Thursday, March 13, 2008
From AscensionNYC
Thursday in the Fifth Week of Lent
by Vin Knight
Psalm 105:4-11
Genesis 17:1-8
John 8:51-59
A few days before I sat down to write this Lenten devotional, I attended the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Sunday in the Park with George. The fact of neither event is especially remarkable — I've written devotionals in the past, and I go to the theatre as often as time and money allow. But a parallel emerged between the texts I was assigned and a recurring theme in the musical that I hadn't considered in quite the same way before.
The three readings all refer to God's covenant with Abraham that he will be "the ancestor of a multitude of nations" and "exceedingly fruitful." In essence, God promises — and delivers — to Abraham a kind of immortality through children he never thought he would have. In Sunday, the painter George Seurat fathers an unexpected child he never sees grow up and leaves behind an artistic legacy not appreciated until after his death. His daughter Marie explains to her grandson, also an artist named George, that children and art are two of the ways we live on after we die. Pointing to Seurat's masterpiece "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," she says, "This is our family tree." Part of Marie's — and the show's — lesson is that through each succeeding generation's new discovery of a work or art, the artist lives again.
This continuity of existence — through art, through children, and through many other things — reminds us, especially during this season, of the immortality offered to each of us by God through his son. In the gospel reading, Jesus says, "Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am," and "whoever keeps my word will never see death." As in his covenant with Abraham, God promises — and delivers — to each of us immortality through rebirth. We are his children, each a work of art, and he lives on in each one of us.
Psalm 105:4-11
Genesis 17:1-8
John 8:51-59
A few days before I sat down to write this Lenten devotional, I attended the Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Sunday in the Park with George. The fact of neither event is especially remarkable — I've written devotionals in the past, and I go to the theatre as often as time and money allow. But a parallel emerged between the texts I was assigned and a recurring theme in the musical that I hadn't considered in quite the same way before.
The three readings all refer to God's covenant with Abraham that he will be "the ancestor of a multitude of nations" and "exceedingly fruitful." In essence, God promises — and delivers — to Abraham a kind of immortality through children he never thought he would have. In Sunday, the painter George Seurat fathers an unexpected child he never sees grow up and leaves behind an artistic legacy not appreciated until after his death. His daughter Marie explains to her grandson, also an artist named George, that children and art are two of the ways we live on after we die. Pointing to Seurat's masterpiece "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," she says, "This is our family tree." Part of Marie's — and the show's — lesson is that through each succeeding generation's new discovery of a work or art, the artist lives again.
This continuity of existence — through art, through children, and through many other things — reminds us, especially during this season, of the immortality offered to each of us by God through his son. In the gospel reading, Jesus says, "Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am," and "whoever keeps my word will never see death." As in his covenant with Abraham, God promises — and delivers — to each of us immortality through rebirth. We are his children, each a work of art, and he lives on in each one of us.
