Transfiguration and Sinai: Have You Looked at Clouds This Way?

In Exodus 24: 4-18, Moses goes up on the mountain to receive the law and commandments on tablets of stone. A cloud covered the mountain for six days. In Matthew 17:1-9, the disciples (along with Jesus, Moses, and Elijah) are on a mountain when they are overshadowed by a bright cloud. Did you picture a too-bright white cotton candy cloud for the Matthew reading? And maybe boiling, seething dark clouds flashing with lightning for the Exodus passage?

Clouds are amazing things. Clouds are actually collections of water droplets so light that they can float. Fog is a cloud at ground level, so if you've been enclosed in fog, you've been enclosed by a cloud. When I was growing up my siblings and I looked forward to the "fog machine" driving through our neighborhood about suppertime in the summer. We dashed out the door to be hidden in the fog, running around trying to find - or not find each other, enjoying the temporary thrill of being hidden in the cloud. The fact that the "fog" was actually spraying DDT to control mosquitos...well...

John Constable. Cloud Study, Sunset. c. 1821. Yale Center for British Art.

English painter John Constable studied clouds, creating approximately fifty studies of clouds and sky between 1821 and 1822. He looked at their color and shape, the relative position to the horizon and the land, and the possibility of rain (or not). The studies were painted on thick paper, and the artist wrote meterological data like wind direction and temperature and time of day of the backs of the drawings. They look like the clouds we see in the sky.

Mark Leonard considered those cloud studies and created a geometric interpretation of those very organic clouds. How does your perception of the clouds change when they are twisted into a rope, as below? Could disciples get lost in this cloud? Does the twist image help you better understand God's continuing work through Hebrew scripture (Moses and Elijah) AND Christian scripture (Jesus)?

Mark Leonard, Constable Study I. 2011. Collection of Mark Leonard.

You can see additional comparative images of Leonard and Constable's work here. Do we need fluffy clouds for the stories of Moses on Sinai and Jesus' Transfiguration? 

For additional thoughts on the Transfiguration, click here or here.

A King for Today

It seems that the name by which it is known may help interpret the day. Is this coming Sunday known as Christ the King B? Or do you prefer Reign of Christ B? The first seems to focus on the person of Jesus, who as Christ will one day rule over this world - every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. The Reign of Christ seems to focus not just on who sits on that throne but what happens once he takes his place there.

But these two questions are only the tip of the iceberg when considering an image or images for this day and these scriptures (2 Samuel 23:1-7, Psalm 132:1-12, Revelation 1:4b-8 and John 18:33-37). Do we look for Christ descending in the clouds as in Revelation - usually accompanied by a precisely-arranged throng of saints, martyrs, apostles and angels? Do we prefer an enthroned Christ, sitting calmly, holding and wearing the regalia of his position as king? Depicted as a king that Pontius Pilate, who questioned Jesus about his kingship in John's gospel, would have understood. Though Jesus would look like any earthly king, we presume that he, unlike the Roman emperors of his day and many rulers since, would be dispensing justice.

But what of today? We may look at the reign of Christ and the return of Christ with different eyes in light of the events in Beirut, in Baghdad, in Paris and in places where killings and terror were carried out against individuals rather than groups large enough to make the news. The clouds and phalanxes of winged figures may not offer a vision that speaks to the kind of king we need today. Though not a specific depiction of this liturgical day, the icon (at right) titled "Christ of Maryknoll" by Brother Robert Lentz nevertheless offers us an image that impacts a view of Christ as king. It is a purposely ambiguous: is Christ inside the barbed wire or are we? Have we imprisoned Christ - who he is, what he calls us to do and to be? Have we tried to contain him, limit him behind "barbed wire?" Or perhaps we have imprisoned ourselves. Have we erected barriers that keep Christ out of our lives, our institutions, our business? Is Christ on the other side of the fence offering us freedom in his reign, if only there was no barbed wire between us?

Either way, the barbed wire is an obstacle. Perhaps it offers no real hindrance to Christ and his purpose, but it is an obstruction to us. It may be a parallel to Frederick Buechner's take on prayer. Keep praying, he says, "...not, one assumes, because you have to beat a path to God's door before God will open it, but because until you beat the path maybe there's no way of getting to your door. 'Ravish my heart,' John Donne wrote. But God will not usually ravish. He will only court." (Wishful Thinking) What if Christ cannot truly be king for us - much less the world - because the way to our door is blocked with obstacles of our own making?

Every eye will see him, Revelation promises. So though present in every time and place, weeping over every evil act of today, we know that Christ has not yet returned. Because we haven't seen. We still wait. We still need the reign of the Prince of Peace.

For Robert Lentz icons, see: http://robertlentz.com/

And where does this magnificent creature fit in? Check out the Art&Faith Matters Facebook page. Click here.