March 27: Jesus Promises Another Comforter
♫ Music:
Day 34 - Monday, March 27
Title: JESUS PROMISES ANOTHER COMFORTER
Scripture: John 14:15–31
“If you really love me, you will keep the commandments I have given you and I shall ask the Father to give you someone else to stand by you, to be with you always. I mean the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, for it can neither see nor recognise that Spirit. But you recognise him, for he is with you now and will be in your hearts. I am not going to leave you alone in the world—I am coming to you. In a very little while, the world will see me no more but you will see me, because I am really alive and you will be alive too. When that day comes, you will realize that I am in my Father, that you are in me, and I am in you.
“Every man who knows my commandments and obeys them is the man who really loves me, and every man who really loves me will himself be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and make myself known to him.”
Then Judas (not Iscariot), said, “Lord, how is it that you are going to make yourself known to us but not to the world?”
And to this Jesus replied, “When a man loves me, he follows my teaching. Then my Father will love him, and we will come to that man and make our home within him. The man who does not really love me will not follow my teaching. Indeed, what you are hearing from me now is not really my saying, but comes from the Father who sent me.
“I have said all this while I am still with you. But the one who is coming to stand by you, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, will be your teacher and will bring to your minds all that I have said to you.
“I leave behind with you—peace; I give you my own peace and my gift is nothing like the peace of this world. You must not be distressed and you must not be daunted. You have heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you really loved me, you would be glad because I am going to my Father, for my Father is greater than I. And I have told you of it now, before it happens, so that when it does happen, your faith in me will not be shaken. I shall not be able to talk much longer to you for the spirit that rules this world is coming very close. He has no hold over me, but I go on my way to show the world that I love the Father and do what he sent me to do ... Get up now! Let us leave this place.”
Poetry & Poet:
“The Holy Ghost”
by John Donne
O Holy Ghost, whose temple I
Am, but of mud walls and condensed dust,
And being sacrilegiously
Half wasted with youth’s fires, of pride and lust
Must with new storms be weather-beat;
Double in my heart Thy flame,
Which let devout sad tears intend; and let
(Though this glass lanthorn, flesh, do suffer maim)
Fire, Sacrifice, Priest, Altar be the same.
JESUS PROMISES ANOTHER COMFORTER
Imagine being one of the apostles listening to Jesus promise the coming of his Spirit. How would you, before Christ's death and resurrection, before the Pentecost, even begin to grasp what Christ meant by "When that day comes, you will realize that I am in my Father, that you are in me, and I am in you"?
Although we look at this passage from a far more illuminated vantage point, the reality of the Spirit inhabiting the souls of the faithful is still far beyond our understanding. How do we, such painfully finite beings, hold the infinite within us? How do we commune with the Spirit? How do we understand the contours of our own souls and the relationship between the human and divine? Christ's words here are profoundly comforting, yet equally mysterious.
Painter Agnes Pelton is part of a millennia-old tradition of desert mysticism in which these sorts of questions are held and contemplated daily. Not unlike the "desert fathers" of Christendom, Pelton devoted her life to these questions, living a life of quiet meditation in the desert. She spent much of her life in a small community around the appropriately named Cathedral City in California. Her work was largely unknown until recently, in part because her paintings were as much objects of spiritual meditation as they were "fine art" paintings. Her White Fire, here, is as much a recording of spiritual experience as it is meant to be a guide for us as viewers to contemplate the mysteries of our relationship to the Creator of all. It is a prayer, in visual form, freely shared.
John Donne's poem also functions as a prayer: a request for a deeper unity, a refining of his being, which he acknowledges as a difficult, life-long pursuit. We are temples of "mud walls and condensed dust," so he understands his pursuit of that perfect union––of seamlessly embodying the Fire, the Sacrifice, the Priest, and the Altar––would never be realized in his life on earth. And yet his prayer, and the meditative life more broadly, is one of faithfully reaching for the ungraspable.
The undulating waves of Pelton's painting express spiritual joy and connection, but also fire––a divine, refining fire that holds both joy and pain in tension. These pulses of spiritual connection flow off of the canvas both above and below, implying a little sliver of access to this divine mystery, a mere glimpse in an endless river of connection between the basest levels of our humanness to the indescribable transcendence of God in his infinite glory. The painting, the prayer, the poem, all acknowledge these limits, and the struggles that come with them. And yet, in their yearning they reveal the beautiful tension we find ourselves living within: God dwelling within us, here and now, despite all of our weaknesses and flaws and failures.
Prayer:
Infinite glorious Lord of All, we marvel in your infinite grace. Help us to meditate on your words and commune with your Spirit daily. In the desert of this world, let us marvel in your mysteries and not grow tired or distracted by our many lapses in communion with You. Let us find joy in the tension, and purpose in the struggle. Let us, within the frenzy of our everyday lives, share glimpses into the joys and mysteries of your Spirit. Let us reveal to those around us a peace that surpasses all understanding. Let us share your Gift, so freely given.
Amen.
Luke Aleckson, M.F.A.
Professor, Department of Art
Executive Director, Center for Christianity, Culture & the Arts
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 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:
White Fire
Agnes Pelton
c.1930
Oil on canvas
25.5 x 21 in.
Jonson Gallery of the University of New Mexico Art Museums
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Agnes Pelton was a visionary symbolist artist who painted the spiritual reality she experienced in moments of meditative stillness. Art for her was a discipline through which she gave form to her vision of a higher consciousness within the universe. Using an abstract vocabulary of curvilinear, biomorphic forms, and delicate, shimmering veils of light, she portrayed her awareness of a world that lay behind physical appearances in her canvases.
https://whitney.org/exhibitions/agnes-pelton
About the Artist:
Agnes Pelton (1881–1961) was a modernist painter who was born in Germany and moved to the United States as a child. She studied art in the United States and Europe. Pelton's work evolved through at least three distinct periods: her early "Imaginative Paintings," art of the American Southwest people and landscape, and abstract symbolist art that reflected her spiritual beliefs. What Pelton called "Imaginative Paintings" were influenced by the work of avant-garde American artist Arthur B. Davies, who depicted the effects of natural light. She began creating abstract works of art beginning in 1926. She eventually settled in Cathedral City, California, in 1932, and she lived there for nearly thirty years until her passing.
https://whitney.org/exhibitions/agnes-pelton
About the Music: “John 14: 27:1 John 4:18-19 Scripture Song” from the albums Scripture Songs Volume 1 and Scripture Songs Volume 2
Lyrics:
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you:
Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
My peace I give unto you.
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you:
Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
My peace I give unto you.
There is no fear in love;
But perfect love casteth out fear:
Because fear hath torment.
He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
We love him, because he first loved us.
There is no fear in love.
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you:
Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.
Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
My peace I give unto you.
My peace I give unto you.
About the Composers/Performers: Sabrina Hew and Nozla Lisah
Sabrina Hew and Nozla Lisah are two performers who are a part of Music Verse, a ministry created to bring the gospel to the world through their large repository of sacred music, and using all the profits gained to support ministries to the unreached areas of the world.
https://musicverse.org/about-us/
About the Poetry and Poet:
John Donne (1572–1631) was an Anglican cleric and one of England’s most gifted and influential poets. Raised a Roman Catholic, Donne later converted to Anglicanism, though his sensibility, as indicated perhaps in his late Christian poetry, always seems to have remained with the Roman Catholic Church. Unable to find civil employment, Donne was eventually persuaded of his calling to the church and took Anglican orders in 1615. His work is distinguished by its emotional intensity and its capacity to deeply delve into the paradoxes of faith, human and divine love, and personal salvation. His works are noted for their strong, sensual style and contain a variety of forms, including sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires, and sermons. In 1621, he was appointed the dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London and also served as a member of Parliament in 1601 and in 1614. After a resurgence in his popularity in the early twentieth century, Donne’s reputation as one of the greatest writers of English prose and poetry was firmly established.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne
About Devotion Author:
Luke Aleckson, M.F.A.
Professor, Department of Art
Executive Director, Center for Christianity, Culture & the Arts
Biola University
Luke Aleckson is an assistant professor of art at Biola University and is currently the executive director of the CCCA. He received his M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in sculpture and a B.S. in art from the University of Northwestern, St. Paul, Minnesota. Past positions have included serving as department chair and professor of art and design at the University of Northwestern and the director of Denler Gallery in St. Paul. Past exhibitions of his artwork have been held nationally, at venues such as the Chicago Cultural Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Suburban in Oak Park, Illinois. He maintains an active art practice in which he explores sculpture, digital modeling, video art, and installation art.