March 25: Sorrow and Trouble Turned into Joy
♫ Music:
Day 21 - Tuesday, March 25
Title: Sorrow and Trouble Turned into Joy
Scripture #1: Psalm 22:9–11 (NKJV)
You are He who took Me out of the womb; You made Me trust while on My mother’s breasts. I was cast upon You from birth. From My mother’s womb You have been My God. Be not far from Me, for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
Scripture #2: John 16:19–22 (NKJV)
“‘A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’? Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.”
Poetry & Poet:
“Victory in Defeat”
by Edwin Markham
Defeat may serve as well as victory
To shake the soul and let the glory out.
When the great oak is straining in the wind
The boughs drink in new beauty and the trunk
Sends down a deeper root on the windward side.
Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come
To stretch out spaces in the heart of joy.
ACCORDING TO YOUR WORD
“Shake the soul and let the glory out.”
––– Edwin Markham
How many times did she say it over the course of His life? Was it ever easy to say, even when the angel Gabriel, in all his bold glory, shone before her? Was it easy in Cana, asking for a miracle? Had she tearfully said it at her own husband’s death? “Be it done to me according to Your word.” And as she stood before His agony on the cross, could she bring herself to say it?
How ready are we to relinquish our will, to give up what we treasure in life? Do we sometimes not yield our will so much as leave God to wrestle it from our grasp?
Mary must have heard Simeon’s words echo through all the trials and persecutions Jesus endured, “A sword will pierce your own soul, too.” Today’s music selection, “Cry of a Lady,” could easily represent Mary’s and other mourners' plaintive and anguished cries as they stood at the cross.
Today’s artwork and poem have shadows in them. The photographs are from James Turrell’s art installations. One is taken from inside a series of hallways made like tunnels filled with varying colors of light; the other taken from inside a dormant volcano where he constructed tunnels also filled with colored lights. While there is light in the tunnels, there is also darkness and shadow. Our poem wavers between shadow and light. Its shadows start with “defeat,” and follow with weighted phrases like “shake the soul,” “the great oak straining,” and “mighty grief.” But the art and poem both have something else.
In The Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross, Arthur Pink shows us in Luke 23, that when God had forsaken Jesus on the cross because of our sins, Jesus did not call on God for three dark hours. But the darkness passed and the curtain in the temple was torn in two. There was a turn. Jesus again spoke with God, “Father, into Your hands I commend my Spirit.” Communion was restored between Father and Son signaling something of great importance to come.
Today’s artworks and poem have a turn in them. Turrell’s tunnels open onto bright daylight, like a resurrection light, compared to the artificial lighting and shadows we passed through. And while our poem uses “defeat” twice among its shadows, the balance shifts, there’s a turn. The language presses toward the light with a “new beauty,” and as “the mighty grief” becomes “the mighty rapture.”
Did Mary sense the turn at the cross? She must have laid down her life again, saying, “according to Your word.” And when the news came that the tomb was empty and Jesus had risen, she must have experienced a type of resurrection, like Jesus promised in our John 16 verse, her sorrow turned to joy.
When Gabriel left Mary, she hurried to visit Elizabeth. She greeted her saying, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47). We don’t have a record of anything Mary said after Jesus was raised from the dead. But we know from her that after we lay down our lives and yield to God’s will, we experience a turn, a type of resurrection. And after resurrection, the glory of God.
Prayer:
"Lord, I am utterly dependent on You.
I yield to Your holy will without reserve.
Let Your Word direct me, Your Spirit guide me,
Your grace uphold me, and Your love fill me.
Take my life and make it wholly Yours.
Grant me contentment in all circumstances,
knowing that Your will is always for my good
and Your purpose is always for Your glory.”
–––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 Art #1:
Roden Crater – Alpha East Tunnel
James Turrell
854-foot-long subterranean tunnel
Earthwork in a volcanic cinder cone
1977–current
Painted Desert of Northern Arizona
Roden Crater, located in northern Arizona, is an unprecedented large-scale artwork created within a volcanic cinder cone by light and space artist James Turrell. Representing the culmination of the artist’s lifelong research in the field of human visual and psychological perception, Roden Crater is a controlled environment for experiencing and contemplating light. While minimally invasive to the external natural landscape, internally the volcanic cinder cone has been transformed into special engineered spaces where the cycles of geologic and celestial time can be directly experienced. Constructed to last for centuries to come, Roden Crater links the physical and the ephemeral, the objective with the subjective, in a transformative sensory experience. When completed, the project will contain twenty-four viewing spaces and six tunnels. This image is of the Alpha East Tunnel, which acts as a monumental camera obscura. The entire project is a mostly a subterranean network of chambers and tunnels built into the extinct cone and calibrated to celestial events. Through a keyhole aperture called the East Portal, light enters the crater’s 854-foot-long Alpha East Tunnel, likely the world’s longest refractor telescope, and gathers in the Sun|Moon Chamber. Every 18.61 years, a white marble stone in the middle of the chamber will display an image of the moon during the major lunar standstill. The image will be of a high enough resolution, allegedly, for observers to count lunar craters.
https://thepointmag.com/criticism/roden-crater/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/james-turrell-visionary-artwork-arizona-desert-180977452/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roden_Crater
https://rodencrater.com/about/
About the Art #2:
Into the Heart II
James Turrell
Light installation
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Houston, Texas
“I use light as a material, but my medium is actually perception. I want you to sense yourself sensing—to see yourself seeing.”
— James Turrell
James Turrell's work often explores perception and how light can influence the way we see. Into the Heart II is an immersive light installation that envelopes the viewer. Words cannot fully describe Turrell’s work, because much of his work’s meaning comes from physically experiencing the interplay of light upon the viewer’s senses.
About the Artist #1 & #2:
James Turrell (b. 1943) is an American artist primarily concerned with the interplay of light and space. Turrell’s work is deeply informed by the psychology of perception and how vision intersects with the mind. Over the years, Turrell's work has evolved along with advancements in light-based technology, but it remains focused on the viewer's perception of light within highly controlled environments that must be experienced in person. A lifelong Quaker, Turrell produces work that suggests the notion of light with a decidedly religious connotation. His magnum opus, the Roden Crater, begun in 1977, is a volcanic crater in central Arizona, replete with apertures and tunnels that will eventually afford viewers glimpses of light from other galaxies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Turrell
About the Music: “Cry of a Lady” from the album A Thousand Thoughts
Lyrics:
Orchestrated choral cries
About the Composer:
Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (b. 1935) is an American composer and musician associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music, of which he was a pioneer. His work is deeply influenced by both jazz and Indian classical music, and he has utilized innovative tape music techniques and delay systems to augment his compositions. He is best known for works such as his 1964 composition entitled “In C” and the 1969 album A Rainbow in Curved Air, both considered landmarks of contemporary minimalist music. Riley also cites John Cage, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Bill Evans, and Gil Evans as influences on his work. Riley began his long-lasting association with the Kronos Quartet after he met their founder, David Harrington. Over the course of his career, Riley has composed thirteen string quartets for the ensemble.
About the Performers: The Kronos Quartet featuring Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares
The Kronos Quartet, an American string quartet based in San Francisco, California, was founded in 1973 by violinist David Harrington, who is from Seattle, Washington. The quartet has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for over forty years. The Kronos Quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including Mexican folk, experimental, preclassical early music, movie soundtracks, jazz, and tango, as well as contemporary classical music. More than nine hundred works have been written for them. With almost forty studio albums to their credit and having performed worldwide, they have been called "probably the most famous 'new music' group in the world" and have been praised in philosophical studies of music for the inclusiveness of their repertoire. They have worked with many minimalist composers, including John Adams, Arvo Pärt, George Crumb, Henryk Górecki, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and Kevin Volans.
Dora Hristova (b. 1947) is the artistic director and conductor of the Bulgarian female vocal choir Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, a professor at the Art Academy in Plovdiv in Bulgaria, and a graduate of the Bulgarian State Conservatory. She experiments in the fields of sonority and different vocal ensemble sounds. In 1990, Professor Hristova received a Grammy Award as the conductor of most of the pieces on the CD Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares, Volume II. Her international success includes approximately 1250 concerts in some of the world’s most prestigious halls, including Royal Festival Hall and the Barbican Centre in London; Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, New York; Washington’s Kennedy Center; Boston’s Symphony Hall; Symphony Hall in Chicago; the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles; and many other venues in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Myst%C3%A8re_des_Voix_Bulgares
About the Poetry and Poet:
Edwin Markham (1852–1940) was an American poet, editor, and essayist. From 1923 to 1931, he was poet laureate of Oregon. Markham's most famous poem, "The Man with the Hoe," which focused on laborers' hardships, was inspired by the French painting of the same name by Jean-Francois Millet. His edited works included several collections of British and American poetry. His work included essays on John Keats, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His efforts to raise public awareness of social ills were capped by contributions to a major volume examining child labor, Children in Bondage (1914). In 1922, Markham's poem "Lincoln, the Man of the People" was selected from two hundred fifty entries to be presented at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Markham
About the Devotion Writer:
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 thankful daily for the beauty God brings her way in nature, poetry, and amazing family and friends. She lives in Central Florida, where she enjoys reading, writing, and the blue sweep of sky. You can find more of her writing at jayneenglish.substack.com.