Exodus 12.1-14: Passing Over

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The lamb's blood on the doorpost was a sign that the Lord should pass over a particular house as the firstborn of Egypt were killed. The blood was important, a visible sign of belonging to Yahweh.

What in the world does that look like? Cecil B. DeMille imagined a green mist that oozed under doors in order to accomplish the task at hand. Did you imagine it looking like either of these?

The left image shows a traditional angel holding a sickle. Also called a reaping hook, the sickle is an agricultural tool designed for harvesting, reaping, or cutting foliage. Is this a harvest in Egypt?

Or perhaps the right image is more what you imagine. A winged being but hardly solid. It is a red mist that creates a type of garment. In the angel's hand is a sword, a weapon with a long blade designed for slashing or thrusting.

(Left) Exodus 11.4. Scanned from "Coloured Picture Bible for Children." (Right) Arthur Hacker. And There was a great Cry in Egypt. 1897. Private Collection. 

A weapon? Or a tool? What should this figure be carrying?

And what of the aftermath? We are usually focused on the gathering of the Israelites and their leaving Egypt. American artist Charles Sprague Pearce instead focused on the grief of Egyptian parents in his painting (below). The parents here prepare to bury their child along with the clay figures that would be the child's companions in the afterlife. Many Victorian-era parents knew what it was to lose a child. This image, rather than celebrating the freedom of the Israelites, honored the grief of
Egyptian parents.

Charles Sprague Pearce. Lamentations over the Death of the First-Born of Egypt, 1877. Washington, DC: Smithsonian American Art Museum.

How do we interpret this event? What are the feelings, and even contradictions, that we must hold in our hands as we consider this story?

And, for Christians, how do we hold this story as we read it on Maundy Thursday? See this week's Facebook post for thoughts on Passover and Maundy Thursday.

Matthew 2.13-23: What Joseph Makes Possible

Ann Weems asked, "Who put Joseph in the back of the stable?"* That's what we tend to do...put mother and child in the center, and sheep and shepherds in front. Magi with camels off to one side. Angels in the sky. And Joseph in the back of the stable with the donkey and the ox. Joseph becomes just another working animal in the story. And it is true that Joseph is working throughout the gospel infancy narratives, but surely Joseph has a story worth telling. He does. It's in Matthew's gospel (2:13-23).

In the course of Matthew 1 and 2, Joseph is visited not once, not twice, but three times by angels. Joseph is called to move forward with his marriage to Mary. He takes his great-with-child wife on a 90-mile journey to his family's town of origin where his wife gives birth to a baby boy. After another visit from an angel, he is instructed to take his wife and child to Egypt. He must get them out of town as deadly danger marches toward them and keep them safe as they travel more than 400 miles. When the time is right, he will bring his family home. Joseph definitely has a story.

Joseph's handling of unexpected scenarios should earn him our admiration and respect. He is resourceful and capable. His actions show him to be devoted to his family and responsive to God's direction. No wonder God chose him.

Scenes of the family's travel to Egypt are often romanticized or sentimentalized. The two adults are often in the landscape with a moon shining down highlighting the people, the donkey (there's usually a donkey), and an obligatory palm tree. It is quiet and contemplative. The realities of traveling via donkey (even donkey cart) for 400+ miles with an infant are no doubt more prosaic than we imagine. And certainly they are more prosaic than Caravaggio's image here. But I think Caravaggio gets Joseph's role right.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Rest on the Flight into Egypt. 1597. Rome: Galleria Doria Pamphilj

Caravaggio has chosen a rest stop as the family travels. Mother and child both rest, their heads touching. The vegetation is lush, though stones are scattered on the path. Joseph and the donkey look at the angel who faces away from us and toward the family. The angel is playing the violin, presumably lulling mother and child to sleep. Joseph's eyes are focused on the angel, but in his hands he holds the music manuscript, making the angel's music possible.

That seems to be Joseph's lot: keeping focused on doing what God calls him to do while making other people's work possible. Bless him. Let's give Joseph a little more attention this Christmas season.

* Weems' poem "Getting to the Front of the Stable" is in the collection Kneeling in Bethlehem.

For additional thoughts on Matthew 2:13-23, click here.

Praying in the Garden: Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone?

How alone was Jesus during Holy Week? Crowds lined the street as he rode into the city. Jesus did share a last meal with his disciples. The city was full of people even at the end of the week. And yet there were times he was alone. So alone.

On the night he was betrayed, Jesus prayed, specifically in the garden of Gethsemane according to Matthew (Matthew 26:36-46) and Mark (Mark 14:32-42), on the Mount of Olives according to Luke (Luke 22:40-46). He takes several disciples with him, but they fall asleep...more than once. Could you not keep awake one hour? he asks them. He prayed alone.

But according to Luke's gospel there was a presence who appeared to give Jesus strength in that agonizing hour. In the NRSV, Luke 22:43 says, "Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength." The KJV says, " And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him."

What does it look like when an angel appears to strengthen Jesus? In Raphael's version below, the angel hovers above Jesus carrying the cup from which Jesus prays to be spared. A couple of centuries later, William Blake's angel literally supports Jesus, whose fervent prayers have rendered him unable to stay upright on his own. Another century later, Frans Schwartz's angel stands beside Jesus with an arm around his shoulders.

 (Left) Raphael. The Agony in the Garden. c. 1504. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Center) William Blake. The Agony in the Garden. c. 1799-1800. London: Tate. (Right) Frans Schwartz. The Agony in the Garden. 1898. Salt Lake City, UT: Brigham Young University Museum of Art.

From his entry into Jerusalem on through Holy Week, Jesus is alone in the midst of a crowd. The cheers of the entry parade will become calls for his death. His disciples will fall asleep while he is praying. One of his closest friends will betray him. He will be crucified, and his followers will deny him, fall away, or watch from a distance.

It's only natural that we would want to make Jesus a little less alone. Artists do it, and even scripture interpreters do. In The Message, Luke 22:43 reads, "At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him." At his side. I hope so.

Another thought on Jesus' aloneness is on this week's Art&Faith Matters' Facebook page.

For thoughts on the footwashing of Maundy Thursday, click here.

Genesis 18, 21: Unexpected Visitors

Abraham's three visitors were unexpected. They just showed up there at the camp under the oaks of Mamre. Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent in the heat of the day. So he offered food and hospitality to these unexpected visitors who turned out to be way more and promise way more than he originally thought they might (Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7, Pr 6/Ord 11/Pentecost 2, Year A).

The unexpected visitors - and the unexpected news they brought - are not so unexpected to us today. We have read the story. How, then, can we give ourselves the experience of seeing these visitors in a new light - as Abraham saw them by the end of the text. Two options are below.

In the painted Biblical scenes and stories of artist Fr. John B. Giuliani we see indigenous peoples: the people of Guatemala and Bolivia, Apache and Crow, Navajo and Choctaw. In Giuliani's The Tent at Mamre, three chiefs - Lakota, Cheyenne and Apache - are the unexpected visitors hosted by Sarah and Abraham. Abraham and Sarah are not included in the scene, but their tent (a Blackfeet buffalo tipi) provides the background for the scene. Does Giuliani's version of the story make you ask different questions? Or help you understand Abraham's surprise at these visitors who just seemed to appear?

A second "unexpected" depiction of the story is that by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. The part of the reading from Genesis 21 includes Sarah's overhearing the visitors' assertion that she and Abraham will be parents, even at their advanced age. In response to this announcement, Sarah laughs. (Remember, it is that laughter that will give Isaac his name.) Sarah's laughter is overheard, and one of the visitors confronts her.

Tiepolo has chosen that moment, and, at least for me, the appearance (and by that I mean the way the visitor looks, not that the visitor appeared) of this angel is unexpected, to say the least. From the wings that are almost as tall as the angel, to the medallion-patterned gathered and draped garment (not to mention the thigh-high slit) and the gold sandals, this angel is quite unexpected. Sarah is dressed in 17th-century fashion with her standing lace collar, which feels anachronistic in its own way. But it is the angel who steals the sartorial show. He stands outside the "tent" in the light while Sarah kneels in the shadows, her dark clothes blending into the dark wall behind her.

Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent in the heat of the day when he looked up and saw three visitors. What do unexpected visitors bring to us? What hospitality do we offer them?

Top photo: John B. Giuliani. The Tent at Mamre. To purchase cards and reproductions of this and other work: http://www.bridgebuilding.com/narr/gabr.html
Bottom photo: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Sarah and the Angel. 1724-29. Fresco. Palazzzo Patriarcale, Udine. http://www.musdioc-tiepolo.it/musdioc/index.php?folder_id=15

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.