December 27: The Loving Savior of the World
♫ Music:
Friday, December 27
Title: THE LOVING SAVIOR OF THE WORLD
Scripture: 1 John 4:7-21
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
Poetry:
Filling Station
by Elizabeth Bishop
Oh, but it is dirty!
—this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!
Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it’s a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.
Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.
Some comic books provide
the only note of color—
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.
Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)
Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
esso—so—so—so
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.
REDEEMING THE TOXIC NIGHTMARE
If you have ever spent significant time in the desert regions of California, there is a good chance you have had the opportunity to drive by the Salton Sea, Slab City, and that monumental combination of folk art and evangelism, Salvation Mountain. Salvation Mountain was the life project of Leonard Knight, and the story of how the art project came about deserves its own essay, if not a book. Knight, an amazingly humble and gentle spirit, welcomed visitors for many years, inviting people inside for a closer look around. Since his passing, others have stepped in to keep Salvation Mountain alive, to preserve one man’s love letter to God. Despite the legions of admirers, Knight’s magnum opus has not always been so well received. In fact, at one point the county in which the artwork rests wanted to completely eliminate Leonard Knight’s heartfelt project. They went so far as to take soil samples, declaring the entire site to be a “toxic nightmare.”
Human perception of what is “soiled” and what is “pure” can often be perplexing. Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “Filling Station,” dives right into the tension of this very dilemma. “Oh, but it is dirty,” the poem begins, continuing on to speak of the “oil-soaked and “disturbing” location where danger is part of the décor (“Be careful with that match!”). The proprietor of the station wears “dirty” clothes, and together with his “saucy” and “greasy” sons, we are told that they are “all quite thoroughly dirty.” As the speaker continues to note the “dirty dog,” and the comic books that provide the environment with a welcome note of color, her veiled sense of superiority and not belonging reach a crescendo of “why” questions, which are, oddly, not unlike in their presumption the questions of a much earlier human being with questions, Job. As a poet of perception, of looking intensely at the world to savor its beauty and mystery, Bishop begins to grasp a larger reality to the scene she has so meticulously illuminated. “Somebody loves us all,” the poem concludes.
The Somebody Bishop invites into the poem is the Somebody that inspired Leonard Knight to devote all the resources of his being into glorifying God by sub-creating Salvation Mountain. Under personal hardship, financial duress, failed balloon launch debacles, and other obstacles too numerous to count, Knight was determined to tell the world this incontrovertible truth: “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through him” (1 John 4: 9). Ginny Owens’s “God is Love” gives musical life to these foundational truths about an amazing Creator who is the embodiment of love. Whether it is shouted from the mountaintops, etched into the dim doily at a filling station, or displayed in the fellow human being sitting beside you on a train, God’s message of love rises above the soil and grime of our daily lives. Won’t you heed His call?
Prayer:
Blessed be the Lord, who daily loads us with his benefits, even the God of our salvation; for he that is our God is the God of salvation . . . . Above all we bless thee for Jesus Christ, and his mediation between God and man, for the covenant of grace made with us in him, and all the exceeding great and precious promises and privileges of that covenant, for the throne of grace erected for us, to which we may in his name come with humble boldness, and for the hope of eternal life through him.
--Matthew Henry
Marc Malandra
Professor of English
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Salvation Mountain
Leonard Knight
1931–2014
Adobe, straw, and lead-free paint
Niland, California
Salvation Mountain is a hillside visionary environment created by local resident Leonard Knight in the California Desert of Imperial County. The work is made of adobe, straw, and thousands of gallons of lead-free paint. It encompasses numerous murals and areas painted with Christian sayings and Bible verses with its central message built around the “Sinner's Prayer.” The Folk Art Society of America declared Salvation Mountain as "a folk art site worthy of preservation and protection" in the year 2000. In 2012, a public charity, Salvation Mountain, Inc. was established to support the project and insure its future. Knight's simple message of the “Sinner’s Prayer” is painted across the face of the mountain: "God is Love."
https://www.salvationmountain.us/
About the Artist:
Leonard Knight (1931–2014) was an American artist who spent almost 30 years constructing the colorful mountain in the Imperial Valley desert, just outside of Niland, California. Built out of adobe and donated paint, Knight worked on the mountain all day, every day. He even slept at the mountain's base in the back of a pick-up truck, with no electricity or running water. The mountain and the outcroppings are all covered in Bible verses. Like some other outsider artists, like Rev. Howard Finster, Knight had a powerful conversion experience that changed his life. After that, his zeal and a singular focus to proclaim Jesus as Savior drove Knight, an untrained artist, to create an artwork with evangelical purpose.
https://www.salvationmountain.us/bio.html
About the Music:
“God Is Love” (featuring All Sons and Daughters) from the album Love Be the Loudest
Lyrics:
Oh come let us, united sing
God is Love, God is Love
Let heaven and earth
Their praises bring
God is Love, God is Love
Let every soul, from sin awake
Let every heart, sweet music make
And sing with eyes, for Jesus sake
God is Love, God is Love
Oh sing to earths, most distant lands
God is Love, God is Love
In Christ we are, made whole again
God is Love, God is Love
His blood has washed, our sin away
His spirit turned, our night to day
And with great joy, our hearts can say
God is Love, God is Love
One day we'll sing, with all the saints
God is Love, God is Love
We'll fully know then, face to face
God is Love, God is LoveWhile endless ages, roll along
We'll triumph find, the heavenly throne
And this shall be, our sweetest song
God is Love, God is Love
Composer:
Ginny Owens (b. 1975) is an American singer, songwriter, author, and blogger. She is known for performing Contemporary Christian music, but has more recently had her songs featured on the WB, ABC, TV shows, and independent film soundtracks. Owens has been blind since the age of three. She earned her bachelor of music education in 1997 from Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. She entered the music business by writing songs. Owens won the Nashville "Lilith Fair '99 Talent Search,” which earned her a spot singing at that year's festival, and the following year she performed at the Sundance Film Festival. Owens has also received three Dove Awards, including New Artist of the Year (2000) and Inspirational Recorded Song of the Year (2001). In 2015, Owens released her first book, Transcending Mysteries: Who Is God and What Does He Want From Us?, co-authored with Andrew Greer. Owens has also served as an adjunct professor in the songwriting department at Belmont University.
https://ginnyowens.com/
Performer:
Ginny Owens and All Sons and Daughters
All Sons & Daughters is an American Christian worship music duo, who perform in the styles of acoustic and folk music. The group's leads are Leslie Anne Jordan on vocals and guitar and David Alan Leonard on vocals and piano. They are both worship leaders at Journey Church in Franklin, Tennessee. The musicians are quoted as saying “Our main goal is to create this space where people can come and engage with God, and we kind of get out of the way...we’re not trying to sway emotions, but really trying to tell a story, and move people through a progression from brokenness into grace, to finding freedom. We believe God is transcendent in His nature, so He takes something that is ancient and plants it in the present to wake us up.”
https://allsonsanddaughters.com/
About the Poet:
Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979) was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the National Book Award winner in 1970, and the recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976. Bishop was greatly influenced by the poet Marianne Moore, who helped Bishop publish some of her poetry. The friendship between the two women is memorialized by extensive correspondence that endured until Moore's death in 1972. During her lifetime, Bishop was a respected, yet somewhat obscure, figure in the world of American literature. Since her death in 1979, however, her reputation has grown to the point that many critics, like Larry Rohter in the New York Times, have referred to her as "one of the most important American poets" of the 20th century. Bishop was a perfectionist who did not write prolifically, preferring instead to spend long periods of time polishing her work. Her verse is marked by precise descriptions of the physical world and an air of poetic serenity, but her underlying themes include the struggle to find a sense of belonging and the human experience of grief and longing.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/elizabeth-bishop
About the Devotion Writer:
Marc Malandra
Professor of English
Biola University
Marc Malandra is a Professor of English at Biola University in La Mirada, California, where he teaches American literature, composition, and creative writing. He lives with his spouse Junko and their cat Tora in Brea, CA.