Henry Ossawa Tanner, Christ and His Mother Studying the Scriptures, c. 1909. Oil on canvas, 48.75 x 40 in. Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, USA.
My coming into the Christian faith is due to the influence of many, but prominent among those many is my mother, who spent many an evening teaching me Bible verses as a kid. (She often used the song method. I can still remember the little ditty she wrote for Ephesians 4:32…) Those memorized pieces of scripture were seeds that stayed planted in my head for years until I finally came to personally profess what they profess.
Thanks, Mom, for being for me such a patient teacher of God’s Word. I love you!
Today the church celebrates the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven, forty days after his resurrection.
When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God. (Luke 24:50-53)
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:9-11)
Here are four Indian artworks on the subject.
The ascension of Jesus in the guise of a priest, 1602-1605. Opaque watercolor on paper, 16.5 x 8 cm. Mughal period, India. Edwin Binney III Collection, San Diego Museum of Art.
Alfred David (“A. D.”) Thomas (1907-1989) , The Ascension.
Untitled batik by P. Solomon Raj (1921- ).
Jyoti Sahi (1944- ), The Ascension.
“Why a Wheaton College Professor Smeared Jesus in Human Dirt,” interview by Katelyn Beaty: Wheaton College art professor David J. P. Hooker purchased a five-foot-tall antique ceramic sculpture of Christ and affixed to it hair, skin cells, nail clippings, and other vacuum-bag debris collected from around campus. The resultant work, Corpus, debuted at the college’s Billy Graham Center on April 22. “I really hope that the piece will be a real, tangible way to see how our community participates in both the death and resurrection of Christ,” Hooker said. See also the Chicago Tribune feature on the piece, which includes a video interview in the artist’s studio.
“Be Pastorally Sensitive on Mother’s Day”: Pastors and worship service directors: please be aware that Mother’s Day is a day of pain for many women. Instead of further crushing non-mothers by asking them to remain seated while all the mothers stand to receive a gift, it may well be more loving to acknowledge through prayer the full range of conflicting emotions being experienced on that day. There’s still room for celebration, but make sure to leave room for sadness as well.
“The Story of Ian and Larissa” by Citygate Films: This video was posted on DesiringGod.org a year ago today. Such beautiful love.
“10 Things to Pray for Your Wife” (or Husband) by Jonathan Parnell: 1. God, be her God. 2. Increase her faith. 3. Intensify her joy. . . .
“Jesus in Outer Space” by Zack Hunt: On a lighter, funnier note, here’s a compilation of space-Jesus art, with captions. See teaser below.
Found at zazzle.com.
For a more succinct version of this review, visit Amazon.com.
If someone were to approach you and tell you that they’re interested in learning more about Jesus, you would almost certainly refer them to one of the four canonical Gospels. Right? And yet the gospel, the “good news,” of Jesus Christ is spread throughout the entire Bible, not just in the four New Testament books that bear the title. We just have to learn how to recognize it.
The Scriptures Testify about Me: Jesus and the Gospel in the Old Testament is a collection of eight essays edited by D. A. Carson, each of which exposits a different Old Testament text (except for the introductory essay, which focuses on John 5:31-47), showing how Jesus is revealed in it. The essays are actually edited transcripts of the plenary addresses given in April 2011 at the national conference of The Gospel Coalition in Chicago. By providing examples of how Christ can be preached from a variety of Old Testament genres, the book opposes the all-too-common notion that the Old Testament is irrelevant for Christians and impossible to reconcile with the revelation of God that we are given in the New.
“To many Christians and even pastors and preachers, the Old Testament is a foreign book. They do things differently there. And they certainly do: arks and animals in a menagerie afloat, dead animals and hewn bullocks, rams in thickets, slavery in Egypt, burning bushes, staffs that turn into snakes, bronze serpents, manna in the morning, pillars of fire and columns of smoke, convoluted history of conquests of kings, intrigue, adultery, murder, incest, a preoccupation with bodily fluids, bears who eat boys, boys who kill giants, prophets who taunt idolaters, prophets who throw fits, prophets who sit by gates and weep, poetry that reads like praise, poetry that reads like existentialist philosophy, Persian writing on walls, foreign kings who roam like wild beasts, a prostitute who hides spies, spies who lose heart, women who summon courage, donkeys that talk, a strong man who commits suicide, stuttering leaders, naked patriarchs, majestic praise, predictive prophecy, lamentation, law, statues, ordinances—in all of its glory. And all of it reveals Christ. Every bit of it.”
—R. Albert Mohler Jr., “Studying the Scriptures and Finding Jesus,” The Scriptures Testify about Me: Jesus and the Gospel in the Old Testament (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 23
Book review to come tomorrow.
T-shirt designed by Alan Banquicet.
Plus, here are two more Terminator Jesus-themed items for this week . . . for your edification, of course.
The Sermonator. Digital poster created by b3ta user Dean Crunch 2, posted September 24, 2009.
A MADtv comedy sketch from 2000, called “The Greatest Action Story Ever Told”:
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples that whenever they feed or clothe or do any kindness to those in need, they are really feeding and clothing and doing that kindness to him. Inspired by this passage, Canadian artist Timothy P. Schmalz got to working on a life-size bronze sculpture that depicts Jesus lying on a bench, covered with a blanket, identifiable only by the nail prints in his feet.
Timothy P. Schmalz, Homeless Jesus, 2012. Bronze, 36″h x 84″w x 24″d.
Schmalz experienced a double setback last summer when two prominent churches—St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York—that had initially expressed interest in the work ultimately decided not to pursue it. Schmalz attributes their backing out in part to their fear that the sculpture may be too controversial or vague. St. Patrick’s has said that on the contrary they think the sculpture is lovely but that extensive renovations prevent them from installing the piece at this time.
But at last, there is a taker. Last week Regis College at the University of Toronto, a Jesuit school of theology, bought (the first cast of) the sculpture, and it is now a permanent fixture on the campus. Continue reading
“Not all terrorism is equal” by David Rothkopf: Puts the Boston Marathon attack in a global perspective. “The same day as the Boston Marathon attack, scores of ordinary people were killed in coordinated terror bombings across Iraq. On Saturday, an earthquake rocked Sichuan province in China, injuring at least 11,000 people and producing a death toll that at this writing was approaching 200. On Sunday alone the violence that tears daily at Syria left more than 500 people dead, most in a single town.”
“Evangelizing with Open Ears” by J. D. Greear: Urges Christians to avoid the unnatural, off-putting question “If you were to die tonight, would you go to heaven?” and suggests alternative spiritual conversation starters.
How to make our prayer requests more biblical by David Powlison: “The Bible’s prayers are rarely about health, travel mercies, finances, doing well on a test, finding a job, or the salvation of unsaved relatives. . . . The driving focus of biblical prayer asks God to show himself, asks that we will know him, asks that we will love others.”
“An Eastern Orthodox Defense of Gay Marriage” by David J. Dunn: This article is two years old and yet it is still timely, and it raises a valid point. “Enlisting the state to protect ‘the sanctity of marriage’ is a mistake. Such efforts demonstrate a fundamental—even idolatrous—misunderstanding of the meaning of ‘holy matrimony,’ effectively denying Christ by vesting the state with divine authority.”
“Falling Plates” by Howard Crutsinger and John Strong: An artistic short that sums up the story line of the Bible in four minutes, using a series of metaphoric images. (See below.)
The Jesus Question 