On October 5th, we enjoyed an extraordinary evening of music, drama, dance, and film while being encircled by a glorious gallery of paintings, design, sculpture and other artistic presentations. It was a wonderful time and the gallery presentations will remain in place for a few weeks for all to see. As I sat and enjoyed the evening it struck me again just how amazing are God’s multiple and diverse gifts to us in this church. But such events also cause me to reflect again on why God should have created so many people with great gifts of artistry.
In the Image of God.
We know God has created all men and women in his image (Gen 1:27), and this is where we must begin in our thinking about God and the arts. God is the great creator God. Time and again in Scripture God is revealed as one who has planned things for this world and has his designs that cannot be thwarted. With a blank canvas in front of him, God created what he wanted. Indeed we might say he even created the canvas itself, for what he created came out of nothing!
Jesus himself comments on the beauty of the lily in the field and sees it as a work of art in its glory that even exceeds the wonder of Solomon’s temple. At the same time Jesus refers to God’s care even of a sparrow (Lk 12:6, 27). God is a creating artist and designer who also cares for what he has made. It should not surprise us, therefore, that people who are in his image will reflect this aspect of the person of God. When we read that God gave man and woman dominion over the earth (Gen 1:28), God was delegating to people aspects of his own prerogatives including abilities to create and to design and to bring about that which is beautiful. Their sole responsibility was to use these gifts and delegated responsibilities to bring glory and honor to God.
To the Glory of God.
This delegated responsibility is specially seen when God gave orders for the building of the place of worship (the Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting) that the Israelites used when traveling in the wilderness. He asked that great artistry should be used (Exod 31). In fact, this is the earliest recorded example of a specific “gift of the Holy Spirit” coming upon a person. The Spirit came upon an artist so that he might oversee many different artists as they worked on the place of worship (Exod 31:3; 35:31). Of course, in New Testament times we do not have a specific temple where God’s presence is specially known as they did in the Old. But, we know that God is with his people wherever they are and specially as they gather together in worship. Thus it is precisely right that, in our worship, we should seek to bring glory to God with our artistic gifts as much as we would with our financial gifts or the giving of our time to work for him and so on.
Always, the goal of the gifts God has given our artists should be to bring glory to God. J.S. Bach understood this precisely when he wrote: “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.” But bringing glory to God through arts of course does not mean the art has to be presented in church. Nor does it mean that every work of music should speak of Jesus or that every picture that is painted should present some romantic idealised version of the world, nor that everyone depicted should either be represented with horns or a halo! Rather, we know we are asked by God to bring glory to him whereever we are, and we do this in all sorts of ways.
A prophetic voice?
Many of our artists at ChristChurch are involved full time in the arts. They bring glory to God by making the best and most honest and most careful use of the gifts God has given them. Often the lot of the artist can be almost “prophetic”. Artists will frequently reflect back to us, not just the beauty of God’s creation, but also its falleness, its sadnesses, its injustices. A Christian artist may sometimes have the difficult task of reflecting back to the world the “struggle” it is undergoing which Paul so vividly describes in Romans 8 — a struggle in which “all creation” is “groaning” while waiting for the time when Christ will return.
Such art is sadly often dismissed by Christians for they fail to see the prophetic call of the artist. Perhaps they fail to see the challenge, or fail to accept the judgment on them or on society that is being made by the artist. Such art work can frequently be profoundly disturbing, and yet it will often be produced by people who love the Lord and to whom he has given great insights about his world and its hurt and pain while waiting for the coming of the new earth.
Let us not dismiss the voice among us.
For those of us who are not “artistic”, at least not in the sense that we have seen such artistry in “Expressions”, we must be careful not to dismiss these voices among us — the voices which describe the beauty of God’s creation, yet which also describe the frustration and hurt of that creation, and the voices which sometimes challenge a fallen people to look around and see the twisted and distorted world which results from our sin, yet also the voices which can often describe our deepest feelings while using no words.
This is what God has done for us in his creation. He speaks to us of beauty and perfection, but also of our sin and the fallenness of our world. The same God who artistically created all beauty and perfection also designed and brought about the distortions and frustrations in his work of art (Rom 8:20). He did this so that his creation might constantly speak to those who have eyes to see of the consequences of sin, and the end result of the rejection of the creator.
All the time, though, God holds out another picture that is, for us, no more than an artist’s dream at present (Revelation 21-22). He holds out the promise and commitment to his people that one day there will be a new earth where the darkness and hurt and pain will be gone and God himself will be the light among us as we see him face to face. I wonder what our art will look like then?
