Triple Self-Portrait of Faith

What does it mean to say "God with us with God"? How do I understand God with Us in our darkness and us with God in His light?

To me this means more than just "Jesus came as a human baby long ago and then died on a cross and rose from the dead." God with us isn't merely the incarnation, and us with God isn't simply us marching or standing or serving or gathering under His banner. God with us is the reality that His spirit indwells us with power, enabling us to do those things we need and long to do; it is us acting and working and striving and serving in the best interests of others to God's glory. It is us--the imperfect, broken, ashamed, and already-but-not-yet restored members of His adopted family--stepping into our role as extensions of Himself--as the body of Christ--and stepping out into the world.

My digital portrait turned pen-and-ink on canvas started with my channeling Norman Rockwell in his Triple Self-Portrait. Rockwell's paintings are famous for their idealism and realism--his ability to capture life somewhere between the "as it is" and the "as we hope it could be." I portray the artist in the picture using cartoonish strokes and have him both looking at historic representations of Christ in art and hoping to see and display those visions of Christianity into the life of Holy Trinity on his own canvas.

The models the artist uses are varied in their viewpoint, style, and subject, even as the style that capture the artist, his models, and his painting vary.

Jesus' entry into Jerusalem has been painted thousands of times by artists over the centuries (see below), and Holy Trinity's annual proclamation of Jesus' triumphal entry in our Palm Sunday procession declares to our neighborhood (and reminds ourselves) that Christ is Lord. I chose to replicate the Byzantine-icon style because one value HTAC holds is of a global view of Christianity. The Byzantine style of depth and perspective is both flattened and exaggerated, with elongated curves--again making Christ the focus of the painting but placing his arrival in the context of the Mount of Olives on the left into Jerusalem on the right.

Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper focuses on the centrality of Christ and the institution of the Eucharist. In the church where he painted the original, da Vinci literally used a nail in the wall--right in the center of Christ's face--and ran a string from that point across the wall to make the perspective lines of the painting. Everything emanates from Christ, and the life of the church leads from our communion with Him and with each other at the table.

Michael Sphlo's cubist rendering of Christ washing the disciples' feet lends another perspective on the life of Christ (Splho based his work on Rembrandt's 1655 drawing, below). It is a modern view of a classic image , at once both fractured and clear. This humble service to the body of Christ reminds us of how it is we are to love one another; despite our modern trappings, Jesus' command to love still stands, whether that service is in acts of service or in prayer for those in need.

Leaning against a westernized manger, I chose to include my rendering of Gustav Doré's The Family of Street Acrobats; the Injured Child because it expresses so clearly the sorrows of the world. I was introduced to this painting the day after my son's friend died; I grieved a loss I couldn't explain, but seeing in the parents' faces their deep loss, in the father's expression a hopelessness I felt in that moment, I knew that Doré's had seen the same sorrow I felt for someone else. Doré's painting is reminiscent of Michelangelo's Pietà, and in the parents I see both the sorrow of Mary and the difficulty of God the Father as Christ the Son is sacrificed. In his realism, Doré captures humanity and the problem of pain, wrapped up against the prescient manger with its swaddling cloth.

The artist's painting shows three scenes at Holy Trinity, each of which tie explicitly to his reference works. These scenes I originally captured for coloring pages, with simple contour lines and stylized cruciform faces. Much of the life of the church is an interpretation and repetition of those who go before us. The Christian life isn't quite as simple as a paint-by-number, yet we would do well to observe the past and stay in the lines.

May we read rightly God's Word and heed those who have gone before us as we reflect His glory;

May we encounter truly Christ's coming this Advent and live in anticipation of His return;

and may God be with us in our darkness and may we be with God in His light. Amen.