One of the benefits of seeing people in hospitals is that I have an opportunity to look at all the artwork that line the main hallways. Gone are the days of stark, sterile walls; they have become galleries for local artists. I rather like the trend. I've seen some stunning works on hospital walls in recent months. There is a hallway gallery at my parents' retirement home too. Every visit there includes time spent gazing at wall art. During my extended stay there in January as my father neared the end of his journey, I spent quite a lot of time wandering the halls, taking in the many and varied viewpoints of everyday things and places captured on canvas, paper and film. One small watercolor drew me in every time; nestled in the center of a fragile nest were five open months of newly hatched Robins. It was so lifelike I could almost hear their shrill, alarming cries: "Mother, mother, we've awoke and we are very hungry! Where are you mother?" After father had gone, the baby birds remained; a memento of the quiet time we'd spent together contemplating the cycle of life.
I later contacted the artist and purchased the framed print. We had a delightful conversation and she told me when and why she had painted it; a bond was forged. It captured for she and I a time we both wanted to forget and at the same time remember with great clarity. Pictures do that very well; sometimes better than words that make up stories or poems or hymns. Pictures are very direct. With words you have to work to get at the image; then, when fixed in our mind as an image we can then do the work of associating it with our own life experience.
The violence and despair of the cross has been captured on canvas and paper as many times as there are people in China. And I prefer it that way - I prefer that someone else has thought through the details of the scene; that someone else committed it to memory; that someone else brought into light that which I wish could remain in darkness; that someone else wrestled into plain sight that which we kept hidden. I do not like this day. I do not like being reminded so vividly of human wickedness. In these lovely days of this year's early Spring I do not want to sit with death. I do not want to contemplate the evil that brought us to this moment. Deny it as I may, it remains. It is the stain I cannot remove.
And yet, as we all know, if it weren't for this day, this event - we would bear a burden far greater. The sin that plagues us would be like an unchecked infection eating away at all of our goodness; like a millstone around our neck dragging us to drown in deep and wild waters; like the one eye that causes the other to sin; the camel who will never get through the eye of the needle; the water that will never be wine, the bread that is just bread; and a cross that is never free of the corpus. Were it not for this day, there would be no remedy, no solace, no reproach, no second chances, no redo's, no healing balm of Gilead.
The healing balm we have received is in the truth that he suffered so that we should not. His suffering does not invite that we share in it. No. It speaks out against suffering. There is no glory in it. There is no benefit in believing that in some way our suffering can accomplish that which only God can do. I say again, no. We are bonded to Christ in love not in suffering. Suffering is part of life, it is as much as part of living as is breathing. We cannot escape it; but neither do we bear it alone. The suffering of Christ is a different matter altogether, and cannot be compared or reduced to that which we have known. His suffering taken fully into the hands of God has the power to reveal the evilness of evil and the finality of death without hope; and then transform it into justice and grace that knows no end. The Good Friday picture we have fixed in our mind's eye only pauses in the suffering of the cross and then swiftly moves on to rest in mercy; mercy that is poured out on us like the water that gushes from the struck rock in the wilderness; anointing us with the healing balm of God's forgiveness and love; mercy that transforms us as surely as water becomes wine by the mere command of the voice of Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment