00:00:06.640 - 00:00:20.960

you know this story, Jesus and his followers enter the city called 19. They are at the head of a great crowd, says luke and while they're on the road they intersect the path of a funeral

00:00:20.960 - 00:00:39.460

procession followed by yet another great crowd. A widow's son has died, leaving the widow, his mother at the mercy of the economic privation. So common to the times, Jesus says luke had compassion.

00:00:40.140 - 00:00:54.760

I find that a curiously week translation of a powerful verb, Splunk needs oh my. Which has to do with the moving of the innards. It's what we might call a gut wrenching reaction. Yeah.

00:00:55.540 - 00:01:08.700

After bidding the woman not to weep a silly command at a funeral, if ever there was one, okay, Jesus then commands the young man to rise and when he does he gave him back to his

00:01:08.700 - 00:01:22.920

mother. Fear seized them all says luke and that's where the story ends. Yeah, it's a fair question to ask. What in the world is luke trying to say with this narrative? Is it to

00:01:22.920 - 00:01:38.240

prove that jesus has some kind of miraculous power over death? Does it anticipate jesus own resurrection? Is it to claim that the ministry of Elijah is now fulfilled in that of christ? After all, Elijah

00:01:38.240 - 00:01:53.400

raised a similar widow's son in first Kings 17, the widow of zero fat. Is it an eschatological claim therefore, that as Elijah comes, so also comes the messiah that as the dead are raised.

00:01:53.410 - 00:02:07.750

So also comes the Kingdom of the dead. I suspect it's all of that stuff and probably a great deal more. In fact, I suspect that we probably bring to it all sorts of things that we

00:02:07.750 - 00:02:23.020

neither think about nor speak about. And I suspect that much of what we want to say about this painting, we don't have words to say. And so we'll have to use some other way, which

00:02:23.020 - 00:02:37.440

is what I propose to do with you this morning . Not explicate this text in some sort of classical exige ethical method, but rather show you pictures because as they say, a picture is worth at least

00:02:37.530 - 00:02:53.110

1000 words and if that's the case, we'll be out of here considerably sooner this morning. Yeah. The painting on the screen is a painting by Domenico Fisichella, known to art historians as ill SARS ana

00:02:53.120 - 00:03:05.520

, the man from Tarzana. It's an early 16th century example of Italian baroque art. Now I'm not an art historian. So everything I say needs to be taken with a grain of salt, especially by

00:03:05.520 - 00:03:19.660

those of you who are. My apologies in advance . Yeah. But what I know about the Baroque is that it's in particular, it's art is that it's full of drama and passion paintings are full of

00:03:19.660 - 00:03:37.550

careful, realistic detail. The sweep of the line of the blue robe that jesus wears, the ripple in the muscled forearm of the pallbearer. Yeah, it's as though some great passion, some powerful,

00:03:37.550 - 00:03:54.060

maybe even explosive movement, is captured photographically and frozen on the canvas. It is as though we are in the midst of some great movement and our stopped eternally at this particular instant. Look at the muscular

00:03:54.060 - 00:04:08.790

tour of that forearm I mentioned a moment ago, or the right leg of the kneeling pallbearer. It's as though he's ready to leap, ready to react to what he is seeing even perhaps before he has

00:04:08.790 - 00:04:28.050

understood what he is seeing, jesus depicted in quite contrasting colors, a softer blue, striking lavender tunic seems almost to be holding him back. Mhm. And then there is the center of the painting,

00:04:28.540 - 00:04:44.640

the young boy who has been raised from the dead , his skin still bears the power of death. Mhm. And now he's been called back to a life he had abandoned. It's almost as though he's

00:04:44.640 - 00:04:59.180

curious. He looks at jesus as though not quite understanding who he is, what's happened or what is coming next. All of these are caught in the light as it were in this painting italian baroque art

00:04:59.180 - 00:05:15.640

is characterized by a term probably mispronounced chiaroscuro the light and dark effect where the emphasis is on that which is illumined and leaps off the canvas at you. But what's equally interesting is what's in the dark and

00:05:15.640 - 00:05:28.770

in this painting, what's in the dark is the widow maybe you can see her five here. All you can really see is her left eye. Yeah , it is as though she is consumed in a

00:05:28.770 - 00:05:50.640

darkness that is about to erase her Fieseler captures for us this moment of resuscitation and some of the reaction that seems so obvious but somehow nobody seems to know quite how to respond. Everyone is tensed, waiting

00:05:50.650 - 00:06:08.950

and still very much in the dark. Mm hmm . Yeah. Here's another painting also italian baroque. Only five years after the Acela painted his. This is Mario minutes treatment of the same text but it's

00:06:08.950 - 00:06:24.490

quite different than is fear sellers. Many t populates his scene with a great crowd picking up on Luke's comment that there were two large crowds, one following Jesus one in the funeral procession. But what's interesting

00:06:24.490 - 00:06:34.930

to me about this crowd, all of it regardless of where it comes from is the way it's dressed , it's dressed anachronistic Lee that is to say all of the people in the painting save one where the

00:06:34.930 - 00:06:47.720

clothing appropriate. Not to the time of jesus first century Palestine but to the time of many t the artist. It is as though he is lifting this moment out of the biblical context, dropping it into

00:06:47.720 - 00:07:06.930

the current and inviting us to see ourselves as part of the crowd. Only the red cloak of jesus seems somehow time appropriate in this painting. The boy now sits upright and he is older and he's holding

00:07:06.930 - 00:07:24.190

himself as though the chill of death is still on him. But his skin color is less definitely and more human than before. And the mother in Fi acela's painting so consumed with darkness, she almost disappears

00:07:24.200 - 00:07:38.090

in minutes. He's painting. She's in full light , but look where she is off at the extreme edge of the painting and looking the other way, not paying attention to what's happening before us, not

00:07:38.090 - 00:07:58.370

paying attention to the resuscitation of her own son, but pointing its direction, but looking somewhere else as though she were summoning someone else's attention. Every face in this painting is only partly illumined, interestingly enough

00:07:58.380 - 00:08:11.470

, even the face of jesus, It is as though all of these folks are partly in the dark and partly in the light, partly clear and partly still in mystery. The only figure who seems more

00:08:11.470 - 00:08:30.050

fully illumined than all the others is the boy himself , and he looks at jesus with a kind of longing, as though he has been both brought back to something he loved and taken from something he would

00:08:30.050 - 00:08:45.400

rather have had. He now sits blinking, bewildered in the light of a life he does not understand . Does Minniti intend for us to see him as a symbol raised by christ raised in christ from our

00:08:45.400 - 00:09:03.650

sin and our dying, but unsure of where we are going next. Here's another this looks at first glance like an ancient Orthodox icon, but a little closer inspection will quickly betray that impression. It's 40th

00:09:03.650 - 00:09:18.390

century american, published by the Ancient Faith Publishing Company , which an Orthodox publishing house. You can see that down at the bottom. This is, I guess you call it a faux icon. It has

00:09:18.390 - 00:09:31.950

all of the two dimensional icon iconography of classical icons , but none of the dark light shading we've been looking at in the italian baroque gone is that sense of drama and passion? Gone is the sense that

00:09:31.950 - 00:09:50.230

somehow we've frozen a passionate moment and are looking into its characters. Instead, what we see is a kind of staged moment where all the characters stand erect and stiff with posed fingers and hands. All that

00:09:50.230 - 00:10:09.430

is except for one and that one is the widow . Unlike both es ella and Minniti who either obscure the widow or force her to the side. She is front and center. In fact, she's what

00:10:09.430 - 00:10:30.170

draws your attention in this icon. The woman has her hair in her two hands as though tearing it out in the universal symbol of mourning. She is captured in an overwhelming grief that somehow curiously seeps through

00:10:30.170 - 00:10:46.130

the two dimensionality of this icon. Yeah, somehow , curiously, she is in the midst of that grief even while the source of the grief is being resuscitated, her son, who is out of her

00:10:46.130 - 00:11:03.410

range of vision is sitting up in the beer that once carried his body. He is alive and she is yet morning. All the life in this scene is in the widow and yet that life is poured

00:11:03.410 - 00:11:18.280

out in anguish. It is as though she is unaware of what's happening. Yeah. And I cannot help but wonder if the iconography does not intend us to enter this. Seen through her grief, to

00:11:18.280 - 00:11:37.990

be caught in the agony of loss Forever. one heartbeat short of restoration. Mhm. One more painting . This one is the work of a reformation era artist, Lucas Cranach the younger you may be familiar

00:11:37.990 - 00:11:54.390

with Lucas Cranach the elder whose portrait of Luther alongside hans whole bynes Luther portrait are one of the two most famous representations of the great reformer, Lucas Cranach The younger. His son was also famous for portrait

00:11:54.390 - 00:12:05.410

your but he did a few other scenes, one of which is this depiction of the healing of the widow of nine of the son of the widow of 9th. It's a century older than the italian baroque

00:12:05.410 - 00:12:22.390

and it has none of that sort of chiaroscuro passionate kind of representation in chronic vision. A long black clad funeral procession winds its way out of a castle and along a road where it is met by jesus

00:12:22.390 - 00:12:35.350

and his followers in the low foreground of the painting . Unfortunately, jesus followers have been obscured by damage to the corner of the painting so you cannot see them with the clarity, you can see the rest

00:12:35.350 - 00:12:56.020

of the funeral procession. Mhm. But note that fully half this painting has nothing to do with the funeral procession. Yeah. Instead, what we see is the sky, a vast open sky without a

00:12:56.020 - 00:13:16.010

cloud, a painting of the castle, glossy and tower and the skyline of the city. Far in the distance, mm closer up, we see a wagon trembling its way under the whip of its rider

00:13:16.020 - 00:13:31.320

. Along a road between the city and the castle , we see a dog and a cat. There's the dog, there's the cat cavorting in the pathway . We see a fisherman dangling his line from off

00:13:31.320 - 00:13:46.410

the wall into the mode. We see people walking , Children or just strolling along the pathway rutted by the passage of more than one cart. It is as though in this painting conduct wants us to know

00:13:46.420 - 00:13:58.460

that even with jesus raising the son of the widow of name to life down in the low foreground, the rest of the world goes on without even so much as the fore knowledge that it's going on,

00:13:58.340 - 00:14:11.560

the rest of the world is simply busy keeping on with keeping on. It is as though no one has quite yet processed what's going on beneath their very feet. They have not understood the moment in which

00:14:11.560 - 00:14:30.590

they live. Mhm 45 400 years after Cranach painted his painting, thomas martin, the very same thomas Merton. We know from Jeff Simoni Abbey in Kentucky . The author of the great autobiography, the seven

00:14:30.590 - 00:14:43.030

storey mountain, wrote a poem. He entitled it The Widow of Niamh. He used the older english bible spelling of the town name that ends with an M. Rather than an N murders poem. The

00:14:43.040 - 00:14:54.840

Widow of Navy. Um well maybe it's best just to read it. I've put it on the screen , but it's also attached to your order of service if it's easier for you to read there poems,

00:14:54.850 - 00:15:09.380

speak in their own voice. So best to read rather than so much to tell you about it. The men that cut their graves in the gray rocks go down more slowly than the sun upon their dusty

00:15:09.380 - 00:15:28.730

country, white as the wall. The weepers leave the town to be the friends of grief and follow to a new tomb. A widow's sorrow. The men with hands as hard as rope, some smell

00:15:28.730 - 00:15:43.280

of harvest, some of nets. The strangers come up the hill more slowly than the seasons of the year. Why do you walk in funerals, you men of nine am? Why do you go down

00:15:43.280 - 00:16:00.960

to graves with eyes like winters? And your cold faces clean as cliffs? See how we come. Our brows are full of sun, our smiles are fairer than the wheat and hay. Our eyes are

00:16:00.960 - 00:16:18.000

saner than the sea. Mhm. Lay down your burden at our four roads crossing and learn a wonder from the christ our traveler. Oh! You will say that those old times are all dried up like

00:16:18.000 - 00:16:32.620

water, since the Great God went walking on a road to Niamh, how many 100 years has slept again in death? That widow's son, after the marvel of his miracle, He did not rise for

00:16:32.620 - 00:16:48.670

long and sleeps forever. And what of the men of the town? What have the desert winds done to the dust of the poor weepers and the widows friends, The men that cut their graves in the

00:16:48.670 - 00:17:06.550

gray rocks, spoke to the sons of God upon the four cross roads. Men of Guinness Gareth, who climb our hill as slow as spring or summer christ is your master and we see his eyes are

00:17:06.550 - 00:17:22.010

jordans, his hands and feet are wounded, and his words are wine. Mhm. He has let death baptize the one who stirs and wake Un's in the beer we carry that. We may read the

00:17:22.010 - 00:17:42.840

cross and easter in his rising and learn the endless heaven promised to all the widow churches, risen Children . Mm hmm. Martin's imagery is stunning. Go down more slowly than the sun. Men with hands

00:17:42.840 - 00:18:02.360

as hard as ropes with eyes like winters. Your face is clean as cliffs, the universal symbol of men. Morning having shaved off their beards. Mhm . The grave cutters follow their way out of the

00:18:02.360 - 00:18:19.750

city, living out their lives of death in a dusty country, they wind their processional of loss and grief out from the city gates toward the places of the dead. But then Merton shows us the followers

00:18:19.750 - 00:18:34.060

of jesus, whose brows are full of the son , who smiles are fairer than wheat and hay, whose eyes are saner than the sea. Oh the two processions, one of life, one of death

00:18:34.740 - 00:18:52.630

Meet at the four cross roads and at the intersection stands the christ our traveler. But before we get too comfortable with what's going to happen, Merton interrupts us and he asked, he sort of lays an

00:18:52.630 - 00:19:03.720

aside on us as though he were breaking the fourth wall in a theater and speaking directly to the audience . And he acknowledges our doubts, poses the question that's in the backs of our minds whether we admit

00:19:03.720 - 00:19:19.530

it or not. So what? So what if the widow's son is raised? Is he not still dead? Did not death finally win? How many 100 years has slept again in death? That widow's

00:19:19.540 - 00:19:38.700

son after the marvel of his miracle. He did not rise for long and sleeps forever. Mhm. Okay. Mertens answer is in the last stands up , christ is your master. He says he has

00:19:38.700 - 00:19:56.600

let death baptize the one who stirs and wake un's in the beer that we may read the cross and easter in this rising and learned the endless heaven promised to all the widow churches, risen Children. It's

00:19:56.600 - 00:20:11.520

a promise maybe more than it is a reality. And so there is this mixture, strange odd of sort of sorrow and hope Burton and chronic understand this . Both they see that the focus of moment is

00:20:11.520 - 00:20:23.630

not the focus of this moment is not the miracle , it's not the crowd, it's not the passionate reaction or the benighted faces. Rather, it is the christ who travels between life and the grave.

00:20:23.640 - 00:20:45.770

Who is the connection between the widow and her son ? Mhm Jesus is the passage between life and death between hope and the hopeless between new possibility and the end of the line Christ met at the four Cross

00:20:45.770 - 00:20:59.930

Roads of the Funeral Procession offers us a way to travel another path than the path among the tombs. None of this of course, is to suggest that the cause of christ. We do not suffer death

00:20:59.940 - 00:21:11.980

or grief. The world goes on unabated in its living and dying. Kramek knew this and so he painted the widow's son raised, even though the bustle of the world around it goes on completely unawares.

00:21:11.990 - 00:21:23.560

Merton knew it. To what of the men of the town? He asks, what have the desert winds done to the death to the dust of the poor weepers and the Widows friends. But both Merton

00:21:23.560 - 00:21:41.800

and chronic suggest that christ reaches across that barrier between life and death and through his presence somehow gives us back to each other. In his eyes, we read the jordans that run between this world and the

00:21:41.800 - 00:22:00.050

next christ is our Communion of the Saints, in whose words we taste the wine poured out for us at this and every table, So which of these paintings is the truth. The answer, of course

00:22:00.050 - 00:22:12.010

, as they all are they, and countless others like them, each in its own peculiar way. There is no one truth, but many the great gift of art is that it is always true.

00:22:12.010 - 00:22:25.600

Even when the truth stand in tension with each other . Even when poised, like the pallbearer in Fi Acela's painting, they seem ready to leap at something that must be true even in many cities. Widow

00:22:25.600 - 00:22:40.520

when they seem to point in a completely different direction than what everyone else thinks, Art always finds the truth it finds. Even if the truth is that we grieve at the very moment, we should be

00:22:40.520 - 00:22:57.200

rejoicing. Art knows that there is hope to be read in a raised boy at the four crossroads of death. I hope that belongs to all the widow churches, risen Children and perhaps for this day and

00:22:57.200 - 00:23:04.960

for all our days, that's enough in the name of God father, son and Holy Spirit. Amen