"With the good, the true and the useful man is merely in earnest; but with the beautiful he plays." -Schiller
Pictures of pretty people abound, from television and the internet, to magazines and catalogs we are surrounded by it. I am not really built for Abercrombie & Fitch's clothing line, but when I was a teenager this was a popular brand. The first thing you were confronted by when you walked into the store were MASSIVE pictures of guys and gals in varying degrees of undress. And they were all attractive. Every last one of them. The perfection seemed to slide off the pictures, out of the frames and onto the young employee's of the store. (Curse their tanned perfection!) As a young man who was very overweight I was enormously uncomfortable in that setting, everything seemed to point out what I was lacking(or had too much of!). Indeed, I believe that many are uncomfortable with God for that very reason; not because God seems to be perfect, but because God actually is perfect. Perfection seems to spotlight all imperfection, it is why I felt so out of place looking at the petite XXL's at Abercrombie&Fitch, and it is why humans can feel so uncomfortable before God. That is precisely why the incarnation offers us a unique glimpse of God as one who suffers. I enjoy art that depicts Christ as a peasant who labored, suffered, and died. Not the playful femme who offers good advice on how to live your best life that some picture him as. So scenes regarding his suffering and death stand out to me as beautiful, because I see in Him not imperfection; it would be easy although incorrect to say so, rather, it is his vulnerability that seems to place him at eye level with me for a moment.
Still, I have been puzzling over the crucifixion, and how it could be viewed as
"beautiful". The art concerning it is indeed beautiful, one of my favorites being Michelangelo's Pieta(left). Mary is depicted as much younger than she truly would have been at the time of the crucifixion, this is perhaps because Michelangelo was trying to reveal the interior through the exterior, meaning Mary is morally beautiful so she is portrayed from that perspective(as beautiful). It is the only sculpture Michelangelo signed. Another favorite is another Pieta by Luis de Morales(right), this one strikes me because it is more stark than the Pieta by Michelangelo, which is in St. Peter's in Rome as an altar piece(to the best of my knowledge at any rate). In the Pieta by Morales, Christ's eyes are rolled back and glazed over in death, blood flowing down his arms, and his lips have turned a blue-green as the blood has slowed. His mother's hands expressing her emotion as she clutches at his body, her fingers pressing into the body-pulling it into herself as if she could restore his life. This is a scene of sorrow. Yet it is also one of beauty. Here Christ seems to be just as vulnerable to death as you or me. And he was. Christians and non-Christians alike can appreciate this art because it speaks to other themes such as loss, sorrow, the love of a mother, et cetera. Still, this is merely art depicting the crucifixion, not the event itself. It seems that only a sadist could watch an actual crucifixion and view any of it as beautiful. Yet, the great majority of Christians would say that the crucifixion was a beautiful thing. Lets look at The Passion of the Christ, and it's reception. I for one have not seen it and do not plan on seeing it because I have done some reading on how violent a death crucifixion is and have no desire in seeing it depicted. My imagination is horrible enough. It earned $370,782,930, ranking it 12th in all time domestic earnings. It currently sits at 15th. It spurred websites like mylifeafter.com and passion-movie.com. However, the violence portrayed in the film was excessive by many counts, and the movie was re-cut to eliminate some of the violent content. Even then, The Motion Picture Association of America still thought it was too violent still, so the film was released unrated. Some critics viewed the movie as too violent,"The graphic details of Jesus' torture make the movie tough to sit through and obscure whatever message it is trying to convey."(1)
I have included the words of a few film critics that I think readers will find interesting.
"If I were a Christian, I'd be appalled to have this primitive and pornographic bloodbath presume to speak for me."-Jonathan Rosenbaum,Chicago Reader
"Whereas the words say love, love, love, the sounds and images say hate, hate, hate." -Andrew Sarris, New York Observer
"Blood-soaked pop theology for a doom-laden time, its effect that of a gripping yet reductive paradox: It lifts us downward." -Owen Geiberman, Entertainment Weekly
I find Roger Ebert's words powerful.
"This is the most violent film I have ever seen."(2)
"For we altar boys, this was not necessarily a deep spiritual experience. Christ suffered, Christ died, Christ rose again, we were redeemed, and let's hope we can get home in time to watch the Illinois basketball game on TV. What Gibson has provided for me, for the first time in my life, is a visceral idea of what the Passion consisted of."(2)
"...many audience members, who will enter the theater in a devout or spiritual mood and emerge deeply disturbed."(2)
And it should disturb us. Let's never go back to the 1961 film "King of Kings" where Jesus' armpits are shaved. Finally we have something that at least approaches what the real thing may have been like, and can stop white washing it and confront it for what it is-God's commandment to Christians.
And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. -Matthew 10:38
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross. -Matthew 16:24
And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
-Mark 8:34
I write none of this as a guilt trip, but hoping to help and others-and myself- realize that the Christian life has never been easy. We are called to follow Christ, the "faithful witness", but I think we forget that the word "witness" here in Greek basically translates as "martyr". May we all be worthy to suffer for His sake. Not because we masochists, no, we are hardly that. Remember Galations 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Like Peter we all seek to escape the savior's fate, and like Peter we find our way back to Him and his suffering. Which allows us to live out the wisdom learned that this life is not all there is, and that my friends, that will allow our lives to be truly beautiful. When I was an overweight teen I was blinded by self image, now I see what matters, what allows us Christians to attempt to lead [obviously imperfect] yet beautiful lives, beautiful from substance, not from appearance.
"The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wants me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die." -Soren Kierkegaard
"For the secret of man's being is not only to live. . . but to live for something definite. Without a firm notion of what he is living for, man will not accept life and will rather destroy himself than remain on earth." -Fyodor Dostoevsky
"He that loveth his life shall lost it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." Jesus, as recorded in the Gospel of John, Chapter 12 verse 25
What the cross does is take the focus of the individual; your sins aren't forgiven based on looks or even by works. This is so simple that we may be tempted to say "well duh." yet we continue to judge people by outward appearance--granted, sometimes these are helpful clues, but the mistake comes not from making judgement calls, but in mistaking the worth or value of a person solely based on their appearance or dress. I will try and explain in another way;
If we see someone wearing pads and a helmet, it is safe and perhaps necessary to assume that they are a football player--where we need to be careful is assuming whether or not they are a good football player merely by what they may be wearing. That is the difference of a judgement call and a judgement based on outward appearance only.
The crucifixion is beautiful not because it reveals to us a God of weakness, rather, it is a God of strength. He is not weak because he died, his strength is revealed by his death, and indeed, it strengthens us, although the strength given is not our own, nor is it from us. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God..." -Ephesians 2:8
May Christ and his work on the cross move our eyes off of the mirror where we see only the incomplete picture that is ourself; remember, "this is not your own doing" and so may the gifts of God be able to work through us as He wills.
What I'm trying to say is that no one looks pretty when carrying a cross, let alone when they are on it. So let us concern ourselves with things that matter, and not obsess about what we cannot change(without massive amounts of plastic surgery!).
This is 'The Resurrection of the Christ' by David Bonnell. It seemed a good piece to finish this post off with. His website:
http://web.me.com/danielbonnell/Image_On_Christ_Exhibition/Paintings.html
Sources:
1. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/passion_of_the_christ/
2.http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20040224%2FREVIEWS%2F402240301%2F1023&AID1=%2F20040224%2FREVIEWS%2F402240301%2F1023&AID2=
