Dwelling Together

(I Will Be The Glory In Her Midst, 20″x20″, acrylic on wood)

 

I was asked to participate in an art show in the Seattle area this last December.  The show was going to be a group show and it was to have a theme.  The theme was spiritual art, and I believe there were to be many different beliefs represented. Unfortunately the woman putting on the show got in an accident and it had to be cancelled.  There was a later follow up show in February in which i showed these paintings, but the theme then was floral pieces and my paintings didn’t really fit.  and the show was lame too… so long story.

 

(I Go To Prepare A Place For You, 20″x20″, acrylic on wood)

 

The theme that I chose to explore in my paintings for this show is the mega-narrative going on in the Bible about God wanting to dwell with humanity. He creates this place for the Infinite and the finite to meet.  He walks around in the Garden with the people.  There is this great separation. He adopts a people later on who He calls his children, and when He brings them out of slavery in Egypt, He says I’m going to dwell with you.  They are afraid…. there is a lot of other stuff that happens but He has them make a place where He meets with them – the Tabernacle.  In this Tabernacle there is a place called the Holy of Holies, and this is where men meet with God.  Incidently, the dimensions of the Holy of Holies is a cube.  Later on they build a temple. Same thing… cube Holy of Holies.  These children turn away from God. Exile. Coming back.  Lots happening. But from the get go, God never wanted his meeting with humanity to be in a cube room….. He wanted to dwell with peeps.  So then we have the messiah, the Son of God, come and take human form and lives as a man among humanity.  His job summed up was to rip the curtain (the curtain in the temple that separated God and man) and He conquered death through his ressurrection and gives us a way back to God.  Not only that, Jesus leaves and gives all who believe in him his spirit within them.  no longer the spirit in a building, but in the hearts of people.

(Home In Its Branches, 20″x20″, acrylic on wood)

 

I know that’s no way to sum the Bible… but seriously… it’s a blog.

So we have this book at the end of the Bible called the Revelation of Jesus Christ.  not “Revelations” as in things to happen in the future.  read the first sentence… it’s a revelation about Jesus.  at the end in chapter 21, we see this image of a Holy City, a New Jerusalem, coming down to the earth.  

vs.3 “…Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.”

If you look later on in this chapter (v. 16) the shape of this building is a cube (seen this before), each size measuring 1500 miles.  now something that huge on a map would be half the U.S. and would stick out in space.  It would work of engineering genius to keep it upright.  

 

but it’s not meant to be a literal city.

(The Word Dwelt Among Us, 20″x20″, acrylic on wood)

 

I recently worked with Rick Watts, a professor up at Regent College in Vancouver, BC, at a conference in Seattle.  I painted with him throughout 3 lectures over the weekend.  It’s amazing cause 9 years ago i heard Rick speak at a weekend conference when was in college.  What he shared about revelation 21 blew my mind and has stuck with me ever since.  i have made a number of paintings about this idea over the years, so to work with him… well, it was just plain cool.

 

So is there supposed to be a 1500 mile city plopped on our world.  mmm…. not so much.  That measurement, to the ancients, was the area of known world.  So this city of God, the dwelling of God, is as big as the known world and it comes down to our world…. 

The idea here is that our world enters the Holy of Holies.  We, once again, dwell with God the way we were meant too.

 

It’s not about going away somewhere (heaven) and trashing this place then ditching it.  we were always meant to stay here.  be here.  the goal isn’t heaven.  the goal is togetherness here.  a new heaven and a new earth. not separated.  but together.

 

this is the basis of the paintings i was making.  this has had a huge affect on the way i think about this world.  one thing i hate in western christianity is a focus on the spiritual and a neglect on the material.  now i don’t think we need to become obsessed with our bodies (more than we already are) and try to preserve them.  i’m more talking about how we take care of this world, each other, our environment.  if we believe it’s all going to burn… then fuck it, right?  but if He’s coming back here to the world He gave us to tend…. um… that’s a fearful conversation.

 

in the paintings i made i picked out particular scriptures that talked about this dwelling.  i will be the glory in her midst is out of zechariah 2.  i go an prepare a place for you  is from John 14:2. Home in its branches  is from matthew 17. the word dwelt among us is from John 1.

~ by scotterickson on March 6, 2009.