,” Pfeiffer writes. “Calling on believers to put their hope in Christ as King, the song has broad themes of Kingdom orientation, raises questions about social divisions, but also leans into Advent ideas, specifically Isaiah 9.” It premiered at the 2017 Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) General Assembly but didn’t end up fitting on the Pharaoh Sisters’ 2020 debut album, Civil Dawn. “Now as our nation plunges deeper into distress and unrest, be it political and/or social, the band is eager to release the song for Advent 2020.”
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ONLINE PANEL: “Religious Art,”December 9, 6:00–7:15 p.m. London time (1:00–2:15 p.m. ET): “The relationship between religion and art is ancient and complex, varying across religious traditions and cultures. In this event, Mehreen Chida-Razvi, Ben Quash, and Lieke Wijnia consider how these traditions of religious art differ and what role art plays in religion today. How should we display religious art? Might art be a way of opening interfaith dialogue? And has art itself become a kind of religion?” This free Zoom event is organized by the Forum for Philosophy and the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics. I’ll be attending! (Note: The promotional image below is David LaChapelle’s Last Supper.) Update, 12/10/20: The panel discussion has been archived and can be viewed here.
Moravian devotional image by Marianne von Watteville, 18th century. Embroidery and watercolor on cardstock, 11 × 16 cm. Unity Archives, Herrnhut, Germany.
Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And [the LORD] said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
—Exodus 33:18–23 (emphasis added)
Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock.
—Numbers 20:10–11
Our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
—1 Corinthians 10:1b–4
O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.
—Song of Solomon 2:14
But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.
—John 19:34
Exodus 33:12–23 is assigned in Sunday’s lectionary; the other Bible passages I’ve added because I want to show how an intertextual reading yielded our song of the week.
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HYMN: “I Thirst, Thou Wounded Lamb of God” (Ach! mein verwundter Fürste!) | Words by Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, Anna Nitschmann, and Johann Nitschmann, 1735; English translation by John Wesley, 1740 | Music by Bethany Brooks, 1997 | Performed by Bethany Brooks on the Cardiphonia compilation album Songs for the Lord’s Supper, 2011 (also on Quarry Street Hymnal, vol. 1, 2012)
I thirst, thou wounded Lamb of God, to wash me in thy cleansing blood, to dwell within thy wounds; then pain is sweet, and life or death is gain.
Take my poor heart and let it be forever closed to all but thee! Seal thou my breast and let me wear that pledge of love forever there.
How blest are they who still abide close sheltered in thy bleeding side, who life and strength from thence derive, and by thee move, and in thee live.
What are our works but sin and death ’til thou thy quick’ning Spirit breathe? Thou giv’st the power thy grace to move; O wondrous grace! O boundless love!
Hence our hearts melt, our eyes o’erflow, our words are lost; nor will we know, nor will we think of ought beside my Lord, my Love, is crucified.
Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, one of the authors of this German hymn, was the leader, patron, and protector of the Moravian Church from 1727 to 1760 and its major theologian and liturgist. Anna Nitschmann was chief eldress in the church since age fourteen, serving as spiritual mentor to female congregants, and a missionary for a time to the Native Americans of Pennsylvania and New York; she married Zinzendorf in 1757, but both of them died within a couple of years. Johann Nitschmann was Anna’s brother.
John Wesley, who translated “I Thirst” into English just a few years after it was written, was well acquainted with the Moravians. His journal, covering the years 1736–38, is full of comments and observations about them, starting with a transatlantic sea voyage he was on, during which a storm arose, and everyone panicked, except the Moravians, who sang hymns of praise and prayed with great calm. When he returned to London he attended a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate Street, where he experienced an evangelical conversion. After that he joined the Moravian society in Fetter Lane and in August 1738 traveled to the denomination’s headquarters in Herrnhut, Germany, to study. He corresponded with Zinzendorf, and the two met face to face on more than one occasion. In late 1779 he broke with the Moravians and soon after founded Methodism, greatly influenced by Moravian pietism.
Eighteenth-century Moravians were fascinated with Jesus’s wounds, especially his “little side hole” (where a Roman soldier pierced him on the cross to confirm he was dead), which they described as “warm,” “hot,” “beautiful,” “sweet,” and “today still open.” They wrote hymns about the side wound and created side-wound art—indeed, centered much of their devotional practice on it. As one hymn goes, “Dearest Side-hole! I do covet thy warm Blood above all Things. O thou art the most beloved of all other Wound-hole-Springs. Side-hole’s Blood, bedew me! Cover and go thro’ me! Take thy Course thro’ all my Veins, Heart and Reins, so that nought unbath’d remains.” “I Thirst” is comparatively mild (though granted, I couldn’t find the German original).
Historically, much Christian hymnody and art have fixated on the blood and woundedness of Jesus, but Zinzendorf and his followers took it to another level. To them such graphic imagery was not morbid but comforting and affective. Even I, who have a low tolerance for blood and gore, find myself strangely compelled by this devotional language and visuality of the womblike side wound.
“I Thirst, Thou Wounded Lamb of God” is one of many Moravian hymns that picture Jesus’s side wound as a shelter, a place of refuge where the blessed enter into and reside. “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me,” written some forty years later by the Anglican cleric Augustus Toplady, is a more widely sung hymn that employs similar imagery—so, too, the less explicit and far less poetic “He Hideth My Soul” by Fanny Crosby.
Moses’s being hidden away in the cleft of a rock so that he can glimpse a glimmer of God’s glory is partly in view, in an implied way, in “I Thirst.” The Song of Songs also refers to “the cleft of a rock”—to a dove, a beloved, nesting there; a lot of Christian commentators read the rock as Christ and the dove as his church, sheltered in his torn flesh (his body was cleft by the spear). Added to the hermeneutical mix is the Numbers passage of water from the rock: during Israel’s desert wanderings, Moses strikes a rock and water streams forth to quench the people’s thirst. (Like Jesus, the rock was beaten, giving issue to a river of life.)
All these biblical stories and images come together to create a constellation of meaning.
The mixed-media needlework reproduced here, from the Unitätsarchiv in Herrnhut, is by an eighteenth-century Swiss German woman named Marianne von Watteville. In embroidery and watercolor, she shows a rocky hillock topped with grass and flowers, into which a little cave is carved, which is Christ’s side wound. She kneels inside the wound in prayer and is showered by the blood of Christ. The inscription on the lip of the wound reads, “O, I rejoice, I rejoice so much that I have found the sea from the wound, where I am a blessed little sinner. I have everything.”
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for Proper 24, cycle A, click here.
Marc Chagall (Russian French, 1887–1985), Les mariés de la tour Eiffel (The Bride and Groom of the Eiffel Tower), 1938–39. Oil on canvas, 150 × 136.5 cm. Centre Pompidou, Paris. Photo: Jim Forest.
Regarding Zion, I can’t keep my mouth shut,
regarding Jerusalem, I can’t hold my tongue,
Until her righteousness blazes down like the sun
and her salvation flames up like a torch.
Foreign countries will see your righteousness,
and world leaders your glory.
You’ll get a brand-new name
straight from the mouth of GOD.
You’ll be a stunning crown in the palm of GOD’s hand,
a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your GOD.
No more will anyone call you Rejected,
and your country will no more be called Ruined.
You’ll be called Hephzibah (My Delight),
and your land Beulah (Married),
Because GOD delights in you
and your land will be like a wedding celebration.
For as a young man marries his virgin bride,
so your builder marries you,
And as a bridegroom is happy in his bride,
so your GOD is happy with you.
The lyrics of “Fairland” are adapted from the poem “The Little Beach-Bird” by Richard Henry Dana (1787–1879), with the bridge referencing Jesus’s words to his disciples in John 14:1–3: “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” These are the words of a bridegroom to his bride.
Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou so melancholy,
And with that boding cry
Along the breaker fly?
O rather, bird, with me
Through the fair land rejoice!
Come and go with me
Back to my Father’s house
To my Father’s house
Come and go with me
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It is not difficult to see, . . . in his dreamlike images of adorned and beautiful Jewish brides, Chagall’s aspiration for the redeemed daughter of Zion.
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for the Second Sunday after Epiphany, cycle C, click here.
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Art & Theology 