2 Samuel 7.1-11, 16: Building or Growing

David wants to build a house for God. After all, God's people are settled in their land. God - who tabernacled with the people in the wilderness - should get to settle down, too. That's where we find ourselves in the reading from Hebrew scripture for Advent 3B (2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16). The "Who's on First" nature of the conversation reveals two different approaches to establishing a house.

David intends to build God a house. A grand temple. A cathedral. Ultimately his son will be the one to do that, but David has the intention. Bricks, mortar, stone, doors, doorposts, a roof. David wants to construct a building appropriate for the God of creation. It's how humans think.

God has a different thought. God will create the house of David through growth - children, grandchildren, and, ultimately, a baby born to Mary and her husband Joseph (who was of the house and lineage of David).

The ultimately-constructed house for God is a visual for another day. The house of David that is grown by God finds familiar form in the Advent season: the Jesse Tree. Jesse, the father of David is usually depicted at the root of the tree (see Isaiah 11:1...A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots). On the Jesse Tree are images or symbols of the descendants of David, who are also the ancestors of Jesus: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Habakkuk. The Jesse Tree also looks back to earlier Biblical characters: Moses, Ruth, Gideon, Noah, Rahab.


Shown here are two different artistic visions of the Tree of Jesse. The top image is a 12th-century stained glass window at Chartres Cathedral in France. Jesse is at the root with a series of humans sit on the trunk of the tree (like Zacchaeus, maybe?), proceeding in an orderly fashion up to Jesus who sits at the top of the tree with a dove descending on his head. The tree shape is reminiscent of a pine or palm or other tree with a straight trunk and less emphasis on branches. No doubt the design was influenced by the space available in the lancet window of the Gothic cathedral.

The bottom image is a Netherlandish one attributed to the circle of artist Geertgen tot Sint Jans dated c. 1500. Jesus' ancestors are perched on tree branches in a variety of poses: kneeling, standing, ankles crossed, with a falcon on one arm. The figures are dressed in striped hose and embroidered tunics that probably have more in common with the kings of Geertgen's day than with those of Jesus' or David's day. The top of Geertgen's tree is crowned with a blond Mary holding a blond baby Jesus on her lap.

"I will make you a house," David says to God.
"No," God says, "I will make you a house."
David would have built.
God chose to grow.

For Chartres Cathedral, click here. For the circle of Geertgen Tree of Jesse (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum), click here.

For another architectural element that links the ideas of buildings and David and the infant Christ, see this week's Art&Faith Matters Facebook page. 

For thoughts on the Gospel reading for Advent 3B (Luke 1:26-38), click here.

Isaiah 61.1-11: Future, No Future

The prophet Isaiah is speaking of the year of the Lord in the reading for Advent 3B (Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11). God's spirit has landed on the prophet with instruction to bring good news, to bind up, to proclaim liberty and release. It's good news, concluding with praise and exultation. And who would expect anything else? Expecting all those good things is as natural as dressing up for a wedding, or seeing marigolds grow where marigold seeds were planted.

Isaiah's imagery is vivid. We feel the joy of release and liberty. We touch the roughness of the oak tree and understand its power. We hear the hum of machinery as buildings are rebuilt. We don't smell the lingering acridness of ashes, instead we smell the freshness of a laurel wreath.

Well, that's what Isaiah says. Caspar David Friedrich uses some of the same elements as Isaiah but tells a different story in his painting Abbey in the Oakwood. The painting, like many of Friedrich's, has humans and human-made elements in small proportion to the size of the painting. The majority of the canvas is filled with the vastness of nature.

The mood of the painting is opposite that of the Isaiah reading. "Good news" does not appear to be immanent in this scene. There are mourners in the picture: a line of figures, perhaps monks, are walking toward the graveyard where a newly dug grave is a gash in the earth. There is no oil of gladness anywhere in sight. The ancient ruins (these are presumably Gothic ruins, which were the fashion centuries before Friedrich painted) are not being rebuilt. There are oaks, but they are dormant for winter, if not dead. They are not the best representatives of God's glory

Caspar David Friedrich. Abbey in the Oakwood. 1809-1810. Berlin: Nationalgalerie.

A consensus interpretation of all these elements is uncertain. There seems to be agreement on the prominence of death as a theme, but is it the death of the old ways, the death of the church, the death of Germany or even the death of the artist? About this painting Friedrich wrote: Now I am working on a great picture in which I intend to depict the secrets of the grave and the future [...] Below, with snow-covered tombs, and burial mounds, are the remains of a Gothic church, surrounded by ancient oaks. The sun has set, and in the twilight the sun rises above the ruins, the evening star and the moon the first quarter. Thick fog covers the earth, and, even if one clearly sees the upper part of the masonry, the forms, downwards, ever more uncertainly, and indefinitely become the forms, until at last everything, the nearer the earth, is mistaken."(quoted in: H Börsch-Supan, Berlin 1810, in: Kleist Yearbook, Berlin 1987, p. 75).

Though difficult to see, there are two small lights, presumably candles, behind the crucifix in the church ruin. These two small points of light may be a sign of a future and a hope, but they are such a small part of this pictorial world. Are those two small candles enough to proclaim that there is a future? Did Isaiah's audience feel even those two candles' worth of hope as they said good-bye to Jerusalem? Can such small moments of hope and future carry any of us today who look around the world and understand that all is not well?

For an image of hope and future that is both Friedrich and Isaiah, click here or on the Facebook link below.

For thoughts on the gospel reading for Advent 3B, click here.

John 1: John...An Angel?

The Orthodox tradition refers to Jesus' cousin (and baptizer) John as the Forerunner. In some icons he is written as the Angel of the Desert. The oversize wings are probably the most obvious reason for John's identification as an angel. We should remember that the word angelos can mean angel but also messenger, and certainly John was a messenger, as described in John 1 (the gospel reading for Advent 3B).

John the Forerunner. 17th century. Moscow School. Trevetyakov Gallery.

In icons of John the Forerunner, the central figure is shown large, with body-length wings, usually holding a scroll and a chalice (or salver or footed paten called a diskos, the dish that holds the bread) and a scroll. Sometimes the chalice contains John's own head, a prefiguring of his beheading. In the icon shown, the chalice contains the figure of Christ, naked and lying down. John points to the Christ, in the icon as he will in life.

In his hand John holds a scroll, generally a symbol of a prophet. In Christian tradition, John is the final prophet in the line of prophets in Hebrew scripture who foretold the Messiah.

Surrounding the figure are episodes from the life of John the Forerunner. Some are familiar - his birth, the dance of Salome, his beheading. Other episodes are from legend. At the left of the composition, an angel leads the infant John into the wilderness. As told in the Prologue of Ohrid (1928), to escape Herod's order to murder the children, Elizabeth took John to the wilderness. They were pursued by soldiers but hid in a miraculous opening in the rock. Zechariah was slain at the altar on Herod's order - Herod being furious that John had not been killed. Forty days after Zechariah's death Elizabeth also died. John stayed in the wilderness being fed and cared for by an angel of God.

Often John is perceived as the slightly quirky (locusts, honey, animal fur) member of Jesus' family. Does your perception of him change if he is known as the Angel of the Desert?

Take a closer look at the audience drawn to the river by John's preaching on the Art&Faith Matters Facebook page. 

This week's Food&Faith Matters page considers gardens, seeds and sheaves from Lent 3B's readings in Isaiah 61 and Psalm 126. The link is at the bottom of the page.

For thoughts on the reading from Hebrew scripture (Isaiah 61), click here.