Desert Garden
Church doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have a living, active word of comfort in your place of pain.
Sean and I are getting back into Scrubs, a hospital comedy tv show. Recently, a new doctor was trying to hide her cell-phone based research from her supervisor. She hid her cell phone in a Bible as she wandered around the floor. Another new doctor passed her and said, “I’ve read that one – he dies but then comes back in the end.”
His summary of the Bible! You might relate?… egg hunt, Mel Gibson, nostalgia for the kids—not really relevant to me? Well, you are right! THAT summary is not relevant to you. News about Jesus is different from good news for you.
That is the role of “the preacher” (who is anyone who tells anyone else about Jesus) – to take the reality of Jesus’ death and resurrection and apply it to you. From every page of Scripture. And in everything you’re going through. Creativity helps. It takes something familiar and slides it past your defenses—makes the familiar grab you afresh. Read that one? Not this way.
We were honored that Bishop Drew invited us to bring the Comfort of Jesus and some creativity to the All Saints’ Cathedral in Amesbury, MA this Holy Week. Traditionally, creativity shines during the week that marks Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. All Saints has been no different. And yet, each year is a new thing. I share the things we did because it might inspire you. Please plagiarize!
Maunday Thursday: we celebrated the Last Supper when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet and instituted the Lord’s Supper
We moved the Communion Table into the audience, moving seats to be “in the round” (or really horseshoe.) The table was central. It was the stage for the new way to connect with God. No longer an altar of sacrifice but a table of reconciliation. This was the 3rd Passover meal that Jesus had eaten with his disciples. In his sermon, Sean explained how the other two Passovers were quite exciting:
· Passover 1: Jesus overturns the money-changer tables in the Temple (John 2)
· Passover 2: Jesus feeds 5000 men (and thus over 15,000 total) with a little boy’s lunch (John 6)
Dramatic! Miraculous! Yet they were nothing compared to this one.
“I have eagerly desired to eat this meal with you,” Jesus confided in his disciples (Luke 22:15). This one brought all the others to their culmination: He is the Passover sacrifice. He is the broken bread and poured wine. His physical death marks our spiritual death. His physical resurrection marks our spiritual new life. With a physical new body, new heavens, new earth to follow.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.” (Romans 6:5,6)
Our physical death still brings us all to tears and hurts like crazy. Every time. Yet for the Christian there is hope in it. Death won’t last. Jesus lives. Because he lives you will too. And every Christian who loves and prays for those who die not confessing to know Jesus, we bank on God who is more merciful than we can ever imagine. While we live, we keep sharing his good news for me and for you. Sean tied all this into the new covenant, the new meal, the tangible sermon Jesus gave us. Here comes the creative part (aside from the message itself):
Sean invited everyone to come to the table and sign their name in red sharpie. Why? Because this meal is for you. This promise of Jesus’ forgiveness, of his grace for you in your place of pain, is preached in this meal. This is His table and you are invited. Everyone “signed in.” There were 8 sharpies. When one person was done, they gave their sharpie to the person next to them. Then we ate that meal together. Personalized.
We left in quiet darkness. The awfulness of that night sunk in afresh. The creative fun in the meal seemed to amplify the silence. Fellowship screeched to a halt with a betrayer’s kiss. The sharpies and crumbs were all left behind. We walked out, aware of Jesus’ grit to finish the job. Of how unfun this was. Of how Jesus still strengthens souls through slow, brutal nights. With you. Strong when you’re not.
Good Friday.
Bp. Trevor Walters had also joined the team. He is a seasoned Anglican pastor, counselor, and bishop who bears the scars of leadership. Now retired, he assists Bp. Drew, leads retreats with the Anglican Leadership Initiative and ministers to clergy who are burning out… among other things. He is also a carver of wooden icons!
Bp. Trevor invited me to paint alongside him as he finished a gift of a carved icon to All Saints. The All Saints Arts Collective leader also joined us. We prayed for people who dropped in. It was great relationally. For me, not so great artistically. But there was a beauty in being vulnerable—especially on the day Jesus was his most weak and vulnerable… unto death.
Bp. Trevor invited me to design the Good Friday Service with him. We paired the Seven Last Words of Christ with seven images from Jesus’ climb to the cross. Jesus’ ascent to the cross has been celebrated through the “Stations of the Cross” in the Catholic and some Protestant traditions. All Saints inherited a full set of the Stations of the cross in painted relief carvings. Bp. Trevor has a real appreciation for this kind of art. It was new to me. However, the more I studied what the unknown artist made, the more I loved them. In particular, I loved the gold of the sky. It was almost oppressive at first and made up the top half of most of the images. It was a very repetitive composition: gold on the top half, painted people on the bottom. Then it occurred to me that the gold of the sky was the presence of God the Father. There was only gold on Jesus’ halo and the sky; they were connected. No gold on the frame (where it typically goes). It became God’s nearness to Jesus in his time of darkness. God, the Father, Son, and Spirit, glowed with gold when nothing else did. Then, at the cross, the duality of the composition burst. The horizon dropped low and the gold filled every kind of negative space around the cross. The artist was saying: behold the glory of God!Jesus giving his life for you IS God’s glory! It is as if the gold was quoting Jesus who said: “And I, when I am lifted up, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:27-32). That means that when you become aware of the darkest, messiest parts of your soul, God is not disappointed or angry. It is his glory to forgive you and redeem the mess.
It’s amazing how loudly a silent piece of art can shout.
Saturday.
We made a gift to give to the neighbors in Amesbury.
I told our brave little band of artists-evangelists how we were made to enjoy and care for a beautiful garden with God. That’s how our story begins (Genesis 2,3). Yet now our garden is gone…. it is hard to grow, too dry or too wet, too hot or too cold, weeds choke us everywhere, and then we die! Our world is more like a desert than a garden. In fact, that’s how the Scriptures describe our world: wilderness. But that’s why Jesus came. The Bible begins with a garden; then there is a garden before and after the cross (John 18:1-11; 19:38 - 20:18, and finally, the end is a garden in a vision of heaven! God is trying to tell us something about that garden imagery. The garden is like the gold in that painting. It is blooming with a promise: Jesus invaded the desert in our heart and made the Garden of Eden start to bloom. He said I know you, I delight in you, I see your sin and it’s not too much for me. I forgive you. I make my Father your Father, my God your God.
We are like a garden in a desert now (check out this year’s super bloom in Death Valley). Every spring, God put signs of his promise that he is stronger than death. Every flower that blooms after winter says, God keeps his promise. He brings life from death.
We made a tiny garden to give to our neighbors. It was a way of sharing the love Jesus has planted in our hearts. I made a card to go with the gifts that had this verse:
“For the Lord comforts [his people] Zion; he comforts all her waste places
and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord;
joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.” (Isaiah 51:3)
Celebrating spring and the promise of hope it brings.
Every shop keeper, bartender, nail client, and dog walker smiled and wanted one. We’ve never had such a grateful reception on an outreach! The church caught a vision for more.
When the Lord comforts you with Jesus’ grace and nearness, he makes your desert bloom. It’s not forced or pretend. A real desert. Real death. Real Jesus. Real grace. Real comfort. Real blossoms in the sand. We are a desert garden now. But one day, Jesus will make his promise physical with a new body and a new heaven and new earth.
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be anything sad… They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 22:1-5)
Can’t wait.
Kate Norris, oil on panel, 9”x12”
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