December 7: A New Eternal Garden: The Tree of Life
♫ Music:
Day 7 - Saturday, December 07
Title: A New Eternal Garden: The Tree of Life
Scripture #1: Revelation 21:2–5a (NKJV)
Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”
Scripture #2: Revelation 22:1–2 (NKJV)
And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Poetry:
“The Sycamore”
by Wendell Berry
In the place that is my own place, whose earth
I am shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,
a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.
Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.
There is no year it has flourished in
that has not harmed it. There is a hollow in it
that is its death, though its living brims whitely
at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.
Over all its scars has come the seamless white
of the bark. It bears the gnarls of its history
healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark fate.
It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.
In all the country there is no other like it.
I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling
the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.
I see that it stands in its place and feeds upon it,
and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.
THE NEW CITY, THE ETERNAL GARDEN, THE TREE OF LIFE
When you have a vacation to plan, what kind of place do you dream about? A penthouse suite in a luxury hotel with a view of award-winning architecture? A peaceful lake-side cabin next to sapphire water and verdant trees? These fantasies merely hint at the reality of what we will experience in God’s eternity, according to our readings from Revelation. We can look forward to a holy city where God dwells with us and all tears are wiped away, and to a garden with the river of life, the tree of life, and healing for all.
The art for today also tries to tell us what awaits believers after death. In Jackson’s illumination (based on Revelation chapters 4, 11, and 21), the rainbow colors convey ultimate splendor. The gates made of pearls and the streets made of gold convey divine harmony and priceless value. Those are just some of the wonderful attributes of the home God has prepared for us. At the top of the painting is an illustration that hints at God and the Lamb, for as Rev 21:3 says, “God’s dwelling place is now among the people.” From the throne flow ribbons of gold and red--beauty and life in place of tears, sorrow, pain, and death. To the lower right of the illumination, like an inset in a map to show more detail, is the tree of life with twelve golden fruits. The tree of life is also seen in our second piece of art, a painting from a palace in Azerbaijan. The pomegranate, with its ruby fruit, both juicy and crunchy, both tart and sweet, is a wonderful illustration of how full and glorious our eternal life will be. Seeing both styles of art—a modern take on western illumination and a work of traditional Islamic decoration—is a reminder, as our Scripture says, that “the leaves of the tree [are] for the healing of the nations.” God intends for his beautiful future to be for every ethnic group.
We read about a different kind of tree in Wendell Berry’s “The Sycamore.” A lightning strike has hollowed out its black core, and accidents over the years have scarred it. It’s still living, but it’s hardly a tree of life. We are like that tree. Although we have “healed over,” we have been distorted by our history—as we see in our “gnarls.” And all humans have “a hollow in [us] that is [our] death.” Berry’s tree is a “healer of itself” and has “gathered all accidents into its purpose.” Not so us. We need the Great Physician to heal us. We can only trust in God’s purposes, not our own, recalling that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). The sycamore tells the poet to “stand in… place,” to endure. That can be a good lesson for us, but only half the truth, for we must also look forward to a new and heavenly place.
Sometimes our vision of heaven is faint, weak, even distorted. Today’s music by Max Richter is a re-composition of Vivaldi’s “Spring.” In Richter’s throbbing notes what echoes of the more familiar orchestral work do we hear? In Vivaldi’s composition, what echoes of a real spring day do we hear? In a similar way, images of an adorned bride, streets of gold, and a garden with a crystal river are just hazy glimmers of what God has prepared for us and what we have to look forward to. Yet, these glimpses are important to us. This “inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade…kept in heaven for [us]” is a source of “living hope” (I Peter 1:4). Writing in a commentary on Psalm 126, Eugene Peterson writes, “Joy is nurtured by anticipation;” thus, as we more clearly anticipate our coming new life with Jesus, our joy in this current life increases. So do our actions that align with “thy kingdom come…on earth as it is in heaven.”
Prayer:
Lord, in this world, our eyes still fill with tears at the death, sorrow, and pain that plague us. Nations are still in dire need of healing. We still feel exiled from the Garden and from your dear presence. Renew our hope that all things will be made new. Renew our joy as we anticipate the fulfillment of your promises. Help us to live and work in ways that give all people a taste of your beauty and goodness.
Amen
Dr. Kitty Barnhouse Purgason
Professor Emerita
Department of Applied Linguistics and TESOL
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 #1:
Vision of the New Jerusalem (overall and detail view)
Gilded illuminated manuscript on vellum
Artist/Scribe: Donald Jackson
© 2011
The Saint John’s Bible
Saint John’s University
Collegeville, Minnesota, USA
Used with permission
All rights reserved.
www.saintjohnsbible.org
The last chapters of Revelation bring God’s creation full circle with many allusions to the first chapters in Genesis. These final passages provide hope in the face of all the misery so far described in the book. Unlike much of the other apocalyptic literature of its day, Revelation does not dwell on destruction but rather focuses on fulfillment and redemption of creation by describing the heavenly Jerusalem. The city represents the re-created universe in Christ, constructed in perfect measurements, adorned with precious stones, and paved in gold. All evil, pain, and death are banished by the eternal goodness of God. There is no sun or moon, for the divine light will shine eternally. In The Saint John’s Bible, the new Jerusalem is reminiscent of the temple described by the prophet Ezekiel. Golden ribbons double up as rivers or canals, descending from the throne, the source of light, and nurturing the Tree of Life on the far right. The repetition of the number twelve—twelve pearls, twelve gates, twelve fruits on the tree—emphasizes perfection as it calls to mind the foundation of the church in the twelve apostles. On June 18, 2011, Donald and Mabel Jackson presented this illumination to the community of Saint John’s Abbey and University in the great Abbey Church on the Collegeville campus. Abbot John Klassen, OSB, and Fr. Robert Koopmann, OSB, then president of Saint John’s University, placed the folio on the Abbey Church altar and burnished two gold Benedictine crosses on the lower right corner of the folio, marking this as the last folio and bringing the fifteen-year creation phase of The Saint John’s Bible to a celebratory close.
www.saintjohnsbible.org
The Saint John's Bible is the first completely handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned since the invention of the printing press. After a Saint John’s University-sponsored calligraphy presentation in 1995, master calligrapher Donald Jackson proposed a handwritten Bible to Fr. Eric Hollas, OSB, the former executive director of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library at Saint John's University in Minnesota. Between 1996 and 1997, Jackson created the first sample illuminations for the proposed Bible while theologians at Saint John’s University developed an illumination schema for the project. The Saint John’s Bible, officially commissioned in 1998, was completed in 2011. During production, artistic director Donald Jackson oversaw a group of artists working in a scriptorium located in Monmouth, Wales. Using a mixture of the ancient techniques of calligraphy and illumination, the artists created illuminated manuscripts that were handwritten with quills on calfskin vellum decorated with gold and platinum leaf and hand-ground pigments. Gold leaf was used liberally to represent the divine, silver/platinum to reflect the principle of wisdom, and rainbows to show God’s faithful promises. A wide range of artistic styles, including iconography, abstraction, chrysography, and illustration, were incorporated to create a contemporary visual vocabulary for the sacred. A new script for the sacred text was devised by Donald Jackson to be readable, modern, and appropriately dignified. Meanwhile at Saint John’s Abbey and University in Minnesota, a team of biblical scholars, art historians, and theologians gathered weekly to develop the theological content behind the illuminations. This included not only developing the schema for the illuminations, but also identifying underlying themes and elements for the artists to incorporate. The Saint John’s Bible is divided into seven volumes and is two feet tall by three feet wide when open. It is made of vellum, with 160 illuminations across 1,165 pages. The Saint John’s Bible contains the text and notes of the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).
https://saintjohnsbible.org/
About the Artist/Scribe #1:
Donald Jackson (b. 1938) is one of the world's leading calligraphers and the artistic director and illuminator of The Saint John's Bible, a handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by the Benedictine Monastery of Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. At the age of twenty, Jackson was appointed to be a visiting lecturer at the Camberwell College of Art, London. Within six years, he became the youngest artist calligrapher chosen to take part in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s first International Calligraphy Show after the war and appointed a scribe to the Crown Office at the House of Lords. As a scribe to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, he was responsible for the creation of official state documents. In 1985, he received the Medal of The Royal Victorian Order (MVO). Jackson is an elected fellow and past chairman of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators and, in 1997, was named master of the six-hundred-year-old Guild of Scriveners of the city of London. He is the author of The Story of Writing and The Calligrapher's Art. Jackson and his wife, Mabel, live and work in the Hendre, a converted town hall and outbuildings in Monmouth, Wales.
https://saintjohnsbible.org/
About the Artwork #2:
Tree of Life
Unknown artist
Painting
Seventeenth century
Palace of Shaki Khans
Azerbaijan
Public domain
The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythological, religious, and philosophical traditions. This painting is found in the palace of Shaki Khans built in 1797 by Muhammad Husayn Khan Mushtaq. The palace was intended to house the khans who were in charge of controlling Shaki, as viceroys of the ruling Zand and later Qajar Persian dynasties around 1750. It is renowned for the lavish decoration of its exterior and interior. In this painting, the tree’s luscious pomegranates burst forth with the promise of rebirth and fecundity. In Christian symbolism, the pomegranate is commonly used as a symbol of the resurrection and the hope of eternal life, because of its abundance of seeds. The seeds bursting forth from the pomegranate are also likened to Christ bursting forth from the tomb.
https://religionfacts.com/pomegranate
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/WAVx5cfV3sANIQ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Shaki_Khans
About the Music:
“The Four Seasons, 1. Spring” from the album Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons
Lyrics: Instrumental
British composer Max Richter reimagines Antonio Vivaldi's masterpiece The Four Seasons for German classical music record label Deutsche Grammophon’s Recomposed Series. The reimagined work makes the musical piece accessible in new ways to a contemporary audience. At the same time, Richter treats the original version and its history with respect, which means that experienced listeners of classical music can also enjoy Vivaldi Recomposed. Joining Richter in this project is British violinist Daniel Hope, both a notable champion of contemporary music and an exponent of the standard classical repertoire.
About the Composer:
Originally composed by Antonio Vivaldi and then “re-recomposed” by contemporary composer Max Richter
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678–1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, and impresario of Baroque music. Along with Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, Vivaldi ranks amongst the greatest Baroque composers and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He pioneered many developments in orchestration and violin technique. Vivaldi composed many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other musical instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than fifty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. Vivaldi began studying for the priesthood at the age of fifteen and was ordained at twenty-five, but was given dispensation to no longer say public masses due to a health problem. Vivaldi's musical reputation underwent a revival in the early twentieth century, with much scholarly research devoted to his work. Many of Vivaldi's compositions, once thought lost, have been rediscovered—some as recently as 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Vivaldi
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Antonio-Vivaldi
Max Richter (b. 1966), a prolific German-born British composer, performs and records his own electronic music and collaborates with countless filmmakers, dancers, vocalists, and media artists. His compositional style is often dubbed “post-minimalist,” characterized by fewer dynamic changes and less linear formal design than traditional minimalism, with a focus on immediate aesthetic appeal and accessibility of the music. Richter arranges, performs, and composes music for stage, opera, ballet, and screen. He has recorded eight solo albums, and his music is widely used in cinema, such as the score of Ari Folman's animated war film Waltz with Bashir (2008).
https://www.maxrichtermusic.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Richter
About the Performers:
Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin, and André de Ridder (conductor), and Daniel Hope (violinist)
The Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin was founded in 2009 by members of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin. It has its own series at the Konzerthaus and works with well-known soloists such as Misha Maisky, Daniel Hope, and Sebastian Knauer. All members are involved in putting together programs and line-ups as well as choosing soloists and conductors. A first joint CD with violinist Daniel Hope was released under the title “Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons,” and was successfully placed in the classical music charts.
https://www.konzerthaus-kammerorchester.de/info.html
André de Ridder is a German conductor of classical music. De Ridder studied conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He is equally engaged in different genres of music—pop, electronic music, opera, ancient music, and contemporary compositions. He performs regularly at leading festivals such as the BBC Promenade Concerts, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Holland Festival, the Venice Biennale, the Manchester International Festival, and the Sydney Festival. In 2012, de Ridder founded stargaze, a musical collective devoted to crossing borders between classical, pop, folk, electronic, and “uncategorizable" music. Together with this group he has performed in London, Manchester, Paris, Amsterdam, New York, and Sydney, and has launched his own spring festival in Berlin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_de_Ridder
Daniel Hope (b. 1973) is a South African–born classical violinist. Hope is of Irish and Jewish German descent, his maternal grandparents, formerly from Berlin, having escaped Nazism. His father is the novelist Christopher Hope and his mother, Eleanor Hope, worked as an assistant to Yehudi Menuhin, the American-British violinist and conductor. Daniel has served as an associate artistic director of the Savannah Music Festival. In April 2015 he was named the new music director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. In 2018, at the conclusion of a joint performance by the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and New Century Chamber Orchestra at which he served as concertmaster, Hope was announced as the latter ensemble's new music and artistic director. In 2017 he was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for his merits in the musical constitution of commemorative culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Hope
About the Poetry & Poet:
Wendell Erdman Berry (b. 1934) is an American novelist, poet, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer who was educated at the University of Kentucky, where he became Distinguished Professor of English in 1971. The intensity of his writing’s involvement with the human and natural characters of his native locality has gained Berry recognition as one of the leading writers of the twentieth century. A prolific author, he has written many novels, short stories, poems, and essays. He is an advocate of Christian pacifism, as shown in his book Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Christ’s Teachings About Love, Compassion and Forgiveness. He states that the theme in his writing is “that all people in the society should be able to use the gifts that they have, their natural abilities, and they ought to use them responsibly for their benefit as individuals and as a community.” Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, an annual US literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wendell-Berry
About the Devotion Author:
Dr. Kitty Barnhouse Purgason
Professor Emerita
Department of Applied Linguistics and TESOL
Biola University
Kitty Barnhouse Purgason is professor emerita of TESOL at Biola University. She has a Ph.D. in applied linguistics from UCLA. She has lived, studied, served, or taught in India, Russia, Korea, China, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Mauritania, Indonesia, Kuwait, Oman, Vietnam, Spain, and Tajikistan. She is a three-time Fulbright fellow and a US State Department English language specialist. She is the author of Professional Guidelines for Christian English Teachers (William Carey Library).