April 15: These Are Written That You May Believe
♫ Music:
Day 53 - Saturday, April 15
Title: THESE ARE WRITTEN THAT YOU MAY BELIEVE
Scripture #1: John 21:24–35
Now it is this same disciple who is hereby giving his testimony to these things and has written them down. We know that his witness is reliable. Of course, there are many other things which Jesus did, and I suppose that if each one were written down in detail, there would not be room in the whole world for all the books that would have to be written.
Scripture #2: John 20:31
But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is Christ, the Son of God, and that in that faith you may have life as his disciples.
Poetry & Poet:
“How Spiritual Are You”
by Marjorie Maddox
–Time magazine quiz
Tallying twenty True or False
answers to wishy-washy questions, I’m translated
from a poet of faith into
“a practice empiricist lacking self transcendence”
according to a noted psychologist
touted as today’s expert.
I don’t like flunking and try again.
Any room for fudging? To insert faith?
Even a seed of the spiritual?
“extrasensory perception”?
“completely unaware of things going on around me”?
“I love the blooming of flowers…as much as seeing an old friend”?
Though I scan and re-scan, all I can check with confidence
is the final slot—the quizmaster’s definition of extreme?—
“I believe miracles happen.”
A half-dozen more statements I rationalize as “sometimes,”
insulted by society’s synonyms of “spiritual” and “spacey.”
As a poet, I should be used to this
but gain no points from that either.
A sidebar promises to explain a “God gene”
inherent in some of us—a cultural twist on predestination
that leaves me unable to select the first square:
“I often feel so connected to the people around me
that it is like there is no separation between us.”
Where is the “stranger in a strange land” line?
Where is the question, “Do you believe
in one God, the Father Almighty…?”
THESE ARE WRITTEN THAT YOU MAY BELIEVE
Here we come to the end of John’s Gospel and the summit of our Lenten meditation. This abrupt ending seems to have occurred suddenly to John, as if with a mighty rush to finish, like a back winging bird, beating the air after a deep dive to crest and cease flight, John the writer and the one giving witness, is so overwhelmed with the scale of signs, works, and wonders of the resurrected Lord of Glory, that he can only helplessly note that all the books in the world could never contain the testimonies of Jesus Christ.
In the collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, a strange, serious, and wondrous sculpture made of lead, tin, and steel stands. Book with Wings by Anselm Kiefer, presents massive wings, which extend from the back covers of a large, open book. The book itself rests on a podium, inviting the viewer to become a reader. The work is supported with a base shaped in a cross.
Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945) is a German painter and sculptor born at the end of the Third Reich. And while his works are often disturbing in their gravity and anti-war messages, his works ultimately convey a longing for peace, for transcendence. Kiefer believes that the material world is imbued with meaning and in the hands of an artist has the potential to transcend “what is” into something “other.”
This Book with Wings presents a moment of truth for us, the reader. It’s as if Kiefer is depicting John’s divinely inspired Gospel Book being delivered to him by a divine winged messenger. Perhaps if John was a contemporary artist and wanted to visualize this idea, he might create an animation or installation with hundreds or thousands of giant winged books erupting out of a map or globe of the world to represent all the innumerable testimonies that he could not record.
With closer reflection John seems to be saying, "I'm only scratching the surface, this is just the tip of the iceberg! The theme of abundance that runs rampant throughout the Gospel of John finds its final resting place in verse 25. Evidently there is enough material for a million sequels so why are there only four gospels? One can only speculate that since we mortals can barely grasp four, how could we possibly handle any more?
John states the thesis of his work in John 20:31, “But these are written so that you may believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.” In his gospel, John uses the verb form of ‘believe’ and ‘believing’ almost one hundred times which accounts for almost a third of its usage in the New Testament. As believers, we can claim a faith which argues “believing that” and “believing because” is of utmost importance. In the history and testimony of John’s gospel, the scientific and the poetic needs of our minds, hearts and souls are reconciled.
For John, believing is not a simple intellectual commitment of ‘faith’ or ‘belief’ as a noun, but an ongoing transformative movement from death to life through obedience. It is life for Believers. It is a life of believing through daily participation in repentance and giving over our lives to God in exchange for life in Christ. There is a divine disruption to the old-world order from the Fall of man in Genesis 3 to the new creative order with the eighth day creation of Jesus’s resurrection. It is by believing in Jesus and in His resurrected glory that we bear witness of life in Christ today! John 14:12 says, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, anyone who believes in Me [as Savior] will also do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these [in extent and outreach], because I am going to the Father.” Because the Living Word dwells in our hearts, we are “translated,” to borrow the word from Marjorie Maddox’s poem How Spiritual Are You, by those who ‘read’ our lives that we daily display. We can begin to see that we truly are “strangers in a strange land” because sin no longer binds us. Our “ending” is not death, but life! Even now, we are free to participate in the new life with Christ!
This spiritual knowledge with obedience renders every moment as a movement, a new creative act in the reality that Christ has brought forth. As I suffer with Christ and for Christ in my daily giving over my supposed rights to God and dying to self, I experience the interconnectedness, a knowing (ginosko) in the sense of an experiential knowledge of an intimate relationship with God that so many long for.
For those who have truly suffered like the poet Dante’s Virgil in the Inferno, Kiefer’s Book with Wings can guide us through realms of grief, anger, and lament and trauma if we take it seriously and, as Kiefer says, “to look for something beyond us, what is more than us.” It is obvious that Kiefer has created a divinely delivered sacred text for us to ponder. It can represent the Gospel Book, or the Lamb's Book of Life or any holy Christian text that contains the keys to life, eternal life. At the core of its base the form of a cross testifies that God raises the dead to life. “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you” (Romans 6:10-11).
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, as we conclude our Lenten fast and pilgrimage with our Lord Jesus Christ with His time in the wilderness, our fellowship in His suffering and death and now rejoice with His resurrection, may we go forth with boldness, singing along with “The Deers Cry: From the Pilgrim:”
Christ with me, Christ before me
Christ behind me, Christ in me|
Christ beneath me, Christ above me
Christ on my right, Christ on my left
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down
Christ when I arise, Christ to shield me
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me
I arise today
In the mighty name of Jesus, our Glorious Lord and Savior,
Amen.
Alexandra Jean Davison, M.Div , M.Litt.
Director for Culture Care with
Artists in Christian Testimony International
(A.C.T. Intl.)
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We will start our 2023 Advent Project with The Vision of Isaiah: Praying with the Poet Prophet of Advent beginning on Dec 2, 2023.
Again, thank you to those of you who generously supported this project - we are deeply appreciative.
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 Translation of the Bible for the 2023 Lent Project:
J.B. Phillips New Testament Translation of the Bible
J.B. Phillips (1906-1982) was well-known within the Church of England for his commitment to making the message of truth relevant to today's world. Phillips' translation of the New Testament brings home the full force of the original message. The New Testament in Modern English was originally written for the benefit of Phillips' youth group; it was later published more widely in response to popular demand. The language is up-to-date and forceful, involving the reader in the dramatic events and powerful teaching of the New Testament. It brings home the message of Good News as it was first heard two thousand years ago.
https://www.biblegateway.com/
About the Artwork:
Book with Wings
Anselm Kiefer
1992–1994
Lead, steel, and tin
Collection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
Fort Worth, Texas
Since 1969, artist Anselm Kiefer has consistently returned to the book as subject matter. As a primary source of knowledge and a repository of the world religions, books are a powerful and paradoxical symbol for the artist. Book with Wings consists of a massive lead book supported on a steel lectern. The pages of the open book sprout two majestic wings. This version of the sculpture of the winged book is the triumphant—its wings lifting high off the pages, as if about to take flight. Nonetheless, this sculpture, like so much of the artist’s work, is ironic—the wings are made of lead.
https://www.themodern.org/collection/1156
About the Artist:
Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. The great majority of Kiefer’s works since his emergence in the late 1960s through the 1990s refer to subjects drawn from Germany and its culture—German history, myth, literature, art history, music, philosophy, topography, architecture, and folk customs. His works are characterized by an unflinching willingness to confront his culture's dark past and unrealized potential, and his works are often done on a large, confrontational scale well-suited to the subject matter. His work also often includes the names of people of historical importance, legendary figures, or historical places. His later works incorporate themes from Judeo-Christian, ancient Egyptian, and Asian cultures, which he combines with other motifs. In all, Kiefer searches for the meaning of existence and "representation of the incomprehensible and the non-representational."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_Kiefer
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/kief/hd_kief.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_Kiefer
About the Music: "'The Deer's Cry' from the album After Silence
Lyrics: Text from Saint Patrick’s Breastplate
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in me, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me,
Christ with me.
About the Composer:
Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt, an Orthodox Christian, has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. Since 2013, Pärt has had the distinction of being the most performed contemporary composer in the world. Although the recipient of numerous awards and honors from nations around the globe, the humble maestro strives to keep out of the limelight, endeavoring to give God credit for his many accomplishments. The newly established International Arvo Pärt Centre, located in the Estonian village of Laulasmaa, includes a research institute, an education and music centre, a museum, a publishing facility, and an archive of Pärt's works.
About the Performers:
Formed in 2005, VOCES8, an a cappella octet from the United Kingdom, has a diverse repertoire ranging from early English and European Renaissance choral works to their own original arrangements. The ensemble is dedicated to supporting promising young singers and awards eight annual choral scholarships through the VOCES8 Scholars Initiative, at which amateur singers of all ages are invited to work and perform with the ensemble. VOCES8 tours extensively throughout Europe, North America, and Asia, and their artistic collaborations have included the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, period ensemble Les Inventions, violinist Hugo Ticciati, and cellist Matthew Sharp.
http://www.voces8.com/
About the Poetry and Poet:
Marjorie Maddox (b. 1959) is an American poet, fiction writer, and editor. Maddox earned a B.A. at Wheaton College, an M.A. at the University of Louisville, and an M.F.A. at Cornell University. Maddox’s poems often explore history, the body, and spirituality. Professor of English and creative writing at Lock Haven University, Maddox has published eleven collections of poetry, including the following: Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation; True, False, None of the Above; Local News from Someplace Else; and Perpendicular As I . She has also published a short story collection, four children’s and YA books, and six-hundred-plus stories, essays, and poems in journals and anthologies. Her newest book, Begin with a Question, was released from Paraclete Press in 2021.
www.marjoriemaddox.com
About Devotion Author:
Alexandra Jean Davison, M.Div , M.Litt.
Director for Culture Care with
Artists in Christian Testimony International (A.C.T. Intl.)
Houston, Texas
Artists in Christian Testimony Intl
Alexandra Jean Davison is the director for Culture Care, a ministry department of Artists in Christian Testimony International (A.C.T. Intl.). Her Culture Care blog and work equips churches to show Christ in hospitable explorations in faith, imagination, and artistry. She received a M.Div in Apologetics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina. She then went on to receive a M.Litt in Theology, Imagination and the Arts at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland. She lives in Houston, Texas, USA. For more information, see www.culturecarerdu.com.