Being Displays Itself

Being Displays Itself

We are people of the Word but our beloved text points to gathered sounds that ultimately utter God’s actions. From burning bush to a son nailed onto a tree—we hear activity. The whole biblical narrative from creation, fall, alienation to reconciliation exhibits, as von Balthasar relates, God’s “genuine unfolding of himself in the worldly stuff of nature, man and history.” (von Balthasar, Glory of the Lord). The bible is a divine-human drama that begs for a theology that is just as robust and dynamic.

Following God-patterns employs imagination and theologian von Balthasar explores the Christian drama like a theatre critic trying to make meaning of a play. For Christ has radically changed the stage of history. The pagan dramas between human and divine entities so central to the ancient world has shifted. Through Christ “the dialectic of immanence and transcendence, nature and super-nature” can now find hope for reconciliation. (Von Balthasar, Theo-Drama, p. 129) Christ has invited all actors to take the stage and enflesh the Word through their lives.

Just as the torn temple curtain reconciles us to the Holy, the incarnated Jesus also removed the actor’s mask for God to draw near. This also means the Christian actor has the choice to follow Jesus into the tragedies of life. The passage into the dark abyss of the human psyche can only happen because of Christ’s own journey in and out of hell. As von Balthasar relates, “Christianity, with its inner dramatic tension… can take all theatrical aspects into itself in even the darkest moments” only because Jesus travailed through death.  (Von Balthasar, Theo-Drama, p. 82)

Observable transformation and authentic hope erodes the meaninglessness we find in much contemporary drama. With Jesus our stories become interwoven with the Christian story and some of these narratives need the stage to fully express its theological import. Theater allows us to publically incarnate these stories with the potential of ushering in his presence. 

Imagine a God who would write us into his drama. Be an actor on his stage.

--Maria

Art Illuminates: A Lenten Reflection for the Artist

PROLOGUE

We must never imagine that art is wholly subject to the fallen mind. On the contrary, the fallen mind must be lifted up in taking in the art. Art can offer us a taste of the kingdom come and illumine our hearts and minds in view of the renewing work of Christ.

ACT I

Because of the gospel, the artist can delve into the deepest grime of fallen man’s mire to illuminate God’s hidden glory through the power of expressive mastery. This assumption of imminent glory is predicated by the incarnation: that God has visited man in His mire. The reality of this truth has radically changed the material world in which the artist seeks to work. Therefore an artist who works in view of this reality may enter into a particular context with hope to see Christ’s own hand at work. In this way, Christ is the master of all who aspire to create.

ACT II

Yet, if Christ is master of the artist, then artists must also receive His most striking and paradoxical distinction, that of the servant-king. For Christ did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, but made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant. Therefore, as we are encouraged by our own God-likeness, being made in the image of God and possessing His power to create, we also identify with Christ as the humble servant of all. In laying down His life, Christ demonstrated the sublimity of His own expressive mastery. In the gospel, divine love is the central subject of God’s masterwork. Creation becomes the object of His love and Christ’s life, death and resurrection are the potent vignettes of this hyper-radical performance-art piece of cosmic proportions which will culminate, of course, in the glorious return of the servant-king. Behold, I am making all things new!

ACT III

Art that is created in view of the gospel is sacramental. It invites the divine presence. It seeks to transcend and yet be embodied in the physical. This transcendent embodiment is rooted in the Christian hope, the redemption of our bodies. If our bodies are to be redeemed, then we also have hope that life in the body may also be redeemed. Therefore, the sacramental element of art—transcendent embodiment—extends even to the material elements of one’s trade and the disciplines of mastery. Light, color, sound, stone, skin, bone, breath, pen, paper, laptop…all are included in the sublimity of this hope of redemption. Most joyously, we realize that the artist herself, through the hope of the gospel, is swept up into this work of Renewal. The performance which is now in previews is awaiting the opening night. In the gospel, the artist becomes broken bread and poured out wine through the wringing and emptying of her own soul, releasing the storehouses of hidden glory. For is not God at work in our hearts to restore us?

EPILOGUE

It is not merely in the letters on the page, the mixing of the paint, the pointing of the foot, the distinction of the brand, the delivery of the lines or the structure of the story, but the artist himself in body, mind and soul set apart for this breaking and pouring out in sacramental service. To what end? So that no stone shall be left unturned in declaring and realizing the Renewal of All Things through Christ!

Kenyon

The Drama of Believing

What greater drama is there than the Christian narrative? The Bible starts with toe-tapping rhythmic ordering and ends with the show stopping, coming down from heaven, glittery gemstone city. It’s as if our world held a concealed secret reality to be discovered only in the sweetest of dreams. In between these scenes we see humanity’s struggle to love God more than their desire to play God. God’s faithfulness, always present, brings the drama to a climax with the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The coming of Christ is epiphany. By knowing Jesus, humanity gains access to its own humanness, putting off its need to be God and growing in its need for God. Indeed, the Christian “actor” puts down the mask and picks up the rhythms of life in order to flesh out true character. Christian incarnation eliminates disguise. The actor no longer needs the mask as he leads those who willingly follow him into life’s tragedies and comedies.

Theater itself is a large collaborative effort. Here is an earthly paradigm for the rich interrelationships of which the Bible speaks. Theater, just as in Christianity, depends on a rapport between text and the writer of that text. The director, crew, and cast must all connect and relate to the same script. All parts work together to incarnate these words connected by speech and gestures. What actors say and what they do reflects what is written.

On Sunday mornings when we gather together to worship, we too enact a drama based on a text. We sing songs, make speeches, and perform gestures that embody the Scripture stories. We work Scripture into our own beings every week through the body of Christ, the gathered church. We practice now a bit of what we will be doing together forever. And, art and beauty—the songs, symbols, and settings of the scripture—is now and always will be a part of our corporate activity. What an exciting drama we behold and God unfolds.
--Maria