Throughout my time in Seminary I cultivated a love of creating assemblage sculptures. Assemblage is a form of sculpture where instead of cutting away at a chunk of stone, the sculpture is built up, typically using previously formed objects. My work tends to focus on ordinary objects (terracotta pots, empty wine bottles, cement, copper wire, wood, glass, brick, and various other odds and ends). My work also is largely religious in theme and is very, very amateur. I have no formal training in assemblage, sculpture or art. But it is a thing that I love and I find that creation in a visual sense lends to a concreteness of previously esoteric theological concepts. I think of faith, community, sorrow, salvation, the imago dei, and compromise all in terms of sculpture.
This is Holy Week, the culmination of Christianity, the start of a new and better Kingdom, the birthplace not only of the Church but also of our hope. This is a week for us all to be artists, poets, dreamers and prophets. This is a week for us to FEEL, rather than know. I hope in these next few days leading up to Easter that you will remain in the story. Do not jump ahead to Easter morning. Live and feel in Thursday, Friday, Saturday until Sunday comes like a breath of fresh air and the rising of the sun after long, cold, rainy night.
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Maundy Thursday: Feast Inaugurated
Matthew 26:17-30; Mark 14:12-26; Luke 22:7-23; John 13:1-17
Live in the tension of celebration and betrayal on Mandy Thursday. Wash someone else’s feet. Feel and taste and see the beauty of communion.
Good Friday: Crucifixion I
Matthew 27:32-31 ; Mark 15:21-32 ; Luke 23:26-43 ; John 19:16-27
Stay in the grim and gruesome horror of Good Friday. Feel the sorrow, pain and thirst. Think on what the world might be like if Jesus was only Mary’s son.
Holy Saturday: The Tombstone of Mary’s Son—“King of the Jews”
Matthew 27:57-61 ; Mark 15:42-47: ; Luke 23:50-56 ; John 19:38-42
Be numb when the realities of Friday prove true on Holy Saturday. Weep and wait. Jesus is dead. We will place more flowers at his tomb tomorrow.
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Every Sunday if rightly orchestrated is an Easter celebration. Easter Sunday, the day we make fools of our selves with fabulous and elaborate celebrations of Christ’s resurrection, family, friends, community and the new lives we all can live, is a great and wonderful thing. However if we do not sit in Thursday, Friday, Saturday can we truly appreciate what Sunday brings? Sit with me, feeling, through Thursday, Friday, Saturday.