January 4: The New Jerusalem
♫ Music:
Day 33 - Thursday, January 4
Title: THE NEW JERUSALEM
Scripture: Isaiah 62:1–5 (NKJV)
For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns. The Gentiles shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory. You shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will name. You shall also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no longer be termed forsaken, Nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so shall your sons marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
Poetry & Poet:
“The New World”
by Jones Very
The night that has no star lit up by God,
The day that round men shines who still are blind,
The earth their grave-turned feet for ages trod,
And sea swept over by His mighty wind,
All these have passed away, the melting dream
That flitted o’er the sleeper’s half-shut eye,
When touched by morning’s golden-darting beam;
And he beholds around the earth and sky
That ever real stands, the rolling shores
And heaving billows of the boundless main,
That show, though time is past, no trace of years.
And earth restored he sees as his again,
The earth that fades not and the heavens that stand,
Their strong foundations laid by God’s right hand.
BELONGING TO THE LORD’S DELIGHT
Among the many pictures Isaiah gives us, the unique thing about this passage is how it celebrates the Lord’s delight in his restored people. Two words are emblematic in this respect. Hephzibah is––like Zion––another name for Jerusalem and means “My delight is in her.” Beulah simply means “married,” but while marriage might evoke romance for us, it is instead a sign of security and blessing in Isaiah’s world. These names are signposts of a deeply satisfying sense of home. Taken together, they communicate the hoped-for flourishing under God when, at long last, the people experience his favor once more and enjoy the belonging that he alone can provide. In other words, the prophet sees a time in which Jerusalem’s dreams of being the beloved community of God are finally fulfilled.
This is why Talbot’s musical setting and Very’s poem communicate such astounding wonder. The renewal of God’s relationship with his people and the overflow of that renewal among the community itself is a wonderous picture of divine shalom. Not unlike today’s image, such a picture requires more imagination than we can casually deploy.
New Jerusalem: Get Your Business Fixed is one of about eight hundred visual meditations on Scripture created by the self-taught artist, musician, and evangelist Sister Gertrude Morgan. After experiencing her call to ministry, Morgan left her life and home in Columbus, Georgia, and went to New Orleans. In the “headquarters of sin,” she preached on street corners in the French Quarter, ministered to the hopeless, and taught God’s word. Her vibrantly colored, densely composed, and earnestly direct images served to illustrate the passages she preached, and often they included Bible quotations and sermonic imperatives scrawled in the margins. In 1966, her artistic focus turned decisively to depicting the New Jerusalem, characterized by a multi-storied mansion of many rooms, surrounded by jubilant angels, and waiting to be filled with the sons and daughters of God. Often in these works, Morgan depicts herself as the bride of Christ adorned in a white wedding gown and, as in our image, standing with the bridegroom. She pictures herself as she was––African American, but perhaps startlingly, Jesus is represented as Caucasian. This curious choice, however, embodies the reconciliatory logic of her composition. Black and white populate each group of figures, and yet, the diverse host is thoroughly united in joy and exultation. It’s the radiance of God’s delight that overwhelms here.
In this way, we should not miss her message. As one commentator notes, “In Morgan’s art, viewers are addressed as participants in an unfolding spiritual journey.” Thus, she calls us to “get our business fixed” and make ready for the day in which her vision will be realized even more comprehensively, and in illustrating a proper urgency, she goes ahead of us by decisively placing herself in that vision. Not merely a penitent, not even an angel––Morgan knows she’s a bride, who hears the Lord say, “My delight is in her.”
Prayer:
Lord, let us know the strength of your promise today: It is no longer our destiny to be called ‘Forsaken’ and to suffer alone, but in your great love, you have called us to yourself and given us an eternal belonging in Jesus Christ. We have a glorious inheritance - the Lord who delights in us! Until we reach that forever home, help us by your Spirit to walk in faith and teach us to pray like Sister Gertrude Morgan, “O Fix Me, Fix Me, Jesus.”
Amen.
Dr. Taylor Worley
Visiting Associate Professor of Art History
Wheaton College
Wheaton, Illinois
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 Art:
New Jerusalem: Get Your Business Fixed
Sister Gertrude Morgan
Acrylic, graphite, and ink on thin card
35.56 x 55.88 cm
About the Artist:
Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900–1980) was a self-taught African American artist, musician, poet, and preacher. Born in LaFayette, Alabama, she relocated to New Orleans in 1939, where she lived and worked until her death. Sister Morgan achieved critical acclaim during her lifetime for her folk art paintings. Her work has been included in many groundbreaking exhibitions of visionary and folk art from the 1970s onward. She understood the act of painting as a tool to be used in her service to the Lord, just as she used music in her street preaching. Sister Morgan used her early paintings as visual aids in her sermons and teachings. Her paintings depict religious subject matter almost exclusively, illustrating scenes from Scripture. The book of Revelation was of special significance to her, and provided subject matter that she would return to over and over again in her work. Similar to other self-taught artists, Sister Morgan used simple forms to depict the human figure. Her works are characterized by their lack of the use of formal techniques such as perspective and definition of light and shadow, giving them a flat, two-dimensional quality. She painted and drew using acrylics, tempera, ballpoint pen, watercolors, crayon, colored and lead pencils, and felt-tip markers. Using inexpensive materials she had at hand, Sister Morgan painted on paper, toilet rolls, plastic pitchers, paper megaphones, scrap wood, lampshades, paper fans, and Styrofoam trays. The fact that she was self-taught, coupled with her choice of materials, as well as her style and subject matter, have led her to be characterized as a naive, folk, visionary, vernacular, and outsider artist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Morgan
About the Music:
“For Zion’s Sake” from the album The John Michael Talbot Collection––A Library of 35 Favorite Songs
Lyrics:
For Zion's sake, I will not be silent.
For Jerusalem's sake, I will not be still.
Until her vindication shines forth like dawning
And her victory like the flame of the Lord
For Zion's sake, I will not be silent.
For Jerusalem's sake, I will not be still.
Until her vindication shines forth like dawning,
And her victory like the flame of the Lord
Nations behold your vindications,
All kings see your glory,
You shall be called by a new name,
Pronounced by the mouth of the Lord your God.
For Zion's sake, I will not be silent.
For Jerusalem's sake, I will not be still,
Until her vindication shines forth like dawning,
And her victory like the flame of the Lord.
No more shall men call you forsaken,
Or your land be desolate.
As a young man marries a virgin,
So the Lord will marry you.
For Zion's sake, I will not be silent.
For Jerusalem's sake, I will not be still.
Until her vindication shines forth like dawning,
And her victory like the flame of the Lord.
The flame of the Lord
Upon your walls, Jerusalem,
I have set my watchmen,
Never by the day or night,
Shall they be silent.
Upon your walls, Jerusalem,
I have set my watchmen.
Never by the day or night,
Shall they be still.
Pass through, pass through,
Pass through the gates,
Prepare the way,
For the Lord your God.
Build up, build up,
A highway,
For the Lord your God.
The Lord proclaims,
To the ends of the earth,
The Lord proclaims,
Your savior comes.
Build up, build up,
A highway,
For the Lord your God.
For Zion's sake, I will not be silent.
For Jerusalem's sake, I will not be still.
Until her vindication shines forth like dawning,
And her victory like the flame of the Lord.
The flame of the Lord,
The flame of the Lord,
The flame of the Lord.
About the Composer/Performer:
John Michael Talbot with choir
John Michael Talbot (b. 1954) is a singer-songwriter, guitarist, author, and founder of a monastic community known as the Brothers and Sisters of Charity. His songs were the first by a Catholic artist to cross well-defined boundaries and gain acceptance by Protestant listeners. Talbot won the Dove Award for Worship Album of the Year for his album Light Eternal with producer and longtime friend, Phil Perkins. He is one of only nine artists to receive the President's Merit Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. In 1988 he was named the number-one Christian Artist by Billboard. Today, Talbot is one of the most active monk/ministers alive, traveling over nine months per year throughout the world inspiring and renewing the faith of Christians of all denominations through sacred music, teaching, and motivational speaking.
https://johnmichaeltalbot.com/
About the Poetry and Poet:
Jones Very (1813–1880) was an American poet, essayist, clergyman, and mystic associated with the American transcendentalism movement. His close study of Shakespeare led him to write almost exclusively in Shakespearian sonnets, and his sequences on religion and nature gained recognition for their graceful lyricism. Very became associated with Harvard University, first as an undergraduate, then as a student in the Harvard Divinity School, and as a tutor of Greek. Very, known as an eccentric and prone to odd behavior, may have suffered from bipolar disorder. He lived the majority of his life as a recluse after being institutionalized for mental illness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jones_Very
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jones-very
About the Devotion Author:
Dr. Taylor Worley
Visiting Associate Professor of Art History
Wheaton College
Wheaton, Illinois
Taylor Worley is visiting associate professor of art history at Wheaton College and project director for ‘Thinking about Thinking: Conceptual Art and the Contemplative Tradition.’ He completed a Ph.D. in the areas of contemporary art and theological aesthetics in the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St. Andrews and is the author of Memento Mori in Contemporary Art: Theologies of Lament and Hope (Routledge, 2020). Taylor is married to Anna, and they have four children: Elizabeth, Quinn, Graham, and Lillian.