April 5: Things Above, Things Below
♫ Music:
Day 52 - Friday, April 05
Title: FOCUS ON THE ETERNAL
Scripture #1: Colossians 3:1-4 (NKJV)
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
Scripture #2: Philippians 3:20-21 (NKJV)
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
Poetry & Poet:
“My Stop is Grand”
by Christian Wiman
I have no illusion
some fusion
of force and form
will save me,
bewilderment
of bonelight
ungrave me
as when the L
shooting through a hell
of ratty alleys
where nothing thrives
but soot
and the ratlike lives
that have learned to eat it
screechingly peacocked
a grace of sparks
so far out and above
the fast curve that jostled
and fastened us
into a single shock of—
I will not call it love
but at least some brief
and no doubt illusionary belief
that in some surge of brain
we were all seeing
one thing:
a lone unearned loveliness
struck from an iron pain.
Already it was gone.
Already it was bone,
the gray sky
and the encroaching skyline
pecked so clean
by raptor night
I shuddered at the cold gleam
we hurtled toward
like some insentient herd
plunging underground at Clark
and Division.
And yet all that day
I had a kind of vision
that’s never gone completely away
of immense clear-paned towers
and endlessly expendable hours
through which I walked
teeming human streets,
filled with a shine
that was most intimately me
and not mine.
THINGS ABOVE, THINGS BELOW
Today’s passages from Colossians and Philippians gesture toward the fundamental metaphysical mystery of the Christian life. I am already “raised with Christ”and I “also eagerly wait for the Savior…who will transform [my] lowly body.” As I walk through middle-age, with its early signals of physical decline, and the seemingly annual losses of older friends and family members, I am, through faith, striving to live in the “already and not yet” realities of my resurrection.
While Phil Wickham’s “Hymn of Heaven'' expresses the not yet vision of the triumphant consummation contained in Philippians 3, “My Stop is Grand” by Christian Wiman places our point of view within the unresolved already. In Wiman’s poem, slipping glimpses of grace come to us in the urban underground, even as we are haunted by the holy vision of the city as it might be, the city to come.
In Colossians, Paul returns to ancient spatial imagery to express these core tensions and progress of the Christian spiritual life as “things above” are contrasted with “things on the earth.” This spatial imagery has deep roots in Scripture. In Jacob’s dream at Bethel, he saw a ladder connecting heaven and earth, angels were ascending and descending the ladder. Above the ladder, the God of Abraham appeared to Jacob, announcing His identity, and extending to Jacob the covenant blessings that were his grandfather’s.
Today’s visual artworks, a pair of Duncan Simcoe’s Black Drawings, elaborate on the ladder image, transforming it into a spiral staircase. Drawn in oil paint on tar paper (the kind used in suburban roofing projects), the images appear at once schematic and ghostly. When one views these works in person, the rough, random, industrial surface shimmers subtly, serving as a modern, nearly mute echo of the gilded surfaces of icons. Exit, both in title and composition, links death and ascension. The final ascent is visualized, as we see the first step of the staircase accessible near the bottom of the painting. Most of the staircase is above our eye-level as it twists up and out of view. This is a helpful image of death as the final ascent into the unknown things above, but it also speaks to the reality of my own journey of gradual loss on the earth. I am raised with Christ, mysteriously ascending step by step. Meet Me offers us the same staircase, also with the implied invitation to start the journey at the bottom. However, halfway up the painting the staircase is inverted. Descent and ascent are both implied (perhaps one can ascend both directions!), with a complete spatial inversion. At the joining place of the two staircases the area around the schematic drawing becomes animated with painterly marks.
The invitation of Meet Me reminds me of the various invitations of Christ, who through His incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension links all the spaces of divine and human being. In John’s gospel, Jesus reveals his identity further to Nathanael, telling him that he will see “…heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man (1:51).” Jesus inhabits and fulfills the ladder image given to Jacob. He not only makes possible our present and future resurrections and ascents—He is the very structure and medium of our transit.
Prayer (affirmations):
Jesus,
You are the ladder.
You are the door.
You are the resurrection.
You are the life.
Amen
Jonathan Puls, M.F.A., M.A.
Chair of the Art Department
Associate Professor of Art History and Painting
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 Art:
Exit and Meet Me (two separate works)
from the Means of Conveyance series
Exit (L)
Duncan Simcoe
40 x 23 in.
Oil paint on tar paper
Meet Me (R)
Duncan Simcoe
82.5 x 23 in.
Oil paint on tar paper
Artist Duncan Simcoe's ongoing Black Drawings series grew out of an admiration for the work of Spanish artist Francisco Goya and a desire to work with the medium of drawing—a medium that realizes images more quickly than the process of making traditional oil paintings. The Black Drawing series are actually line paintings executed with oil paint and brushes. Because they use tar paper as a substrate, the normal relationship between dark marks on light surfaces is reversed. Tar paper is a material expression of darkness—it is opaque and literal. These works have grown into distinct groupings—Mythinburbia, The Desert, The Black Box, Unlisted Numbers, and Means of Conveyance. The two works Exit and Meet Me are part of the Means of Conveyance series that focuses on images expressing the act of travel, or an object that one could use to travel somewhere else, for example bridges, stairs, and ships.
https://www.seedsfineart.org/striving-with-the-divine
About the Artist:
Duncan Simcoe is currently the program director for visual art within the College of Architecture, Visual Arts, and Design at California Baptist University in Riverside, California. His work has been widely shown in Southern California, but also throughout the United States and internationally. Since 1989, Duncan has been producing an ongoing series of drawings and paintings most often based on biblical narratives. He has also been an artist-in-residence at the San Lodovico Center for the Arts, Orvieto, Italy (2002) and the Art Institute of Orange County (1998), and a visiting artist at Gordon College (1995) and George Fox University (2014).
https://cavad.calbaptist.edu/faculty/duncan-simcoe-mfa
https://www.duncansimcoeart.com/biography
About the Music:
“Hymn of Heaven” (Single)
Lyrics:
How I long to breathe the air of Heaven.
Where pain is gone and mercy fills the streets.
To look upon the One who bled to save me,
And walk with Him for all eternity.
There will be a day when all will bow before Him.
There will be a day when death will be no more.
Standing face to face with He who died and rose again,
Holy, holy is the Lord.
And every prayer we prayed in desperation.
The songs of faith we sang through doubt and fear.
In the end, we'll see that it was worth it,
When He returns to wipe away our tears.
Oh, there will be a day when all will bow before Him.
There will be a day when death will be no more.
Standing face to face with He who died and rose again,
Holy, holy is the Lord.
And on that day, we join the resurrection,
And stand beside the heroes of the faith.
With one voice, a thousand generations,
Sing, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain."
And on that day, we join the resurrection,
And stand beside the heroes of the faith.
With one voice, a thousand generations,
Sing, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain."
"Forever He shall reign."
So, let it be today we shout the hymn of Heaven.
With angels and the saints, we raise a mighty roar.
Glory to our God who gave us life beyond the grave.
Holy, holy is the Lord.
So, let it be today we shout the hymn of Heaven,
With angels and the saints, we raise a mighty roar.
Glory to our God who gave us life beyond the grave.
Holy, holy is the Lord.
Holy, holy is the Lord.
Holy, holy is the Lord.
Holy, holy is the Lord.
About the Composers:
Brian Johnson, Phil Wickham, Bill Johnson, and Chris Davenport
Brian Mark Johnson (b.1978) is an American contemporary worship musician and worship pastor. He is the president and co-founder of Bethel Music and is one half of the husband/wife worship duo Brian & Jenn Johnson. He is also a senior worship pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California, and a senior overseer of WorshipU, an online school of worship under Bethel Music. As a solo musician, Johnson has released one album, Love Came Down - Live Acoustic Worship in the Studio (2010). As a part of Brian & Jenn Johnson, he has released three live albums: Undone, We Believe, and Where You Go I Go. As a founding member of Bethel Music, Johnson has been featured on most Bethel Music releases. As a songwriter, Johnson has co-written CCLI Top 100 Chart–ranking songs such as "Love Came Down,” "No Longer Slaves,” "Forever,” and "One Thing Remains."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Johnson_(Bethel_Music_singer)
Bill Johnson is a Canadian blues guitarist, singer-songwriter, and music educator. After a long career as a sideman and guitarist in the 1990s, he began touring with the Bill Johnson Band. They released their second album, Live, in 2006, which led to Johnson being nominated for best guitarist at the Maple Blues Awards. He self-released his third solo album, Still Blue, in 2010, which was nominated for Blues Album of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2012. Johnson continues to tour and has hosted blues workshops throughout Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Johnson_(blues_musician)
Chris Davenport is a songwriter and worship leader based in Orange County, California. Born and raised in Tennessee, Chris began writing songs for his local church as a teenager before heading to Australia to attend Bible college. Since 2011, he has been a key writer and contributor to Hillsong Worship and Hillsong UNITED, penning songs on each of their last ten album releases. After settling back in the US, Chris has had the honor of writing with Bethel Music, Phil Wickham, Jason Ingram, Mack Brock, Cody Carnes, Vertical Worship, and many others. Chris was a writer on the number-one song “Hymn of Heaven,” which was nominated for a Grammy and won a Dove Award in 2022 for Worship Song of the Year. In 2023, Chris released his very first solo worship project, titled Time, which includes the single “Plead the Blood.” Chris is a strong believer in the power of the singing church.
https://timpublishing.org/chris-davenport
About the Performer:
Philip David Wickham (b. 1984) is an American contemporary Christian musician, singer, and songwriter from San Diego, California. Wickham has released ten worship albums. His critically acclaimed single "This is Amazing Grace" became RIAA certified Platinum and topped the 2014 year-end Christian Airplay chart. Wickham's father, John Wickham, is a musician and a worship leader, and both of his parents were members of Jesus movement band Parable at one time. His older brother, Evan Wickham, is also a musician; Evan used to serve at Calvary Chapel in Vista, California, and later became pastor of Park Hill Church in San Diego, California.
https://philwickham.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Wickham
About the Poetry and Poet:
Christian Wiman (b. 1966) is an American author, editor, and translator of eleven books including, most recently, Joy: 100 Poems. He graduated from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, and has taught at Northwestern University, Stanford University, and Lynchburg College. Currently, he teaches literature and religion at Yale Divinity School and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Wiman has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, and numerous other publications. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow. Wiman explores themes of spiritual faith and doubt in his sparse, precise poems. Praising Wiman’s “ear for silence” in a book review of Every Riven Thing for the Smartish Pace blog, writer John Poch observed, “Repeatedly in this collection, in his careful way, he presses his ear against the hive of belief. It takes a renewed childlike faith, and Wiman achieves it through memory and imagination and, one gets the feeling, grace.”
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/christian-wiman
https://imagejournal.org/artist/christian-wiman/
About the Devotion Writer:
Jonathan Puls, M.F.A., M.A.
Chair of the Art Department
Associate Professor of Art History and Painting
Biola University
Jonathan Puls (M.F.A., M.A.) is a family man, a painter, and a teacher. He serves Biola University as a Professor of Art and as Chair of the Department of Art. Jonathan actively pursues creative work of many kinds and enjoys supporting other artists in their art and faith journeys.