The Arts and the Incarnation

As we move closer to the Christmas Season, I always find myself meditating on the mystery and the glory of the Incarnation.  God becomes flesh.  And not just that - He goes so far through His Holy Spirit to dwell in us!  On the one hand this seems metaphysically outrageous, religious nonsense.  On the other hand, it is actually our only hope - "Christ in us, the hope of glory" (see the entire argument in Colossians 1:13-27). 

This makes the Incarnation a missional move by God, Who employs the incarnation to rescue and ransom His beloved.  The implications of this, when married with Christ's mandate to "seek first the Kingdom of God", are that incarnational and missional living is what we were born for, what we were created to do, and as such, are never more God-like ourselves than when we emulate Him by living accordingly. 

I have often wondered (I guess because my mind works this way!), who "proclaimed" the better sermons - Billy Graham, or Mother Theresa.  This may seem a non-sequitur, but the question begs a deeper truth.  Proclamation is not only a matter of verbal message - Christ is the Word and the Image of the Invisible God, and we are to follow in His steps, not only intellectual collections of correct doctrine, but also living and breathing imitations of Jesus who care, cry, bleed, pray, worship, live, and die.

"The historic argument for the use of the arts in worship is grounded in the Incarnation. The claim is that God, by becoming a person, sanctified physical and material reality as a vehicle for spiritual presence. He comes to us through flesh and blood. Why, then, shouldn't we accept appropriate art forms as visible means through which we offer our praise?"

Robert Webber, Worship Is a Verb: Celebrating God's Mighty Deeds of Salvation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishing, 1992), 12-13.

Imagination becomes Incarnate

Pass through, pass through the gates!
       Prepare the way for the people.
       Build up, build up the highway!
       Remove the stones.
       Raise a banner for the nations.

               - Isaiah 62:10

The artist sat listening to the message, but could sit no longer.  Compelled by the truth of the Scripture, and moved by the image that was bursting forth on his imagination, he positioned the blank canvas, took up the laden brush, and began to illuminate that which had been unseen.

And as the imagination became incarnate, the tapestry of ideas unfolding on the canvas, the Scriptural hope began to take shape - the work is enjoined, the rubble confronted, the path restored; all the while the "blueprint" of the future left shimmering just behind the current task, awaiting final fulfillment.

And the enemy, also hovering, lurking, waiting for an opportunity to "steal" the word of truth from the artisan - but he will not be dissuaded.  

Is was sheer joy to watch this painting come to life at our SALT conference this July in Rome, Italy.  There was much that came to light, as Arts Champions from all over Europe came together for a training, an envisioning, a sharpening, an empowering, and a validating experience that we in OM will feel the impact of for some time to come.

A story is told of an inquirer who visited a stone quarry, in order to plumb the hearts and minds of the workers there.  He asked one man, "What are you doing here"?  The man responded, "What does it look like?  I am hewing rocks out of this quarry."  The same question was put to a second, and he replied, "I am earning an honest day's wage."  A third worker was engaged with the same question, and he gave a response that revealed a panoramic understanding of what was really going on.  "What are you doing here?" came the question.  "I am building a cathedral!" came the reply, pregnant with hope, vision, and personal ownership.

And of such is the Kingdom of God.

"...sleeping in the basement..."

Here is a brilliant quote from Ian Morgan Cron, that I got from a wonderful German friend who got it from another dear South African friend:

"The church is realizing that there is an awareness of God sleeping in the basement of the postmodern imagination and they have to awaken it. The arts can do this. All beauty is subversive, it flies beneath the radar of people's critical filters and points them to God.  As a friend of mine says. 'when the front door of the intellect is shut, the back door of the imagination is open.'  Our neglect of the power of beauty and the arts helps explain why so many people have lost interest in the church. Our coming back to the arts will help renew this interest."

Taken from his book, "Chasing Francis", which sheds new light on the legacy of St. Francis of Assisi, the above quote speaks prophetically to today's church about the critical role of beauty, the arts, and the imagination when it comes to influencing culture.  In his book, Cron masterfully weaves actual accounts from the life of Saint Francis' into the fictional story of Chase Falson, a New England minister on a pilgrimage to regain his faith. It's an amazing story with profound implications for the contemporary church.

The parallel between the way St. Francis influenced culture (an influence that is still felt today) and the way the arts influence culture, is the incarnational aspect to the way they communicate - by putting action, or form, embodiment or melody to His revelation.  The sooner the church begins to re-employ the God-given creativity He gave to man to illuminate His goodness and truth, the sooner the church can hope to reclaim the cultural megaphone.