March 2: Fire of Truth
♫ Music:
Day 9 - Thursday, March 2
Title: A MIRACLE IN ABSENTIA
Scripture: John 4:43–54
After the two days were over, Jesus left and went away to Galilee. (For Jesus himself testified that a prophet enjoys no honor in his own country.) And on his arrival the people received him with open arms. For they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem during the festival, since they had themselves been present. So Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee, the place where he had made the water into wine. At Capernaum there was an official whose son was very ill. When he heard that Jesus had left Judea and had arrived in Galilee, he went off to see him and begged him to come down and heal his son, who was by this time at the point of death.
Jesus said to him, “I suppose you will never believe unless you see signs and wonders!”
“Sir,” returned the official, “please come down before my boy dies!”
“You can go home,” returned Jesus, “your son is alive and well.” And the man believed what Jesus had said to him and went on his way.
On the journey back his servants met him with the report, “Your son is alive and well.” So he asked them at what time he had begun to recover, and they replied: “The fever left him yesterday at one o’clock in the afternoon”. Then the father knew that this must have happened at the very moment when Jesus had said to him, “Your son is alive and well.” And he and his whole household believed in Jesus. This, then, was the second sign that Jesus gave on his return from Judea to Galilee.
Poetry & Poet
“O Merciful One”
by Paul Murray
When without hope, without aim,
we find ourselves turning and turning
on the outermost rim
of the circumstances of our own lives ––
When our hearts are cold, our minds
no longer open to the conviction
of the unseen
or to the sources of that conviction ––
When words which were fiery
once, electrifying the mind and heart,
now seem but a mimicry of
flame, a dazzle of frozen sparks,
burn us with your fire of truth,
with your flame of love.
FIRE OF TRUTH
What was it like to be Moses and stand at the shore of the Red Sea with a nation of people following behind? Today’s song selection, “When You Believe,” is from the 1998 animated The Prince of Egypt film and highlights the time of the Exodus. It helps us imagine the event. While the song plays “there can be miracles when you believe,” we see an overhead view of 600,000 men––not counting women and children––following Moses. A study Bible calls the Exodus, “the most tremendous display of God’s redemptive power during the Old Testament period.” Though having left Egypt boldly, the film shows the flicker of panic in the Israelites’ eyes that Exodus describes as they approach the water’s edge. Scripture says Moses raises his rod, and a broad highway opens before them.
Jesus said there can be miracles when we believe, though not in the exact words of the song. He told the centurion and the two blind men that their requests were answered according to their faith. Conversely, Matthew tells us Jesus didn’t do many miracles in Nazareth because of their lack of faith.
While the song lyrics say we can achieve miracles when we believe, we know God doesn’t need our faith to do wonders, He created the universe without it. For some reason though, answers to prayer come when faith is present. It’s as if, through our faith, God invites us to be witnesses to His glory.
Just as the Israelites’ faith rose and fell like the waves of the sea, we can also wrestle with doubt. Poet Paul Murray expresses it in today’s poem:
When our hearts are cold, our minds
no longer open to the conviction
of the unseen
or to the sources of that conviction
The conviction the Israelites gained from witnessing God’s power in the plagues fled when caught between the army and the sea. They would have related to Murray’s next stanza:
When words which were fiery
once, electrifying the mind and heart,
now seem but a mimicry of
flame, a dazzle of frozen sparks,
The last stanza could easily have been their prayer whether their faith surged or sank:
burn us with your fire of truth,
with your flame of love.
Willy Verginer’s artwork can express the faith God supernaturally grows in us. The woman looks on in quiet astonishment not just at the leaves growing from her fingertips but at the warmth of life spreading through her hands and arms waking her from her blue-stone sleep. God, in His unfathomable love and grace, gives and grows our faith until we become something other than what we were: new creations. Moses’ faith grew as he saw God’s “fire of truth” in the burning bush, and in the pillar of fire that led them to the Red Sea where God vanquished Pharaoh and “all the chariots of Egypt.” Exodus points to the Resurrection, the mightiest display of God’s redemptive power, which changes everything when we believe, and invites us to be witnesses to his glory.
Prayer:
Lord,
“May we seek in all ways the good of our fellowmen and the glory of our God. We wish that the zeal of Thine house would eat us up, that we should be full of sacred warmth, that our lips were touched with the live coal so that there be fire in us perpetually flaming and burning, and ourselves a living sacrifice unto God.”
Amen.
––– Charles Spurgeon
Jayne English
Essayist
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:
Give Me Back the Green
Willy Verginer
Carved lindenwood with applied acrylic paint
Sculptor Willy Verginer crafts hyperrealistic chiseled wood sculptures that are equally poignant and absurdist. Verginer’s precisely rendered sculptures variously depict children with their heads poking through cardboard boxes with branches growing from their feet; red-eyed cows whose hooves are stuck in tires; and bespectacled businessmen kneeling on top of donkeys. Deadpan juxtapositions of contemporary industry and bucolic animal life are a common motif in his work, as is a graphic delineation in vibrant color. Verginer’s works comment on contemporary pollution and environmental degradation and implicate their human subjects as passive observers or even active contributors to this destruction. Verginer has exhibited in Paris, Antwerp, Zurich, Milan, Montreal, and Krakow.
About the Artist:
Willy Verginer (b. 1957) is a contemporary Italian sculptor. He attended the Art Institute of Ortisei in Northern Italy, where he studied painting. After graduation, he worked in various wood sculpture studios and gradually developed his own practice in wood carving. Today Verginer, considered one of the leaders of magic realism, skillfully creates wooden sculptures that are rendered in full relief and worked in the round—the observer can almost sense the weight of their materiality in the space they occupy. With a nod to the historic and contemporary statuary tradition, the figures often seem inwardly concerned with themselves. Verginer’s figurative sculptures combine locally sourced wood with strategically placed acrylic paint in vibrant shades of artificial colors.
https://www.verginer.com/biography/
https://www.stirworld.com/inspire-people-willy-verginer-creates-life-size-sculptures-layered-with-humour-as-the-hook
About the Music: “When You Believe” from the album There Can Be Miracles
Lyrics:
Many nights we prayed
With no proof, anyone could hear
In our hearts a hopeful song
We barely understood
Now, we are not afraid
Although we know there's much to fear
We were moving mountains
Long before we knew we could, whoa, yes
There can be miracles
When you believe
Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill
Who knows what miracles you can achieve?
When you believe, somehow you will
You will when you believe
Oh-oh-oh
Mmm, yeah
In this time of fear
When prayer so often proves in vain
Hope seems like the summer bird
Too swiftly flown away
Yet now I'm standing here
My hearts so full, I can't explain
Seeking faith and speakin' words
I never thought I'd say
There can be miracles
When you believe (When you believe)
Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill (Mmm)
Who knows what miracles you can achieve? (You can achieve)
When you believe, somehow you will
You will when you believe
They don't always happen when you ask
And it's easy to give in to your fears
But when you're blinded by your pain
Can't see the way, get through the rain
A small but still, resilient voice
Says, help is very near, oh (Oh)
There can be miracles (Miracles)
When you believe (Boy, when you believe, yeah)
Though hope is frail
It's hard to kill (Hard to kill, oh, yeah)
Who knows what miracles
You can achieve (You can achieve, oh)
When you believe somehow you will (Somehow, somehow, somehow)
Now, you will (I know, I know, know)
You will when you (When you)
Believe
You will when you (You will when you)
Believe
Just believe (Believe)
Just believe
You will when you
Believe
"When You Believe" is a song from the 1998 DreamWorks musical animated feature The Prince of Egypt. The song was written and composed by musical theatre composer Stephen Schwartz. A pop single version of "When You Believe," with additional music and lyrics by writer-producer Kenneth Edmonds (Babyface) was also recorded for the film's end credits and its soundtrack album by American singers Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. "When You Believe" is a ballad with inspirational lyrics describing the ability of each person to achieve miracles when they reach out to God and believe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_You_Believe
Composers: Stephen Schwartz and Kenneth Edmonds
Stephen Schwartz (b. 1948) is an American musical theater lyricist and composer. In a career spanning over five decades, Schwartz has written such hit musicals as Godspell (1971), Pippin (1972), and Wicked (2003). He has contributed lyrics to a number of successful films, including Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), The Prince of Egypt (1998), and Enchanted (2007). Schwartz has won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics, three Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards, and has been nominated for six Tony Awards.
https://stephenschwartz.com/about/full-bio/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schwartz_(composer)
Kenneth Brian Edmonds (b.1959), better known by his stage name Babyface, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He has written and produced over twenty-six number-one R & B hits throughout his career and has won twelve Grammy Awards. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babyface_(musician)
https://www.babyfacemusic.com/
Performers:
The Daughters of St. Paul, also known as the Media Nuns, are an international Catholic religious congregation of consecrated women founded in 1915 in Italy. The congregation is part of the worldwide Pauline Family, one of the ten institutes founded by James Alberione, and operates in fifty-one countries around the world. Mother Thecla Merlo assisted in the founding of the Daughters of St. Paul and other Pauline institutes that developed throughout the twentieth century. The Daughters operate Pauline Books and Media Centers across the world. In addition, they also run media education centers, radio and internet channels (YouTube), and related institutions across the globe.
https://connect.pauline.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughters_of_St._Paul
About the Poetry and Poet:
Paul Brendan Murray (b. 1947) is an Irish Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, poet, writer, and professor. In 1966 he joined the Irish Dominican Province and was ordained a priest in 1973. Since 1994 he has lived in Rome, Italy, where he teaches the literature of the mystical tradition at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. He holds a doctorate in English literature from University College Dublin. In 2012 Rev. Prof. Murray was conferred with the S.T.M. degree from the University College Dublin at a ceremony in St Mary's Priory, Tallaght, Dublin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Murray_(poet)
About Devotion Author:
Jayne English
Essayist
Jayne English is an essayist. She has a B.A. in humanities from Florida Southern College. She has published devotional articles in various publications and articles on art and faith for Relief Journal’s blog. She is recently consumed with learning about ancient civilizations, appreciating their art and archeology, and is especially interested in their intersection with biblical history. She lives in Central Florida where she enjoys reading, writing, and latte drives on country roads under a summer blue sky.
You can find more of her writing at jayneenglish.substack.com