Every story in catacomb art is a tale of deliverance, a tale of the powerlessness of death and the certainty of the resurrection. Looking back through fifteen hundred years of Christian art, it appears the crucifixion of Jesus holds the highest place. We haven’t looked back far enough. Go back to the first three centuries after Jesus walked among us. Walk the dark corridors of those subterranean burial chambers of the persecuted Christians. There we find a much different theology at work: a theology with resurrection hope and power at the center. If catacomb art were all we had of Christian theology and practice from the first three centuries AD—no Scriptures—we would have no choice but to conclude that the first message of the Christian faith was the Easter gospel.
Is the turning point of human history the Jesus of the cross or the Christ of the resurrection? We live on this side of the resurrection, yet we act as if we are on the far side of the crucifixion. Staring into the cross from the Good Friday perspective makes it difficult to see beyond it. It consumes us. It blocks our vision. Even though we understand in our minds there was a Sunday we continue to stand in our hearts on Friday. Are we missing life in the brilliant light of the resurrection? Try to imagine the profound transformation from the disciples’ broken spirit on Friday to their heart-stopping joy on Sunday evening. Transformation was truly so wrenching there could never be a return to their pre-resurrection world. They began to see the cross through the lens of the resurrection, every time. The risen Lord became their launching pad for faith, and from that glorious platform they reached back and embraced his crucifixion. It should be the same for us!
We think we know Handel’s Messiah, having heard it or performed it so many times. But is there another way to look at this masterpiece? Who assembled the texts? Why? How did Handel incorporate his own spiritual understanding of the texts? In this treatise, we view the composition from the same Baroque aesthetic perspective the composer used: the Doctrine of Affections—an approach heretofore unexplored in relationship to Handel’s Messiah—which held that every major and minor key prompted a particular, very specific, and involuntary emotional and spiritual response in the listener. When facing a choice between following the accepted rules of musical composition or using the Affect best suited to the scriptural text, Handel almost exclusively chose the Affect; in other words, he chose spiritual insight over compositional tradition. Overlaying the various Affects on each movement of Handel’s composition, we discover the true heart and spiritual depth of the composer’s magnum opus.
A battle rages between doubt and faith. Combining the words of Scripture, tradition, and legend with the author's imagination, Silent Voices: Meditations for Holy Week contemplates what those nameless Holy Week silent participants were thinking and feeling. Can we see ourselves in the soldier, the thieves, the Marys, John, Pilate and his wife, Peter, Barabbas, Simon of Cyrene, Cleopas--even Judas? Can we feel what they felt, how they gloated, how they hurt, why they made the decisions they made? Will we put on their dusty sandals and wear their blood-stained robes? Are we willing to walk their walk, stumble, pronounce judgments, sputter denials, hear the taunts, wallow in grief, or be conflicted as they were conflicted? In these meditations the author tries to feel what it felt like to pick up his cross, or to nail him to it. From the perspective of those "silent ones" of the Gospels, with sand between our toes and the festering stench of the ancient world, we witness the sacrifice of our Lord. At the heart of each meditation are the questions "Who was this man?" "How would I have responded to his willing sacrifice?" and "How will I respond today?
Every story in catacomb art is a tale of deliverance, a tale of the powerlessness of death and the certainty of the resurrection. Looking back through fifteen hundred years of Christian art, it appears the crucifixion of Jesus holds the highest place. We haven’t looked back far enough. Go back to the first three centuries after Jesus walked among us. Walk the dark corridors of those subterranean burial chambers of the persecuted Christians. There we find a much different theology at work: a theology with resurrection hope and power at the center. If catacomb art were all we had of Christian theology and practice from the first three centuries AD—no Scriptures—we would have no choice but to conclude that the first message of the Christian faith was the Easter gospel.
We think we know Handel’s Messiah, having heard it or performed it so many times. But is there another way to look at this masterpiece? Who assembled the texts? Why? How did Handel incorporate his own spiritual understanding of the texts? In this treatise, we view the composition from the same Baroque aesthetic perspective the composer used: the Doctrine of Affections—an approach heretofore unexplored in relationship to Handel’s Messiah—which held that every major and minor key prompted a particular, very specific, and involuntary emotional and spiritual response in the listener. When facing a choice between following the accepted rules of musical composition or using the Affect best suited to the scriptural text, Handel almost exclusively chose the Affect; in other words, he chose spiritual insight over compositional tradition. Overlaying the various Affects on each movement of Handel’s composition, we discover the true heart and spiritual depth of the composer’s magnum opus.
Is the turning point of human history the Jesus of the cross or the Christ of the resurrection? We live on this side of the resurrection, yet we act as if we are on the far side of the crucifixion. Staring into the cross from the Good Friday perspective makes it difficult to see beyond it. It consumes us. It blocks our vision. Even though we understand in our minds there was a Sunday we continue to stand in our hearts on Friday. Are we missing life in the brilliant light of the resurrection? Try to imagine the profound transformation from the disciples’ broken spirit on Friday to their heart-stopping joy on Sunday evening. Transformation was truly so wrenching there could never be a return to their pre-resurrection world. They began to see the cross through the lens of the resurrection, every time. The risen Lord became their launching pad for faith, and from that glorious platform they reached back and embraced his crucifixion. It should be the same for us!
A battle rages between doubt and faith. Combining the words of Scripture, tradition, and legend with the author’s imagination, Silent Voices: Meditations for Holy Week contemplates what those nameless Holy Week silent participants were thinking and feeling. Can we see ourselves in the soldier, the thieves, the Marys, John, Pilate and his wife, Peter, Barabbas, Simon of Cyrene, Cleopas—even Judas? Can we feel what they felt, how they gloated, how they hurt, why they made the decisions they made? Will we put on their dusty sandals and wear their blood-stained robes? Are we willing to walk their walk, stumble, pronounce judgments, sputter denials, hear the taunts, wallow in grief, or be conflicted as they were conflicted? In these meditations the author tries to feel what it felt like to pick up his cross, or to nail him to it. From the perspective of those “silent ones” of the Gospels, with sand between our toes and the festering stench of the ancient world, we witness the sacrifice of our Lord. At the heart of each meditation are the questions “Who was this man?” “How would I have responded to his willing sacrifice?” and “How will I respond today?”
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