Pursuing Christ. Creating Art.

PREPOSITIONS When my father was still with us, my family decided to take him on an Alaskan cruise. It was something he’d dreamed of doing for most of his life, and we all felt like we should just make it happen. It was the summer of 2010. We sailed. My dad suffered from Parkinson’s disease, along with the inevitable low-grade Dementia that accompanies all Parkinson’s patients. He was beyond the point of caring for his own needs, and had all but lost any basic problem-solving abilities. He couldn’t walk, and needed someone to lift him from his wheelchair, to his bed, to his bathroom, and back to his wheelchair. With the help of our wives and children, my brother and I did everything for my father while we were on the cruise together. We gave him his regular cocktails of medication, three times every day. Either my brother or myself slept in his room to make sure he wasn’t confused during the nights. We got him dressed and ready every morning, and then back to his bed every evening. We made every scheduling decision for him. I’m not gonna lie to you. Taking care of my dad felt like I was taking care of a two-year old. Everything a two year-old does, my dad did, minus the tantrums. It was a very laborious task, to be sure. I struggled with doing the right thing to honor my father, while also having feelings of wanting to be cut loose from this never-ending anchor of constant service. But three days into the cruise, something beautiful happened. The night before had been a difficult one for my father, so I didn’t get much sleep. The ship had rocked back and forth all night long, and had left me feeling a little sick. We awoke that morning, and I put my dad into his wheelchair, and rolled him over to the edge of the sliding glass door, which led onto his balcony. I opened the curtains. Together we were both blown away by what we experienced. Snow capped mountains that lost their peaks in the blurred edges of grey-white clouds, all nestled on a lower-third of ocean water that could easily have been glass. Whales blowing white water into the brisk marine air, as the sun appeared with glory through the clouds. Any adjectives would be gross understatements. I ran up to the Lido Deck to get us both some coffee. I returned to our room, where we just sat - my father and I - sipping coffee and drinking in a generous portion of God’s artistry. My father looked at me, smiled as much as he could, and said, “Ohhhhhh boy.” And there it was, as plain as day. There is tremendous honor in living for my father - in serving his every need so that he could join us on this grand excursion. But for a brief moment, I stopped living for him, and started living with him - right there, on the balcony of our ship. And at that point, honor turned into deep joy and beautiful fulfillment. There’s a world of difference between living for someone, and living with someone. And you might be surprised to know that, while both living for God and living with God are found in Scripture, one seems to carry the bulk of the weight for His desires toward the relationship He has with His sons and daughters. Christian artists don’t need to create art for God. They need to create art in response to God. The artist’s work is a creative work of response, not a laborious work of initiation. The artist’s primary task is to work hard at responding. God in Christ, working through the beauty and pain in the lives of artists, beckons them to respond to that working, and to simply and beautifully... Create. Our paintings, and our songs, and our web designs, and our short films, and our blogs, and our poems, and our acting, and our public storytelling, and our motion loops, and our photography, and our script writing, and our editing, and our sketching, and our dancing, and our set designs, and our screenplays. All are a response to something previously given to us. “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19). He did something first, and we are now able to go and do something that looks and smells a lot like what He’s already given to us. We create art because He first created art. And the art He first created is you. It’s me. It’s anyone who has been made alive with Christ (Eph. 2:5), anyone whose life has been “picked us up out of the pit” (Psalm 40:1-2). And once that redemptive act has taken place - once that grace has done its saving - we respond in “...good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph. 2:10). And for artists, our good works become the lives we live, which cannot help but include the art we create. You don’t need to create art for God. He doesn’t need it. You need to create art in response to God. Because the world needs it. The world needs art. The world needs your art. It doesn’t matter if it meets your own expectations. It won’t. Make your very best creative attempt to make visible the invisible God, and let Him worry about how good or how bad it is. The Psalmist provides one of the most beautiful artistic musings available anywhere. “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.” Psalm 40:3 The entire first portion of this Psalm is about God rescuing David. Read verses 1-2, and you can hear Bono’s vocals, soaring above that easily recognizable bass run. “I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined and heard my cry. He lifted me up out of the pit; out of the mire and clay.” Psalm 40:1-2 Then in verse three, David - who is more of an artist than most of us - begins to word-paint what God did, and why He did it. HE PUT - God initiated something. He put. He placed. He started. He always does that. We don’t put. God puts. A NEW SONG - Music was a dominant art form among David’s culture. This artist is given a song that’s fresh and creative. He hasn’t possessed its melody yet. He’s not giving an old song a new feel. It’s new. Have you ever considered that music may potentially be the most powerful art form in existence, because a good song never leaves our memory? When was the last time you left church humming the third sermon point? IN MY MOUTH - David’s job was to respond to the gift that God gave him. For David, his response was singing. He didn’t put a new song in David’s bulletin outline. He put it in a place that demanded some response from David. He wanted him to sing it. So David sang. A HYMN OF PRAISE TO OUR GOD - David has been given something, and His response is a piece of art (music) that glorifies God. David’s response to God is art. Art that glorifies God. But not because God is an insecure teenager who needs His fragile self-esteem built up by telling Him how good His new pants fit. God doesn’t need our glory just to hear us say it. MANY WILL SEE AND FEAR - All the people who know of David will see his life’s response to God. They’ll view the art he’s creating, the song he’s singing, and the praise he’s displaying. AND PUT THEIR TRUST IN THE LORD - There it is. The goal of art. The goal of redemption. Trusting intimacy, wrapped in a sacred and holy reverence for God. That’s gorgeous, and more brilliant than any man could possibly invent. So the answer to your question is yes - of course I’m reading into this passage. I’m an artist bringing my own interpretation to shed light on what it might possibly mean. And of course I came to this verse with assumptions. I might be reading into it too much. But I might not. What’s abundantly clear is the intricate relationship between God’s saving work, a piece of art that’s created in response to that saving, and a world that’s invited to interpret that new piece. I think that’s how it’s designed to work. God saves, redeems, and resurrects. Artists respond to that work with art. And a world of onlookers looks on. Because at the heart of it all... Art is missional. The point of art is to make visible