Ordinary Time Banners
Artist's Reflections
by S. Jewell S. McGhee
7-12-2012
The cross is a very comforting symbol; beautiful and sweet to my soul. Full of historical, religious, and cultural significance and strength. Ironically comforting, considering that it was originally a symbol of pain, shame, oppression and death.
Crucifixions were common, ordinary, everyday occurrences. Crucifixions began centuries before Christ. Rulers would crucify their enemies regularly and publicly. They would keep them set up along commonly used roads to inspire public morality. Most crucifixions would last two day before the victim would die, some lasted as long as a week. Crucifixions were so horrifying that early Christians never depicted them. It took five centuries before the cross became a part of Christian artwork.
These banners are for Common time, Ordinary time, or everyday uses and the symbols they depict are also common: the Cross and the Eucharist.
What is a symbol? Anything bigger than itself becomes a symbol, like the fairytale pocket that is bigger on the inside than the out. Symbols themselves are very powerful for our finite minds as we seek to grasp the infinite. We need a variable like in algebra, an 'x' a symbol to help us along the way. We require thoughts we cannot comprehend to think of God. "'Your ways are not my ways nor are your thoughts my thoughts', says the Lord." And so we must use symbols. And though we have no other choice, it is a good choice, for it is how God made us to know the world and the way that Christ himself instructed us.
He gave us common bread and said "This is my body." He poured common drink and said, "This is my blood." He gave to his disciples empty symbols that he began to fill. And these symbols filled forward and backwards, in and out, deep and wide. And every passage of scripture became an echo, a shadow, a glimmer, a breath together breathed with those words and together filling their fullness. As a diamond expertly cut multiplies the light shined on it, a symbol enlightens life that is passed through it. And if we could understand the monumental symbol of Communion through every verse of Scripture we would still not know it all. There is more of God. There is so much of God to be described that he has used every moment of every life to explain his love and his grace. He has used every rock and rainbow from every angle and in every light to declare different aspects of his glory and handiwork. He has worked despite our sinful actions to bring all things for his glory. At the table, God discloses the meaning of all of creation and all of history (past, present, and future). It is an inexhaustible feast because the one who serves and the one who is served to us is Christ himself. So there is always more to show and more to know. There is an infinite and we must put it in our finite pockets.
So we must see the cross in both its oppression as a sign of sin and its beauty as a sign of God’s victory over sin. We share in that victory in the communion meal. We must see the bread as bread: flour and egg and salt and oil. We must enjoy its taste, its texture, its aroma: the goodness of creation. But with the eyes of Spirit-born faith, we see it also as flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. An ordinary sign that becomes an extraordinary instrument of Christ’s life in the flesh given for us: broken, beaten, torn, hot, hurting, and yet now raised to immortality and endless glory.
More and more and more. I pray that you will grasp the height and depth and breadth of the love of God and the victory of God in the death and resurrection of his Son.
by S. Jewell S. McGhee
7-12-2012
The cross is a very comforting symbol; beautiful and sweet to my soul. Full of historical, religious, and cultural significance and strength. Ironically comforting, considering that it was originally a symbol of pain, shame, oppression and death.
Crucifixions were common, ordinary, everyday occurrences. Crucifixions began centuries before Christ. Rulers would crucify their enemies regularly and publicly. They would keep them set up along commonly used roads to inspire public morality. Most crucifixions would last two day before the victim would die, some lasted as long as a week. Crucifixions were so horrifying that early Christians never depicted them. It took five centuries before the cross became a part of Christian artwork.
These banners are for Common time, Ordinary time, or everyday uses and the symbols they depict are also common: the Cross and the Eucharist.
What is a symbol? Anything bigger than itself becomes a symbol, like the fairytale pocket that is bigger on the inside than the out. Symbols themselves are very powerful for our finite minds as we seek to grasp the infinite. We need a variable like in algebra, an 'x' a symbol to help us along the way. We require thoughts we cannot comprehend to think of God. "'Your ways are not my ways nor are your thoughts my thoughts', says the Lord." And so we must use symbols. And though we have no other choice, it is a good choice, for it is how God made us to know the world and the way that Christ himself instructed us.
He gave us common bread and said "This is my body." He poured common drink and said, "This is my blood." He gave to his disciples empty symbols that he began to fill. And these symbols filled forward and backwards, in and out, deep and wide. And every passage of scripture became an echo, a shadow, a glimmer, a breath together breathed with those words and together filling their fullness. As a diamond expertly cut multiplies the light shined on it, a symbol enlightens life that is passed through it. And if we could understand the monumental symbol of Communion through every verse of Scripture we would still not know it all. There is more of God. There is so much of God to be described that he has used every moment of every life to explain his love and his grace. He has used every rock and rainbow from every angle and in every light to declare different aspects of his glory and handiwork. He has worked despite our sinful actions to bring all things for his glory. At the table, God discloses the meaning of all of creation and all of history (past, present, and future). It is an inexhaustible feast because the one who serves and the one who is served to us is Christ himself. So there is always more to show and more to know. There is an infinite and we must put it in our finite pockets.
So we must see the cross in both its oppression as a sign of sin and its beauty as a sign of God’s victory over sin. We share in that victory in the communion meal. We must see the bread as bread: flour and egg and salt and oil. We must enjoy its taste, its texture, its aroma: the goodness of creation. But with the eyes of Spirit-born faith, we see it also as flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. An ordinary sign that becomes an extraordinary instrument of Christ’s life in the flesh given for us: broken, beaten, torn, hot, hurting, and yet now raised to immortality and endless glory.
More and more and more. I pray that you will grasp the height and depth and breadth of the love of God and the victory of God in the death and resurrection of his Son.
Photos by Brett Steen and S. Jewell S. McGhee