Acts 3.12-19: Still Easter?

Easter! Resurrection! New Life! Jesus appears to disciples! Thomas affirms Jesus as Lord and God! We've gone from one exciting, meaningful moment to another since Good Friday. The Jesus Movement is moving forward every day, focused on the future. Peter has preached several times. Thousands have been converted and joined the Movement.

If this were an audio blog, I would insert a sound clip of a record player needle being scratched across the surface of a record. That sort of screeching that indicates a full, sudden stop. I would insert it at Acts 3:15 (Easter 3B, Acts 3:12-19). Because look who shows up...Barabbas!

Oh, he isn't mentioned by name, but Peter remembers Barabbas' role in Holy Week and reminds the people hearing him preach that they chose Barabbas. It's an interesting addition to the sermon.

Honore Daumier. Ecce Homo. c. 1850. Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany. 

It might be a wet blanket thrown on the Easter party. After all, the crowd around Peter and John have been dazzled by the healing of the lame man that happened in the first part of Acts 3. They want to know who has done this remarkable thing and whether there might be more miraculous things happening. These are the people still in search of someone or something that will free them from the oppressive world in which they are living. Maybe these two men, who obviously can perform miracles, will be the ones who will save us.

Peter does, indeed throw a wet blanket on their hopes. To paraphrase Peter's sermon:  It isn't us who made this man walk, it's God. And you had your chance. You could have chosen the Lord of Life, but instead you chose a taker of life. His name was Barabbas.

So maybe this is about new life and resurrection after all. Notice that Peter doesn't say to them that they have missed their only chance at redemption and salvation. He does make clear that the people (and it may have been some of these same people who were shouting "Crucify him!") missed their first chance to acknowledge who Jesus is. But now the prophets' words have been fulfilled, Peter says. You can choose again. New life. Still Easter.

For additional thoughts on the Luke 24:36b-48, click here.
For a look at the location of the Acts story, click on the Facebook link. 

John 1.29-42: Brothers

Brothers. The gospel reading for Epiphany 2A (John 1:29-42) features the call stories of one set of brothers who were part of the original twelve. James and John are the other pair, but here we read the story of Peter and Andrew. That is usually the order in which they are given, with Peter taking the first spot. Peter is such a vivid character in the gospels with his impetuous behavior, his impetuous speech, his impetuous...well, you know. Andrew is seen more infrequently. His name is mentioned twelve times in Christian scripture. By contrast, his brother's name is mentioned more than 150 times.

You'd think Andrew might be jealous. You'd think there might be some sibling rivalry. You might think any number of things, but you wouldn't know. Because scripture seems decidedly uninterested in the sibling relationship of Andrew and Peter.

Ossip Zadkine. The Van Gogh Brothers. 1956. Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art. 

https://www.dma.org/collection/artwork/ossip-zadkine/brothers-van-gogh

It would have been interesting to know who was older (would you hazard a guess based on what you know from scripture?), how they talked to one another when Jesus wasn't around. Was one more artistic than the other or one more athletic than the other? Did they share the same dominant hand or was one a righty and the other a lefty? Was Andrew an introvert, or does he only seem introverted because he is often standing next to his brother? Those are things we don't know.

What we do know is that Peter indeed steps to the forefront of the brothers - and of the disciples. But had it not been for Andrew, perhaps Peter would never have been there at all. In fact, almost every time we see Andrew in scripture, he is bringing someone else to Jesus. Andrew found the boy with five loaves and two fish and brought him to Jesus. When several Greek inquirers want time with Jesus, Andrew advises Philip to take them to him.

One brother known. Both brothers valuable.

I was reminded of another set of brothers: Vincent and Theo van Gogh. Most people, even those with a minimal knowledge of art history, are familiar with Vincent's name. His paintings, a couple of events in his life. People know that. Many have never heard of Theo van Gogh. But without Theo, the world probably would not know Vincent.

Ossip Zadkine. Vincent and Theo van Gogh. 1964. Zundert, Netherlands. 

http://www.zundert.nl/inwoner/cultuur_41413/item/vincent-van-gogh_8479.html

Theo van Gogh was an art dealer. About four years younger than Vincent, Theo was unfailing in his support of his brother. Theo supported Vincent emotionally and financially both before and after his (Theo's) marriage. He sent Vincent art supplies like canvas and paint and money for living expenses. Theo tried to run interference between Vincent and their father. He admired his older brother and believed that his talent was true and timeless. He was one of few people in the world who did.

Theodorus van Gogh, father to Theo and Vincent, was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. Vincent reflected in a letter that Father van Gogh referred to the story of Jacob and Esau when talking about the brothers. Vincent wrote: Pa sometimes mulled over the story of Jacob and Esau with regard to you and me — not entirely mistakenly — although happily there’s less enmity, to mention just one difference, and in the Bible itself there are examples aplenty of better relations between brothers than existed between the aforementioned venerable patriarchs. 

The relationship between adult brothers is often quite complex. There are layers of memories, resentments, love, irritations. But for many brothers - regardless of the resentments and irritations - there is still the love. That is what artist Ossip Zadkine set out to depict in the two sculptures shown here. Both have the van Gogh brothers as their subject. Note how the figures lean toward one another. In the smaller piece the brothers' heads are together. In the larger outdoor piece, located in Zundert, the van Gogh brothers' hometown, the brothers are standing. Their heads are still together, and in this piece they seem to share a heart as well.

Though the point of the gospel reading is Jesus' call and the disciples' answer, it is important to note that Jesus didn't call only people like Peter and that it was the non-spotlight brother Andrew who was effective in finding the people who could help Jesus fulfill his mission. Two brothers. Both valuable. As each disciple is.

"Behold the lamb of God!" said John when he saw Jesus. Here's another lamb. Find out more about it on our Facebook page. 


For additional thoughts on John 1:29-42, click here.

John 21.1-19: A Long Way from the Beach

Easter 3C's gospel reading (John 21:1-19) is filled with moments that would provide good artistic compositions: Jesus building a charcoal fire, the disciples in the boat, eating breakfast on the beach. While the conversation between Jesus and Peter is not especially visual, it provides a record against which we can measure depictions of the act foretold when it is fulfilled. Jesus said these things, the text tells us, to indicate the kind of death with which Peter would glorify God.

Peter's death is almost immediately recognizable in art. Like Jesus, he is crucified. His cross, however, is upside down, so his feet are toward the sky and his head is toward the ground. How much of this is foretold in Jesus' words? As with many things, it depends on who you talk to.

Pseudo Hegesippus' De excidio Urbis Hiersolymitenae (On the ruin of the City Jerusalem) iii.2 and the apocryphal Acts of Peter (XXXVII) are among the early written tradition that Peter was crucified upside down. This becomes the standard depiction of Peter's death. Church historian Eusebius declares that upside down crucifixion was not uncommon (8.8.2).

The detail most often identified as indicative of upside-down crucifixion is the girdle or belt to which Jesus alludes. Justin Martyr (Dialogue contra Typho 91) and Irenaeus (Adversus Haeruses II.24.4) characterize the cross of crucifixion as having four points toward the extremities and a point in the middle, a sedile (a small block of wood or projecting peg that acted as a seat or support for the body attached to the cross). The girdle mentioned by Christ was the "mechanism" used to secure a body upside down on a cross. As the body could not rest on the sedile, there had to be another way to support the body's weight. The girdle Jesus mentions was tied around the hips of the one being crucified in order to bind the body to the cross. The hands and feet were often, apparently, tied to the cross.

Some of the preceding elements are present in the painting by Guercino below. Peter's feet and hands are being tied to the beams of the cross, though he has not yet been raised/inverted. We know this is Peter by the keys than hang from his right hand. His blue tunic is being pulled from him, and he gazes upward, seemingly in resignation but seeking reassurance from on high.

Giovan Francesco Barbieri (known as Guercino). The Martyrdom of St. Peter. 1618-1619. 

Modena, Italy: Galleria Estense. http://www.galleriaestense.org/opera/il-martirio-di-san-pietro/

The composition of this painting, unlike many others - including the subject of this week's Art&Faith Matters' Facebook page - centers around a hole. Faces and figures circle an intensely blue sky. This composition circles around nothing, starting with the disciple's body - the lightest part of the composition - and leading the eye of the viewer around in a counterclockwise movement (the diagonal of the blue cloak leads to the arm of the person pulling the cloak which leads to the bare-chested person, whose finger points upward to the angel in the sky. A more direct route would be to follow the sight line of the resigned apostle. He looks directly up - straight at the angel in the sky.

Nothing is upside down here, though the many diagonal lines that outnumber the verticals and horizontals. Guercino's choice not to show Peter in his typical upside down fashion takes away the oddness and reminds us that right side up or upside down, Peter's reward for his faith is death.

It's a long way from the beach and the joy of seeing Jesus again.

Cimabue's version of Peter's crucifixion raises some geographical questions. Click on the Art&Faith Matters Facebook link to read more about it. 

Matthew 14.22-33: Walking on Water: An Early Image

Dated around 240 AD, it is billed as one of the earliest images of Jesus in existence.* The house church at Dura-Europos (Syria) appears to be like those mentioned in Romans 15:5 - a private house used as a meeting place for Christians that over time was adapted for Christian worship. One of the rooms served as the baptistery. A basin, looking much like a modern bathtub, was set into the wall to hold water, and the walls were painted with a variety of scriptural stories to illuminate the baptismal theme.

http://ecatalogue.art.yale.edu/detail.htm?objectId=34499

One of the images is the story of Jesus walking on water and Peter sort-of walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33). The wall fragment now in the collection of the Yale University Art Gallery shows a boat in the background carrying the disciples with Jesus and Peter in the foreground. The information on the Yale website identifies the whole figure remaining in the fragment as Jesus, with the upper half of Peter's figure and half of the boat lost. However, the feet of the whole figure are below the waves, which seems to be the sinking Peter, with the figure on the right standing securely on top of the waves. Additionally, in succeeding depictions, the figure of Peter is on the left with Jesus on the right. Perhaps it is the upper half of Jesus that is missing. See the Art&Faith Matters facebook page for additional images of this subject (https://www.facebook.com/artfaithmatters).

The drawings are more illustrative than evocative - simple outlines define the rather geometric shapes of the human figures, the waves, the boat and the rigging. There is not much included in the scene beyond these few elements.

What is perhaps most interesting about this fragment is what it tells us in its setting. Because it is a water image - and an image of Jesus saving one in the water at that - it isn't a surprising choice for the walls of a baptistery. The other images in the room might be cause for reflection on the meaning of this story, though. The series of paintings also offers insight into how early Christians understood this story.

In the wall above the arch above the font is an image of the Good Shepherd with sheep on a hillside. In the lower left hand corner of that same wall is an image of Adam, Eve and a serpent. On the wall at a right angle to the font wall are depictions of several episodes from the gospels: three women at the tomb (closest to the font), the healing of the paralytic, and Christ and Peter walking on the water. On the opposite wall are two doors, and in the space between them was an image of the woman at the well. Beneath that image is a picture of David and Goliath.

What might each of these stories tell us about the story of Christ and Peter's walk on the waves? Does the meaning become clearer with the knowledge that the boat in this fragment sails to the right, following the direction of the paralytic man from the adjoining scene? What might a third-century interpretation of this gospel story have to say to us today?


*For Dura-Europos as early image, see: http://observer.com/2011/09/earliest-known-images-of-christ-on-display-at-nyu/