March 16: You Must Die Before You Die
♫ Music:
WEEK 3—OLD TESTAMENT TYPOLOGIES
Sunday, March 16—Day 12
Adam & Christ: Death & Life
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
I Corinthians 15:20-28
You Must Die Before You Die
Sundays in Lent are odd, because they are still feast days. Even in this time of fasting, we stop every seven days and celebrate that Christ rose from the dead.
And because he did, we have the hope that we will, too.
This hope sustains us all through the long days of Lent, all through this tiring journey of self-denial, repentance, and sorrow. We do not mourn as those without hope; Sundays remind us that we know the end from the beginning.
Our proper end is the same end as our Lord’s and so Lent is primarily an opportunity to follow Christ’s example.
For the great love Jesus bears us, he chose this way: the way of lowliness and suffering. Perhaps even more than that: he chose this way of humility because he loved his Father, and his chief desire was to do whatever the Father willed for him.
This example of submission astonishes us. You can see that wonder in St. Paul’s words above and hear it in the reverent notes of Handel’s Messiah. Paul circles around the Lord’s great example of obedience unto death, coming at it first from one angle and then another, seeing it from the beginning (“in Adam all die”) and then from the end (“in Christ shall all be made alive”), and then standing in awe at the conclusion of it: God shall be all in all. This death and this resurrection, this submission and this glorification, this great work of the Son of God … this means everything.
And we are invited into it. As C. S. Lewis said, “You must die before you die. There is no chance after.”
All things will be subject to Christ. But we may start now.
And so in Lent we do. We try to put to death what must be put to death before it must be put to death.
Submission is terrifying. Humility is the last thing we want. That loss of control, that loss of ourselves … is it not the last and greatest terror?
And yet, that cannot be true. Not when we see the example of our great Lord, who went before us. Christ himself is subject to the Father. Which means submission, humility, self-denial — all of these — they must not be what we thought. They are not loss and fear and despair. They are hope.
More than that, they are joy.
It must be so. Look at the two paintings. Here is the story as it should have ended — the man and the woman, running in fear, in terror, in sorrow. Dead. Expelled from all joy. This is what we deserved, this is what we are.
But look at the second. Someone who loved us — who loves us more than we could ever love ourselves — did not allow the story to end that way. There in that second picture, we see the ending that is: our Lord, gone before us, following the path his Father set before him, is raised in glory. In a body like ours.
If we follow him, we may hope to share the ending he did. Thanks be to God!
Prayer
Almighty and everliving God, in your tender love for the human race you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (The Book of Common Prayer)
Jessica Snell (’03),
Editor of Let Us Keep the Feast: Epiphany & Lent
Blog: http://churchyear.blogspot.
Art (Piece 1)
Expulsion from the Garden
Masaccio
Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence
Frescoe
Art (Piece 2)
The Resurrection
El Greco
Museo del Padro, Madrid
Oil on canvas
About the Artist and Art (Piece 1)
Masaccio (1401-1428) was the first great painter of the Quattrocento period of the Italian Renaissance, with an extraordinary skill at recreating lifelike figures and movements as well as a convincing sense of three-dimensionality. Masaccio died at twenty-six. Despite his brief career, he had a profound influence on other artists. He was one of the first to use linear perspective in his painting, employing techniques such as vanishing point in art for the first time. He also moved away from the International Gothic style and elaborate ornamentation to a more naturalistic mode that employed perspective and chiaroscuro for greater realism. Expulsion from the Garden is a fresco painted by Masaccio around 1425, which was displayed on the walls of the Brancacci Chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence. It depicts the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, from the Genesis 3 account.
About the Artist and Art (Piece 2)
El Greco (1541-1614) was a painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. He trained and became a master within the Post-Byzantine art tradition before travelling at age 26 to Venice and later Rome, where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. During his stay in Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance. In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. In Toledo, El Greco received several major commissions and produced his best-known paintings. El Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century. El Greco is regarded as a precursor of both Expressionism and Cubism. He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting. The Resurrection is marked by the active boldness of El Greco’s later work, with the lower bodies in heavy turmoil while Christ’s body levitates above them.
About the Music
Since by Man Came Death was composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel. It is a part of Handel’s famous Messiah, first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742 and premiering in London nearly a year later. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music.
Handel originally established himself through his compositions of Italian opera. He turned to English oratorio in the 1730s, in response to changes in public taste; Messiah was his sixth work in this genre. Although its structure resembles that of opera, it is not in dramatic form; there are no impersonations of characters and very little direct speech. Instead, the text is an extended reflection on Jesus Christ as Messiah. The text begins in Part I with prophecies by Isaiah and others, and moves to the annunciation to the shepherds, the only "scene" taken from the Gospels. In Part II, Handel concentrates on the Passion and ends with the "Hallelujah" chorus. In Part III he covers the resurrection of the dead and Christ's glorification in Heaven.
The chorus Since by Man Came Death comes in Part III of Handel’s Messiah. The text is drawn from Paul's thoughts, as he twice juxtaposes the ideas of death and resurrection. Fittingly, Handel twice uses a Grave a cappella setting in A minor with chromatic lines, opposed to an Allegro with orchestra in C major in most simple harmony, switching back and forth between these extremes.
Since By Man Came Death lyrics:
1 Corinthians 15:21, 22
Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.